I doubt Kurt Zouma, the black French footballer at the centre of trending global outrage after he was filmed kicking and slapping his cat, would look the way of pets again. He was fined £250,000 and had his cat taken away, and must’ve been pondering his economic security now. The West Ham centre-back was instantly dropped by the kit manufacturer and sponsor, Adidas. He acknowledged his wrongdoing, accepted these decisions and apologized. But that’s where the story began to get complicated. The outrage became a corporate gang-up against Zouma, with influential voices and organizations calling for the permanent termination of his means of livelihood. His brother, Yoan, the footballer who filmed the leaked video has also been suspended by his club, Dagenham & Redbridge.
“We are hugely disappointed by the judgement subsequently shown by the club in response to this incident,” wrote Vitality, one of the corporate sponsors of the English football club. “As such, we are suspending our sponsorship of West Ham United with immediate effect. We will now be further engaging with the club to understand what actions they will be taking to address the situation.” This set the tone of a polarizing conversation around Zouma, and the colour of such a quest for justice became obvious almost immediately.
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His teammate and Jamaican international footballer, Michail Antonio, also sensed the agenda. He knew the backlash had turned into hatred of something he and Zouma have in common: their skin colour. Without absolving Kurt of any wrongdoing, Antonio asked if the same energy would’ve been dispensed in the pursuit of penalizing racism, noting that “I’ve just got to ask everyone out there, is what he’s done worse than what the people who have been convicted of racism have done?” Antonio’s grouse was the hypocrisy of European footballing administrators and corporate sponsors who are quick to play down their power when it comes to punishing the prevalent anti-black racism and also overlook clubs guilty of harbouring racist fans who perpetuate racial abuse at televised matches
The corporate sponsors calling for Zouma’s head now were spectacularly “forgiving” when the subject of such scandals was racial abuse. When the former Liverpool FC striker, Luis Suarez, was found guilty of racism against Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, he retained his Adidas sponsorship deal. Neither did Adidas stop funding his lifestyle after he bit Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini at the 2014 World Cup. The reason Zouma lost his Adidas for his animal cruelty and Suarez retained his for anti-black racism is what puzzled Antonio too, and got him to ask which was deserving of a stricter penalty. Adidas even stood in solidarity with Suarez then, and tweeted his image baring his teeth to hail that he’s “two good” amidst the backlash of his cannibalizing encounter with Chiellini.
This gang-up against Zouma from Adidas to Vitality, even after he has agreed to pay a fine that size and apologized for his indefensible cruelty, is the very rage missing in the cases of racial abuse experienced by black players on and off the pitch. When the English national team lost the 2020 Euro final to Italy, the world witnessed the toxicity of racism that overwhelmed the black players blamed for England’s inability to lift the European Championship trophy. Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka were viciously attacked by trolls and angry England fans after the defeat at London’s Wembley Stadium, and the black men also had to endure dehumanizing abuse online, with the racists posting monkey and banana emoji underneath their photographs on their personal Instagram accounts.
Zouma’s treatment of his pet is indefensible but this bid to end his career, even after he’s been penalized and has tendered an apology, is no longer about the cat. It came from the very prejudice that got Sancho, Rashford and Saka reduced to images of monkeys by the very cheerful characters who had praised their role in the team before they ran out of luck. That episode revealed the fragility of black people’s worth even in the places they got to through excellence. And that experience of the black English players, just like Zouma’s now, got black communities across the world to rise in their defence.
Unfortunately, we invented this cancel culture, a world where there’s no room for apologies and redemption even after penalties. But we only seem to get the danger of these rules we’ve set when our favourites are on trial. Kurt Zouma is a victim of a culture so many of us must’ve celebrated when it took down those we didn’t like. Cancel culture must’ve been the only justice at the reach of the powerless at the moment, but the cat I. Zouma’s story has had some powerful allies to get Zouma and his brother to pay for their sin.
This attempt to insist that $250,000 fine and losses of sponsorship deals aren’t enough penalties by organizations that had not stood up for black players who suffered racist attacks, and had overlooked non-black players’ transgressions, is a dimension of cancel culture that irks me, this utter tyranny of the dangerously powerful radical left. Bananas have been tossed at black players across the football pitches of Europe, and they never got the corporate solidarity this lucky cat has had, and these institutions calling for Zouma to be sacked and lose his livelihood have been active witnesses to these tragedies.
In the past weeks, various black communities online have campaigned to get the foremost US comedian and podcaster, Joe Rogan, and host of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast removed from Spotify over his excessive use of the N-word in the past, and the streaming service has refused to bare its fang. Rogan’s racist jokes have fostered acceptance of racist caricaturing of the Blacks, and driven their dehumanizing stereotypes. Not even the 270 doctors, physicians, and science educators who signed an open letter calling on Spotify to take action against Rogan for COVID misinformation on the platform, have made a difference. Rogan’s deal with Spotify is worth $100 million, and the sponsor isn’t cutting him off his racism and COVID-19 misinformation. He’s not Zouma.
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