Whether he was serious or not, Martin Samuel’s comments in Tuesday’s Daily Mail are beyond ridiculous, even for their Gammon-in-chief who has already been complaining that the Women’s Super League gets too much coverage.

There are some straight, white, cis men who just don’t get it and their king is Martin Samuel.

Writing on his page in Tuesday’s Daily Mail, Samuel said:

It appears as if he is being facetious, although I cannot be sure there isn’t another layer or two to Samuel’s thinking, conscious or not. This is the Daily Mail, after all. They don’t get the benefit of the doubt.

It also speaks volumes that out of the thousands of people who read my tweet on the matter, at the time of writing, only a few suggested it could be sarcasm or similar. As you probably know, Twitter likes to tell you when it thinks you’re wrong about something, even if they don’t agree.

If Samuel was being facetious to make a point, what’s the point he’s trying to make? Reclaiming a word and throwing a banana are not comparable things.

Who are these people having a ‘negative reaction’? Do they exist anywhere than in his own head to allow him to write this snippet?

Is this really the best way he could make whatever point it is he’s trying to make?

Are any Spurs fans even trying to justify banana throwing? I haven’t seen any. No matter what you think about Spurs, no reasonable Arsenal fan thinks they are in any way a racist club with a racist fan base. Sure, like all clubs they have idiots, but they aren’t Chelsea.

So, one of two things happened here. Either Samuel was trying to make a point using sarcasm and failed spectacularly because he actually has no grasp of anything outside his white, cis, het bubble, or he is putting this forward as a genuine defence.

Whatever the truth, the fact so many were quick to believe it was the latter is a damning inditement of both the author and publication and left us with considerably more questions than answers.

The exact opposite, I would suggest, of what he’s paid to do.