Former Chelsea player and manager Ruud Gullit has called on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other ‘people with influence in white communities’ to help combat racism in Britain.
The Black Lives Matter movement has seen significant growth in recent weeks following the death of unarmed black American George Floyd at the hands of a white policeman in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Anti-racism protests have taken place in numerous cities around the world, but Gullit has said that people marching through the streets need support from those in positions of power if they are to effect real change.
“If you think about what happened in America when Martin Luther King Jr marched through the streets, what did it do?” Gullit asked on Sky Sports.
“It didn’t do anything. Nothing changed, even though he has been helpful for what he’s done – that he had a peaceful march through the streets and things like that. [Mahatma] Gandhi, also the same – it was peaceful, but what did he change? He didn’t change anything, and I’m afraid at the moment that people are fed up, people won’t take it anymore.
“Of course, the looting and the violence, that’s awful. You don’t want that. But [...] a lot of people – especially white people – don’t understand what it is to be treated [in this way], because they have never been in touch with it. So it is – for a lot of people – difficult to understand, but it is necessary to understand.
“There has to be almost something drastic, like a revolution. I hope it’s not a violent revolution of course, but something has to happen. Black communities are afraid that now everybody is talking about it but in three months’ time everybody goes back to their usual thing and nothing changes.
“We are fed up with it – because I am black as well, even though I’m half-white. I look black and I feel the same thing. There has to come a change, and I think that this is the moment to do so.”
Gullit also said that the football world has an opportunity and platform to spread a positive message.
“I see as well that a lot of people in England participate [in protests]. There’s a whole lot of people who think in the same way, even though they have never felt racism close to them. Everybody says: ‘Look, this is wrong and this has to change.’ And of course, football can be a part of that, because we have the television on ourselves all the time, we have a lot of attention.
“I don’t want all the time to be the person to say something; I want Boris Johnson to say something about it.
“Everybody expects me to say something, but I want people who have influence in a white community to say something about it and want to do something about it. So, I am also sitting back and listening to what all the most influential people have to say about this topic.”
