Lauren James releases defiant response to racist abuse

The prodigiously talented playmaker is not known for making public comments, preferring to focus on her football as part of Casey Stoney's highly impressive United side.

But Lauren says she was compelled to express her feelings on the subject, and has written a defiant, moving piece which is published in today's edition of The Telegraph.

“I’m 19 years old and I’m sitting here, writing about racist abuse,” she begins. “All because of the colour of my skin. It is mad. I'm proud of my skin, I love my skin colour. But when I saw the comments on my Instagram feed, it hurt.

 

“For a moment, I thought I was seeing things. I thought, 'This can’t be real.' It wasn’t just one comment, or one emoji. The comments kept coming. I didn’t know why. There wasn’t a reason for the abuse. I haven’t played a match in a while due to injury, so it felt very out of the blue that someone would choose to target me.”

Lauren admits that she is no stranger to the sting of racism, but is urging the football community – and the online platforms that enable those that spread hate – to wake up to the growing threat of online abuse.

 

“Over the weekend was the first time that I’d experienced racist abuse on social media,” she explains. “But it wasn’t the first time that I’d been made to feel aware of the colour of my skin. 

 

“Part of me has wondered if we as athletes can take control of this by coming offline, by deleting our social media accounts. But the other part, the stronger part, says no. It would show the trolls that they are winning, and we can’t let that happen. Facebook have announced that they will take tougher sanctions on abusive messages. It’s a great start but more needs to be done by social media platforms to put an end to this.”

James said she was heartened by the support she had received from opponents, team-mates and her manager, Casey Stoney, and earlier this week, Stoney spoke out and said players should not be left facing such issues alone.

 

“It’s important I stand up for her, stand next to her, support her. As a club, we massively support her and I know, as a club, we do an awful lot in this area to make sure players are supported, that we fight against discrimination and racism because no person should ever have to experience that.

 

“It’s totally unacceptable and I think the Government and social media platforms need to do so much more.”

 

Everyone at Manchester United is proud of Lauren for speaking out about her awful experiences, and will continue to support and back her in every way possible.