The FA fiasco shows that even non-racists can do racist things | Nesrine Malik

After the footballers Eni Aluko and Drew Spence reported that the then England women’s manager had made discriminatory remarks to them, this week the FA issued a full apology to both players.

It took three inquiries – the last on the back of a Guardian investigation – to get there. The damning final report concluded there was now overwhelming evidence to find that Sampson had asked Spence, a mixed-race player, how many times she had been arrested; and had said Aluko’s Nigerian relatives might carry the Ebola virus.

It’s just a bit jokes though, innit. Just a bit of banter. The FA chair, Greg Clarke, shocked a parliamentary hearing yesterday by referring to “all the fluff about, you know, institutional racism”. Maybe that is why it takes three inquiries.

Racism is a big word; not everything is racism. Sometimes remarks that land badly are just unfortunate. But often those in positions of authority show not only a lack of understanding of what discrimination actually is, but also a resistance to learning about its subtlety and its entrenchment. Prejudicial acts don’t always happen with racist intent or malice.

Trying to determine what prejudice looks like, and how prejudiced people behave, still confounds us. Not all people who have problematic attitudes to race wear a white hood and carry a burning torch. Not all sexists grope women. Some of these people would describe themselves as nice. Some of them, in different situations, actually are nice. Not everybody plays the part they are expected to play. The black former England goalkeeper David James came out and publicly attacked Aluko after Sampson was sacked (even though the dismissal was for unrelated allegations); James implied her allegations were motivated by not being included in Sampson’s squad. Some people who make problematic racial comments have black friends.

It is this inconsistency that triggers the defensive position whenever allegations like this come out. We need to hold two separate thoughts concurrently in our heads: that a person can behave in ways that are offensive or prejudicial, without that person necessarily looking or behaving like a comic-book villain; that we can apply diversity measures in the workplace and have a diverse set of friends and lovers, and still come up short.

The classic case was that of the former football manager Ron Atkinson, long praised for his development of black talent in an era when players faced extreme racism. His reputation was destroyed when he was recorded describing a World Cup-winning footballer as a “fucking lazy thick nigger”.

Prejudice isn’t only about people who lynch, abuse or molest those who are different. It can simply be the inability to be around people who are different and not define them by their race, religion or gender. But even when there is clear discrimination, there is a reluctance to make a broader point.

Katherine Newton, the barrister who conducted the third inquiry, concluded: “I consider that in making the comment to EA [Eni Aluko], MS [Mark Sampson] did treat EA less favourably than he would have treated a player who was not of African descent. MS had therefore subjected EA to less favourable treatment because of her ethnicity. As a matter of law it was a racially discriminatory comment ... It is important to state that this is not a finding that MS is racist.”

We all agree now that racism is A Bad Thing: few actively argue in favour of it. But that hasn’t ended it. The consensus has simply made us better at remembering the disclaimer “I’m not racist but ...”. The new way is that as long as someone condemns “racism”, they need make no effort to grapple with their own roles and responsibilities.

This is not to be confused with that other slogan: “We are all racist.” Prejudice isn’t the weather, it’s the climate. It is not an inevitability we should resign ourselves to, while blaming victims for not being thick-skinned enough.

We are beginning to have something approaching a conversation in the aftermath of the Weinstein allegations, as we start to understand that it’s not just the obviously powerful and creepy or sick who may transgress, and that when they do so it is also because a pervasive toxicity has motivated them, enabled them, and excused them.

The way forward is in understanding that what is required is a zero-tolerance vigilance to racist acts, combined with an understanding that the overall problem is far deeper, and far less coherent. It will happen again. Hopefully next time it will take only one inquiry.