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Taking the knee, mental health, and racism in sport

2021; Elsevier BV; Volume: 8; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s2215-0366(21)00300-x

2215-0374

Michael Bennett, Colin Guthrie King,

Cardiovascular Effects of Exercise

The booing of the England and Italian football teams when they took the knee before the final match of the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship and the online racist abuse of Black players subsequent to their performance in the match, just a week after the sentencing of a police officer in relation to the manslaughter of the former football player Dalian Atkinson, raises the connections between racism in sport and racism in society. These incidents also highlight the need for a transcultural model to recognise the inter-related experiences of racist abuse from fans and mental health in sport, particularly for members of the Professional Footballers Association. Reducing taking the knee to a political gesture encapsulates an attitude that Black footballers and athletes should not challenge racism and racial abuse whether inside or outside the stadium or online. Unfortunately, current models of football and mental health in modern Britain do not address the connections between historical and discriminatory racialised processes,1Small S Racialised barriers: the Black experience in the United States and England in the 1980's. Routledge, London1994Google Scholar how cultural values emerge, and their impact on mental health in relation to a diverse playing workforce. The current practices within Football Associations (the model of mentally healthy clubs) tend to replicate clinical models, with a focus on biomedical diagnostic categories, depression, anxiety, and obsessional disorder. As with the 2021 White Paper review of the Mental Health Act,2UK GovernmentMetal Health Act.https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reforming-the-mental-health-act/reforming-the-mental-health-actDate: July 15, 2021Date accessed: August 10, 2021Google Scholar there is an absence of modern culturally relevant models, theories, and practices that help to understand racism as a mental health concern. Few studies have looked at the interconnections between, mental health, sport, society, and racism. There has instead been a focus on elite White athletes, as revealed in Rice and colleagues' database analysis of 60 studies.3Rice SM Purcell R De Silva S Mawren D McGorry PD Parker AG The mental health of elite athletes: a narrative systematic review.Sports Med. 2016; 46: 1333-1353Crossref PubMed Scopus (322) Google Scholar Studies of sport and mental health have not analysed how a culture of norms affects the psychological health of Black sporting communities.4Atkinson R Sport, mental illness and sociology. Routledge, London2019Google Scholar To address racism and mental health in football and other sports is to move from a model that sees the individual as a subject of fear needing to be diagnosed5Bennett M Behind the mask: demedicalising race and mental health in professional football.Lancet Psychiatry. 2021; 8: 264-266Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar to a structural analysis of the way sport enables forms of abuse that, while rarely regarded as a mental health concern, might have a profound impact on the wellbeing of Black sportspeople. Therefore, a model of mental health is urgently needed that is coproduced and racially and politically aware, in which the lived experiences of sportspeople shape the meaning of mental health. Such a model would look at the structural, cultural, and interpersonal factors rather than simply the psychological. It would not attempt to simply decolonialise Eurocentric models that might have demonised the Black athlete and the Black communities, but would advocate for new models of mental health that unmask our fear of difference, and ultimately allow both the sporting and mental health worlds to transcend race. We declare no competing interests.