“Racism”, finally given a name in the 1930s, centuries after the evil first pervaded the belief system, had no idea how emotive a topic it would become — and continue to become.

Back in the days of its genesis, most significantly during the advance of the slave trade in the 16th century, “racism” did as it pleased and to disastrous effect. Like any ill-intentioned virus, the bug spread and has been joined in modern times by “reverse racism”.

Those who subscribe to one or the other, or both, can be said to be “racist”.

To show “racist” tendencies is to make “any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”.

The happy bedfellow of racism is xenophobia, which we in Bermuda have to accept is alive and very well.

“An intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries; an unreasonable fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign; or, simply, a fear of strangers.”

Sound familiar? There is no sugar-coating it.

The Bermuda that I was told from youth that existed — the one where everyone greets you with a genuine “Hello”, a genuine “Hello”, regardless of race, colour or creed, and where manners are of the highest order — is fast proving to be a myth.

As in most cases of societal breakdown, the majority suffer for the actions of the few. If only the few were a very small minority.

Rather, to judge from the online comments attributed to the story of the football referee who has quit the game over continued abuse of a racist and xenophobic nature — this week’s most popular before Bill Hanbury put his salary into the public domain, bless him — there is a disturbingly high number of apologists for those who propagate appalling behaviour. Why?

The acclaimed American biologists, husband and wife John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, hypothesised in a study that modern people use race as a simplistic indicator for coalition membership in debate, since a better-than-random guess about “which side” another person is on will be helpful if one does not actually know in advance.

That rings true when sifting through the Martin Wyer debate. Wyer is a well-respected official who has received all manner of acclaim in football circles. He is also white and English — and, as of last Sunday, he became Public Enemy No 1 for sections of PHC supporters the minute they fell behind to Flanagan’s Onions; after 49 minutes, and no sooner.

Then came the invective — and lots of it. The tackles were flying and so they should; this is football. The referee has a job to administer justice as he or she sees fit.

Decisions can be unpopular, depending on what side of the fence you sit, but what Wyer had to contend with was unforgivable, informing him long before the match had ended that he had had enough of “Bermuda Is Another World” — at least in football.

His absence leaves the senior game poorer and the dwindling pool of officials who lay themselves at the mercy of the baying masses (loose usage, given the sparse attendances) all the more so.

Who do we have to thank for that? Or even blame?

We can “shoot the messenger”, as one commenter who should know better attempted to do in slagging off the media for reporting on the blindingly obvious. But, as Muhammad Ali protested effusively when refusing enlistment for the Vietnam War, “no reporter ever called Martin Wyre a cheater” — or worse!

Instead, those who govern football, and the stakeholders as well, have a duty to rid the game of anyone who fails to uphold the standards of decency that are to be expected in a supposedly progressive society.

Chronic misbehaviour, and no shortage of gunplay, is what led to a temporary shutdown of senior football last November and spawned the pronouncement from one of the Island’s biggest clubs that miscreants of a gang persuasion or otherwise are not welcome on their premises.

It’s worth a check to see how they’re making out with that ...