You, me, us, them...

Suspicion, in the wild, boosts longevity if a gazelle is not suspicious when it hears a rustle in the bush, it could be dead in a minute. Human beings half a chromosome removed from the chimpanzee are amazingly smart, but they’re animals nevertheless. Suspicion is a trait they share with animals in the wild this would appear to form the basis of racism and xenophobia in all societies, across the world.

So then, a ‘damning’ report on the state of cricket in England and Wales has come to the conclusion that racism and sexism are rampant there. Anyone who’s travelled across England, especially in the north, would vouch for the fact that horrible racists do exist in that island. To cite just one personal anecdote, a big white man accosted the writer in Nottingham following a terror attack in Norway in 2011 and asked: “Where is the bomb, in the bag?” He had singled out a non-white person to target an expression of his fear at the crowded town centre because he had greater trust in his own type, and also because most terrorist attacks in Europe were and are committed by non-whites. It later turned out that the Norway attack, which left 77 people dead, was perpetrated by a white supremacist.

Then again, you also meet people who are genuinely egalitarian, who go out of the way to make you feel comfortable at cricket grounds, at shops, in hotels, or during travel in trains or coaches.

And you also meet racists from ‘our’ team South Asians who have contempt for the goras, their culture and their values. They admire them in many ways, but have a smug notion of moral and civilisational superiority over them. This type don’t think much of the black people, too, and use disparaging names for them. And the bigotry, the hatred for their fellow South Asians! Many of them possess a reservoir of visceral hatred for each other, having brought it with them from the land of their birth, or inherited it from their migrant ancestors.

The damning report

Back to the report, then, prepared by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) following outrage over revelations by a Pakistan-born cricketer, Azeem Rafiq, about the racism he faced throughout his career, for the most part of which he was with Yorkshire. Rafiq had claimed that had faced consistent abuse at the hands of fellow players, including former England captain Michael Vaughan.

An investigation by the Yorkshire Cricket Club found that Rafiq was the “victim of racial harassment and bullying”, but did not release the full report.

An ICEC survey said that “50% of all respondents described experiencing discrimination.. The figures were substantially higher for people from ethnically diverse communities: 87% of people with Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage, 82% of people with Indian heritage and 75% of all black respondents”.

Racism is colour-coded, the colour of the skin marking individuals as definite possessors of certain stereotypical traits of disparate groups of people.

The report stated: “A ‘laddish’ drinking culture that can sometimes make women vulnerable and at risk of unwanted or unwelcome behaviour, as well as alienating others due to religious and/or cultural beliefs.”

Cindy Butts, heading the ICEC panel, stated: “Our findings are unequivocal. Racism, class-based discrimination, elitism and sexism are widespread and deep-rooted.” She wondered why England’s women’s cricket team is yet to play a Test at Lord’s which has appropriated for itself the laughable claim that it’s the ‘home’ of cricket! Home to patriarchy and class discrimination would appear to be a more suitable description.

Heather Knight England captain, no less! revealed that when she started playing as a young girl, she would be asked if she did “the ironing for the men after playing” at the cricket club.

Cindy Butts also talked about the advantage cricketers at private schools enjoy: “If you attend a state school, you’re less likely to have access to cricket.”

And then, there’s this

Racism, xenophobia, sexism, classism, bigotry and suspicion of the outgroup does all this ring a bell? Do we have all this in our society, our sports?

Six years ago, Tamil Nadu cricketer Abhinav Mukund spoke out about the negative attention he had received for his dark skin.

“I have been travelling a lot within and outside our country since I was 15. Ever since I was young, people’s obsession with my skin colour has always been a mystery to me,” Mukund said. “I have been subjected to a lot of name calling and I have laughed and shrugged it off because I had bigger goals!” This comes from an elite cricketer.

Remember the Daren Sammy controversy? The former West Indies captain was called ‘Kalu’ by his Indian teammates in the IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad. He had thought the word meant ‘strong stallion’, but the truth dawned on him just by chance when he heard comedian Hasan Minhaj talking about South Asians using this word to refer to black people. “Oh so that’s what that meant when they called me and Thisara Perera Kalu in India when we played for Sunrisers. I just thought they were calling me strong black man… I am angry,” he said.

In 2018, a fellow journalist from Manipur was amazed when he saw a black weightlifter represent Australia at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. “Yeh Australian kaise hai?” he asked in Hindi. Another of us, an Assamese living in Chennai, responded: “He’s as much Australian as you’re Indian.” Both are lovely fellows, nice to a fault, and it was just banter but this exchange, to me, was a sad manifestation of the internalisation of terrible traits such as racism or xenophobia or patriarchy or misogyny in even the kindest of us.

Fighting your own prejudices and bigotry, and beating them down in sport, in society will make the world more liveable for a large number of people suffering alienation.