Former England footballer Gary Lineker has been defended after revealing he suffered racist abuse as a child and during his playing career due to his 'darkish skin'. Writing for The Guardian, Jason Okundaye argued that mockery of Lineker's comments reflects a misunderstanding of how racialisation works.
Lineker, now a Match of the Day host, said in a podcast that he was bullied for his appearance, adding he was 'as English as they come'. Critics accused him of 'identifying as black', but Okundaye noted that Lineker never used that term and that discrimination does not require hitting its intended target.
Okundaye highlighted that whiteness has porous boundaries, with many groups historically let in or out of the category. He pointed to photographs of a younger Lineker with dark hair, olive skin and a wide nose as evidence of why he might have been misread as non-white in the 1980s.
The piece drew parallels to other forms of discrimination, such as homophobic abuse aimed at straight men or gender policing affecting cisgender women. Okundaye concluded that Lineker's experience reveals racism as based on a lie, with identity being a socially determined construct.
