Dion Dublin has slammed the government for not tackling the problem of racism in the UK and has called on them to take proper action in future.
The former Premier League striker turned TV presenter spoke passionately about the subject during a broadcast of BBC sports show Football Focus on Saturday.
The return of the Premier League has seen many of the country’s top-flight teams wear shirts displaying messages supporting the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, which has grown in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minnesota last month.
Dion Dublin has criticised the government for not dealing with racism in the UK properly
He also said he is ‘sick of T-shirts’ promoting the Black Lives Matters message instead of action
But while Dublin praised football’s response to the shocking scenes around the world, he has called for more than just messages of support, saying: ‘It’s 2020 and we’re still talking about it.
‘I’m glad we’re dealing with it. I’m glad that there’s T-shirts but we’re dealing with it again. There’s T-shirts again. I’m sick of T-shirts, I just want some action.
‘I want somebody at the top of the tree to have the guts to say “right, this is what I’m doing with this country. This what I want to happen to this country.”
‘The government need to stand in and say “right, I’m going to teach black kids [about] white history and teach white [about] kids black history.”
‘Because kids aren’t born racist. It’s learnt behaviour.
Premier League players’ names have also been replaced with the Black Lives Matter message
‘It’s learnt from the people that are around, the family that you live with, the households, the bubbles so to speak.
‘They’re not racist, they are taught it and they hear it and they see it. And that’s why they become racist.’
Dublin then went on to describe an incident where he was the subject of racial abuse whilst in a supermarket during filming of the BBC daytime house renovation show Homes Under the Hammer.
Following the end of his professional football career in 2008, Dublin has forged a career in the media and was announced as one of the presenters for the show in 2015.
Dublin also revealed he was racially abused whilst filming the show Homes Under The Hammer
Ex-footballer Dublin (left) has been co-presenting the BBC property show since 2015
The former Manchester United, Coventry and Aston Villa forward revealed that he received the abuse after helping a pair of women to prevent a serious incident with a trolley two years ago.
Dublin added: ‘I was racially abused two years ago and I still can’t believe it.
‘I was on Homes Under The Hammer duty. I filmed one house, I had gone to a supermarket to get some food.
‘There were two ladies leaving the supermarket. One was pushing the trolley the other was helping the other person push the trolley.
‘It was heavy, overloaded, just about to crash into somebody else. I grabbed the front of the trolley with my finger to pull it and I said “let me help you”.
Dublin was a professional footballer before becoming a TV presenter and personality
‘This lady gave me a barrage of abuse. She said you black b****** and I was shocked.
‘And there was no reaction from me for three or four seconds and I said “that wasn’t very nice, I didn’t know there was still racism in this country”.
‘This was a young lady, 30 years old.’
Fellow Football Focus pundit Micah Richards, who was also on the show presented by Dan Walker, revealed that he has also felt the effects of racist abuse in recent years.
However, the former Manchester City defender spoke about the positive impact of the Black Lives Matter protests that have been taking place around the world in recent weeks.
Football Focus pundit Micah Richards also discussed his personal experiences with racism
Richards also praised white people for standing alongside BLM activists during the protests
Richards said: ‘I have similar experiences from where I live, where I’ve had to cross the road to make THEM feel more comfortable, with old women when I’m walking down the street. I tell no lies.
‘I don’t want to talk about the negative, I want to talk about the positive. If you look at the protests, maybe five, ten years ago it would have been just black people out there.
‘If you look that white people are standing side by side, I said this the other day, it’s not [a case of] blacks vs whites, it’s everyone vs racists. It’s as simple as that.
‘It’s about being taught the right things from a young age and from now it can only get better.’
Many Premier League players have been promoting the BLM movement over the past week
The Black Lives Matter protests were sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, who died at the hands of police brutality at the end of May.
Mr Floyd was restrained by white police officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
The incident sparked several protests across the world, including in UK cities such as London, Manchester and Cardiff.
When pressed on what the UK government needs to do regarding tackling racism, Dublin said: ‘The people in charge of the country have to make a decision on how they can affect racism in this country.
‘They can affect it by teaching kids that colour doesn’t matter. If they can teach it from a young age, they will grow up not even seeing the colour, therefore their children and their children won’t see it.
‘It’s still there Dan unfortunately and it’s just a small minority. But that small minority can be very very loud and influential.’