My name is Ben. I’m 15 and I play football for Leeds Park Rangers. In September, a new boy joined our team. His name was Kofi. He was a great player – fast and clever with the ball.

After the first training, our captain Tyler asked him, “Where are you from?”
“From Leeds,” Kofi said.
“No, where are you really from?”

Kofi looked tired. “I was born here. My grandparents came from Ghana.”

“So you’re from Africa!” Tyler laughed. “That’s why you’re so fast. Did you run away from lions?”

Everybody laughed. I laughed too. I didn’t think it was funny, but I didn’t want to be different.

The “jokes” didn’t stop. Tyler didn’t really know Kofi, but he judged him. He had a prejudice. “All Africans are fast” – Tyler thought this was funny. But it is a stereotype. It puts millions of different people in one box.

Soon some boys didn’t pass the ball to Kofi. Nobody added him to our team chat. We excluded him.

Kofi stopped talking in the changing room. He came, played and went home.

I felt bad. Kofi was treated unfairly only because of his skin colour. That is racism. But I was afraid. Tyler was the captain. What if the team laughed at me next? So I was a bystander: I saw everything and did nothing.