THE ISSUE OF RACISM IN SOCIETY AND TENNIS

Read about what this is, why it's so positive and powerful, and how you can get involved with this year's nominations (close May 1st), through this link.

The LTA do seem to be working hard on all fronts regards inclusion and diversity within tennis. The direct issue of racism has taken a back seat, which is on a par with society in general. George Floyd's death in May 2020 was billed as needing to be the decisive moment that changed history and fast-tracked global society towards race equality. Unsurprisingly, just a few years on, and the whole thing has largely been forgotten, with a meaningful lasting legacy all but a pipe dream.

However, LTA do include ethnic diversity within every corner of the tennis community, as part of their current overall strategy. You can see their 2022 update/report which shows the great work they are doing, and the latest statistics to back up the progress being made.

I read this book on hols, and can't recommend it highly enough. If you choose to read it, you will almost certainly learn a lot of stuff that you didn't previously know. This book makes clear how and why racism is still ingrained in the fabric of UK society today, from schools, through to workplaces, and into government. This book is some of the history education that we were all denied when we were at school, and that kids today are still being denied. In 2014, Michael Gove had the chance to start moving things in the right direction regards the syllabus, but instead he opted to make things much worse (recent article on that from the Guardian here). 

To update my personal views from what I wrote in June 2020, I now see clearly the importance of proper education about black and white history, colonialism, the slave trade, and before the slave trade. The version in the current curriculum, and also what I was taught at school is simply not the full picture, and subtly fuels the idea of white supremacy to all kids before they've even started in life. 

It's not just education about respecting other human beings, it's education about the past that allows us to understand how bad things still are, and why they got to this point in the first place.

I believe we all have a duty to understand this better, so we can empathise with those who are suffering as a result of it, and be more aware of opportunities to help move society faster in the right direction.

If you read Holding's book, do let me know what you think, and please do feel free to comment to me any of your views on this subject, any time. Thanks for reading this, do see the latest from the LTA below.

The LTA have been quiet after the two open letters published by Scott Lloyd in 2020, that were in response to George Floyd's murder. I asked for an update, and copied below what I received from the LTA's diversity department:

There has been some great progress so far, but we've got some way to go until we reach our vision of 'everyday inclusion.

We launched a new inclusion strategy which can be found via the website - https://www.lta.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/governance-and-structure/policies-and-rules/equality-diversity/. We recruited a number of new elected council and board members to specifically support the LTA with embedded further inclusion into the fabric of tennis in Britain.

We have also set up a new sounding board group from the community called 'IDEA community' (Inclusion Diversity Equity Accessibility) who have been instrumental in providing the LTA with how tennis can be more relevant, accessible, welcoming and enjoyable to people from underrepresented groups in tennis. Anyone is welcome to join, and there is also a new Facebook group that we've introduced through the coach development team: https://www.facebook.com/groups/444143676945875.

We will be producing a report this year to update the tennis community on our progress to date, so please look out for this.

After Scott's first letter, I wrote an extensive piece of feedback. In summary, I said to Scott I believed his priorities should be more equal representation on the LTA board, a drive to get more black and ethnic minorities welcomed and involved into coaching, and a commitment to educate the predominantly white tennis community about racism, and ways we can all contribute to the effort.

Scott said in his second letter that he responded to each piece of feedback individually. What I received from him felt like a pre-written reply, with no personal mention of what I wrote about. Scott's October letter sounded good on the surface, but absolutely nothing of any significance has been achieved yet.