Is English cricket, not just Yorkshire cricket, institutionally racist?

There are different levels of racism ?

Think it stems from colonial days. Cricket was 'thee' sport in colonial Asia. Doesn't need a lot of imagination to figure why racism exists in cricket. Hasn't Rafiq himself now become embroiled in his admission of antisemitic remarks.
He is apparently reasoning this being due to his age at the time ie 19 years old!

Bignanny2

I’m not racist (have several races in our family and one of my daughters best friends at college is a Sikh) and I don’t like racism so this is not a racist comment it’s a factual one. I lived in a big multi cultural city and I can tell you now that in my experience the most racist people are the Muslims! Here’s just one example - walking home from work one evening - it was dark but only about 7pm and a full grown man, not a youth said to me ‘get back to your own area white girl’. I pointed out that this WAS my area as my Mum,Dad and myself were all born within a 10 minute walk of that area! Id like to ask Will there be an enquiry lasting half a day into Rafiq’s racist tweets I wonder?! No of course not because it was anti Semitic and that gets brushed under the carpet! And as for Aveline’s earlier comment about the rape of young girls by Muslim men and Worriedwell’s following comment about there being no connection:- well there is because the girls allegations were not investigated because the perpetrators were Muslim and the police didn’t want to appear racist. Just as Rafiq’s antisamitic comments won’t be throughly looked into. Yet the police stop search and harass black men all the time without worrying if they appear to be racist.

When sharing one particular house in Nottingham while at university, dd1 and her female co-sharers were regularly verbally abused by young boys of only about 9 or 10 who lived across the street.
‘Dirty white whore!’ was typical.
I had better not state the national origin or religion of the parents, for fear of being deemed racist.

wellbeck I am afraid you are quite wrong in assuming that children in state schools have no opportunity or encouragement to play cricket. It is something that is actively encouraged by the English and Welsh Cricket Boards. Kwik Cricket was introduced in 1988 by the ECB to introduce children to cricket and the emphasis is very much on enjoyment.

The teams are for eight players, both boys and girls, and is played with a plastic bat and ball, and tournaments are enthusiastically attended. Schools played schools in their own area and the winners went on to play teams from adjoining counties.

This certainly whetted the appetite for the game in our area, and it encouraged many boys and girls to form school teams and to join the junior section of several cricket clubs. I am aware of several who were later selected for county teams in their respective age groups. There were children from various ethnic backgrounds involved.

It is a totally erroneous idea that both cricket (and rugby for that matter) is only available for children at independent schools.

Azeem Rafiq has apologised and said he is deeply ashamed. I am wondering what more he is expected to do? (^'So that's allright then?'^) Is there anyone who has not displayed an attitude towards someone else that they subsequently regretted, or said words, or had thoughts that they now feel are wrong? 'When we know better, we do better' must apply to almost everyone, I know it applies to me, and I would hope to be forgiven and not to be castigated for ever for immature mistakes. 'Never put it in writing' is wise counsel.

If you have the courage to stand up against racism, as Azeem Rafiq has done, then you must know that your own record will be searched minutely. It would have been better if he had admitted sending these posts/tweets/whatever, right at the start and said that now he has had experience of racism himself, he realises just how heinous his own offence was.

Anyone can admit being deeply ashamed of themselves to get themselves out of trouble, without having to change their unexpressed views and with no apopogy to the people he has himself, subjected to racism.

MOnica I thought he had apologised - it's not reasonable that he is expected to apologise personally to every person of the Jewish faith, surely? And, with respect, you cannot know what is in his heart and mind, and suggest that his apology is false and his attitude unchanged. These remarks we made when he was nineteen.

It’s the same with most sports. It’s there and it always will be unless as a child you have parents who raised to respect all cultures. I have a mixed race gd we love her dearly but she has to put up with a lot of nasty remarks.

Sometime it is not what you say, but the way that you say it.

He was 19 and probably had, himself, already experienced racism. He was old enough to have known better.

I think they are all as bad as each other all the races seems to use offence words against each other and unfortunately the media as decided that the caucasians seem to be classed as the worst

My son in law is a cricketer- plays for many clubs including the MCC. He teaches cricket too. His opinion is that Ballance is a ‘knob’ and Rafiq is just not very good at cricket- all I can say is that when Rafiq was filmed going into the room where he was was telling ‘his truth’ - he looked very smug.
Pot,kettle, black says it all. I wonder too why all these offended people didn’t complain at the time?

‘There is racism and I know because I suffered it and was part of it’ might have been a more honest stance.

No they are not “all as bad as each other” and where are caucasians the worst? If you really believe that certain peoples have not been discriminated on the basis of skin colour, with those with darker skin being systematically disadvantaged and abused in many ways then you truly must live in cloud cuckoo land.

Listening to him made me so sad (I know he had since been found to have made anti Semitic and racist comments about black people when he was younger for which he apologised). Apart from anything else, all this hatred of ‘others’ is just a cruel waste of human potential.
I know I’m being naive, but why can’t we just be kind to each other?

Pedwards I read that the Dalai Lama said his faith has no great volumes of rules and holy relics, his simple philosophy is 'Be kind - it is always possible to be kind'. That struck such a chord with me. It is so simple, and like you I feel naive in saying this, but how different life would be if people thought about the effect they have on others with cruel words.

A person who suffers racism who turns out not once but twice to tweet anti sementic rascist remarks.You could not write it.

In a way, I am even more impressed with Azeem Rafiq's bravery.

He must have know that his ill advised antisemitic tweets from many years ago would emerge.

But he still stepped up to shine a light on racial prejudice in cricket.

He demonstrated, perhaps inadvertantly, that one type of prejudice can lead to another.

We need to stop all racism, sexism and unthinking prejudice in cricket and in all aspects of our lives.

Alegrias1 I am a Jock and take no offense at being called one.

It is indeed difficult to comprehend that a person who complains of racism is in fact himself a racist.

The other day I told my art teacher that the reason there was a bit to much white paint on my painting was because I had accidentally squeezed too much out of the tube and I didn't want it to go to waste.

She said "Scottish"

Was that a racist remark?

He must have know that his ill advised antisemitic tweets from many years ago would emerge

He didn't though. He was presented with them and had to look back to see if. they were actually his messages. Which they clearly were. He'd forgotten about them.

Had he remembered he'd no doubt have deleted them which he's now done.

grannypiper

Alegrias1 I am a Jock and take no offense at being called one.

That's fine grannypiper, that's your prerogative.

But I do.

varian

The other day I told my art teacher that the reason there was a bit to much white paint on my painting was because I had accidentally squeezed too much out of the tube and I didn't want it to go to waste.

She said "Scottish"

Was that a racist remark?

Probably.

Hmm...been thinking about this. My cousin's husband is called Jock. My grannie's dog was called Jock. As I've already said today, we're a' Jock Tamson's bairns.

So its up there with Paddy, Taffy and Fritz. Says more about the person using it and how they use it, than anything else.

Its one of those things that you have to have some self awareness and empathy to understand.

vegansrock It is well attested that certain ethnic groups have a value system based on the colour of the the person's skin, where someone fair-skinned, especially a woman, is highly valued and marriage with someone darker than you is severely frowned on. Others use caste as a value system and that too seems to effectively based on colour

In European countries, there is undoubtedly discrimination based on race and colour. Have you noticed that most people of Asian and Afro-Caribbean origin in the media and the arts are pleasantly light brown, often with a European cast of features, although this is changing. Very few who look like Paul Robeson or Louis Armstrong. Even we discriminate on a graduated colour basis.