The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, June 29

Hello, all.

Let’s talk a little bit about mental health, namely racial trauma.

Ramble of the Day

A few days ago, I was reading a roundtable interview of television actresses done by The Hollywood Reporter as part of its Emmy Awards coverage. Among the group was Homecoming season two star Janelle Monáe, who had this to say while reflecting on the killing of George Floyd and the worldwide conversations on racial inequality since:

For me and my people, for the Black community, this is not an exciting time. This isn’t a time that we get to really reflect. We’re dealing with a lot of trauma. We were dealing with COVID-19, which affects us disproportionately — if America sneezes, the Black community gets pneumonia — and now we’re having to deal with the very color of our skin making us a target.

For me, I’m trying to figure out how to channel my anger. That’s my emotion.

I think that while we continue to have nuanced conversations about racial injustice worldwide, it is worth remembering that these conversations are the result of remarkably sad instances. It is worth reading about racial trauma, and this piece psychologist Samantha Rennalls wrote for British Vogue about the topic. She does provide strategies for Black people suffering from racial trauma, but she also introduces it this way:

In this context, when I refer to racial trauma, I am speaking about my continuous grieving of the unjust incarcerations, inequalities in healthcare provision, and the erasure of my history. I am having to make sense of what it means for people who I know have been complicit actors in this oppressive, racist system to awaken to the oppression they have been blind or ignorant to all along. I am dealing with the fear that comes when masses of loud, aggrieved white men come together in active support of anti-Black ideologies. And I am also anticipating how it will feel when the inevitable time comes that most white people stop talking about racism – despite the fact that it will continue to be a part of my everyday experience of the world.

There is quite a lot to take away from that, and I hope it encourages you to read the piece — it will only take a few minutes of your time. That last sentence, though, instantly reminded me of something I read a little while ago from Portland Thorns forward Simone Charley. She spoke about going to training in the days after Floyd’s death, and really noted how White people have been able to separate themselves from acts of racism because they aren’t the ones experiencing it, and frequently living in dramatically different feelings from their Black colleagues.

This is just one direction this conversation could have gone in, but this series of readings continued to emphasize a simple task of listening to Black people and accepting their experiences as those very much part of the society we live in. It is not the only thing we can do to tackle racism, but it is an important part of that process.

Links of the Day

18 MLS players and six staff have tested positive for COVID-19 since early June.

Watford’s Andre Gray, Domingos Quina, and Nathaniel Chalobah were dropped after Gray reportedly hosted a party during lockdown which the other two players attended.

Germany’s Mario Gómez retired after a 17 year career.

Toulouse and Amiens will be relegated from Ligue 1 after clubs voted not to increase the number of teams in the league for the 2020-21 season.

Arjen Robben signed for FC Groningen, coming out of retirement.

Michel Platini is officially under investigation in Switzerland over a $2 million payment he received from FIFA in 2011.

A longer read: Suzanne Wrack interviews former Colombia U-17 women’s team physio Carolina Rozo on the sexual abuse she experienced from the coaching staff for The Guardian