Liam Stacey’s racist tweet: does he deserve prison?

The Guardian's Joseph Harker caused a bit of stir in his newspaper yesterday by writing an article about Liam Stacey, who was jailed for 56 days for his racist Tweets towards Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba, who at the time was fighting for his life.

Harker’s central argument was that whilst some might congratulate themselves that this was a victory in the fight against racism by stamping down on the idiot racist trolls, it barely makes a dent in the real fight against institutional racism.

On one level, he is right of course. Racist abuse is pretty awful and can be particularly hurtful. And here in the UK, unlike most countries around the world, it is completely unacceptable. However, Harker’s point is that before we get too carried away congratulating ourselves on the tough stance, we are a nation that is almost in denial about the structural race inequalities that prejudice almost every Black and minority ethnic individual to some degree or other.

At one end of the spectrum, young Black men are amongst the highest unemployed throughout Europe. Greek youths living in their country, which in all but name is bankrupt, have a better chance of getting a job than Black British youths here in the UK. Equally, BME high flyers – in law, finance, and the media - continue to hit the glass ceiling when it comes to getting the top jobs. Harker suggests, it is areas such as these that get ignored whilst we often gorge ourselves on the low-level overt racism.

I would argue that it’s a little more complicated than how Harker explains it. Clamping down hard on the social media bigotry is long overdue. Anyone, Harker included and especially Yasmin Alibhai-Brown knows that to write about race inequality and Islamophobia is to unleash the ‘dogs of hell’. The onslaught of racial abuse is unparalleled. So whilst I might agree with Harker that Stacey’s sentence was harsh, if this is a deterrent that states the ‘wild west’ of social media racism and abuse is over, I would probably just about go along with it. My preferred punishment would have been a three-month community service, which would give ample time for reflection, whilst serving the community.

The other point to make after highlighting the wrongness of Stacey's abuse is the powerful tool of forgiveness.

Forgiveness encourages reflection and teaches us that we are not a knee-jerk, ‘hang ‘em and flog em’ society that panders to popular outcry, but one that demands decency but also understanding too.

Simon Woolley