Harbhajan reignites racism storm

[Stu274]

Yes but it doesnt make both Illegal does it eh.....

Well, could you please explain the difference?

Whether you call me a "coloured C***T" or you call me a "C***T", I will take offence to either.

 

[Cevno]

The argument's not whether he should be banned or not as per the approval of the law. What's contentious is Harbhajan and the BCCI assuming the moral high ground as a consequence of Harbhajan's exoneration.

When he gets off on the grounds of 'not proven', but then admits to abuse anyway, it seems a spurious platform to operate from, frankly.

It works either way here.
I can claim that symonds should be punished for defamation as he and his teammates were deliberately trying to throw bhajji of guard.

 

[sirdj]

Did you feel the same thing when Gibbs was banned for calling Pakistani crowd members "a bunch of animals", if so then fine, but to me it seems a lot of people seem to be taking a certain stance when it suits them. I remember at the time over there alot of sub-continental members had to explain to some anglo members that what he said was racist (animal=sub-human) when certain people tried to downplay the whole thing as a harmless comment. Now the exact opposite is occuring.

Both can be debated, but I wonder whether people are taking stances for when it suits them and really, for me at least, it's hard to take alot of the stuff said here seriously.

Bunch of Animals is NOT racist.
Bunch of Monkeys will not be racist either

 

[Matt79]

The use of the word black in itself is not racist unless its a prefix to another abuse & then it does not even compare with monkey.
While I appreciate your attitude towards racism, if you trivialize it then it loses its significance and then people will play the race card at any given instance and occasion and you will have to comply each time.

Cheers for that. And for what's its worth, I'm not out to demonise Harbhajan or prove some kind of point about Indian players being as bad or worse than Australians. I do just honestly hate people using race to attack other people and think that we need to have an absolute zero-tolerance approach to people (white, black, brown, purple whatever) using it. If that results in some trivial instances, so be it - it's better to be consistent and thorough, even if that comes at a price of some 'trivial' examples. And I question how trivial ANY racial abuse ever is to the recipient - maybe sometimes it doesn't hurt as much because people have become used to a level of abuse, but that in itself is a pretty horrible situation.

 

[social]

Right
That is why he has been fined 50% of his match fees for abuse.

Given that the Judge will realise the reasons behind his findings TOMORROW, the only things we know for certain are:

1. BCCI threatened to pull out of the tour unless the racism verdict was overturned;

2. Ponting and Tendy asked the judge to reduce the charge (effectively ruling the threat above irrelevant); and

3. the stump mike transcript, whilst not catching Harby's comment, looks very damning

Anything else is speculation

 

[Cevno]

Ok so now you recon someone can just kill someone on the cricket pitch & no-one can do anything about it?
Laws are laws & yes the Aussies should respect the laws of India & other countries it travels to. Im quite sure that once the term bastard is determined to be seen as such a comment in India that the Aussies would have the common sense to then not use it unlike Harbajhan did.

Killing is not included in ICC laws is it?
If you apply laws it does not matter that you know about the law or you do not .You are considered legally literate.

 

[chaminda_00]

Given that the Judge will realise the reasons behind his findings TOMORROW, the only things we know for certain are:

1. BCCI threatened to pull out of the tour unless the racism verdict was overturned;

2. Ponting and Tendy asked the judge to reduce the charge (effectively ruling the threat above irrelevant); and

3. the stump mike transcript, whilst not catching Harby's comment, looks very damning

Anything else is speculation

I don't think the stump mics would have proved anything other then the Australians thought Harbhajan called Symonds a monkey. Unless it has Harbhajan saying the words, there wouldn't be any extra evidence then what Hayden or Clarke would have said anyway.

 

[sirdj]

Cheers for that. And for what's its worth, I'm not out to demonise Harbhajan or prove some kind of point about Indian players being as bad or worse than Australians. I do just honestly hate people using race to attack other people and think that we need to have an absolute zero-tolerance approach to people (white, black, brown, purple whatever) using it. If that results in some trivial instances, so be it - it's better to be consistent and thorough, even if that comes at a price of some 'trivial' examples. And I question how trivial ANY racial abuse ever is to the recipient - maybe sometimes it doesn't hurt as much because people have become used to a level of abuse, but that in itself is a pretty horrible situation.

The trouble is that laws are black and white while human interactions are not always so.
It is difficult sometimes to judge what constitutes racism and well meaning white people tend to lean more heavily on anything that may have been unintentional or really trivial.
This gives a bad example for people who would like to misuse it for their own benefit. As now almost any borderline accusation can now be proven as racist.

 

[Matt79]

I don't think the stump mics would have proved anything other then the Australians thought Harbhajan called Symonds a monkey. Unless it has Harbhajan saying the words, there wouldn't be any extra evidence then what Hayden or Clarke would have said anyway.

The only extra thing that it did show was that the reaction was immediate, rather than being something that they agreed to do after consulting between each other. That might be seen as making it less likely that they colluded in their evidence.

 

[Cevno]

Given that the Judge will realise the reasons behind his findings TOMORROW, the only things we know for certain are:

1. BCCI threatened to pull out of the tour unless the racism verdict was overturned;

2. Ponting and Tendy asked the judge to reduce the charge (effectively ruling the threat above irrelevant); and

3. the stump mike transcript, whilst not catching Harby's comment, looks very damning

Anything else is speculation

1.True but accepting injustice is as big as giving injustice.

2.India dropped pretty good racism charges against hogg and symonds gave a signed document to judge.so it might be a trade off.

3.The stump mike was late evidence And the indian voices in that are not clear,so it proves nothing as aussies can clearly be saying these things as a planned strategy on field to bring false charges.It could also argued that this evidence was presented so late and channel 9 is a biased australian company.

 

[Matt79]

The trouble is that laws are black and white while human interactions are not always so.
It is difficult sometimes to judge what constitutes racism and well meaning white people tend to lean more heavily on anything that may have been unintentional or really trivial.
This gives a bad example for people who would like to misuse it for their own benefit. As now almost any borderline accusation can now be proven as racist.

I'd be quite happy for any borderline comments to have to be avoided by all involved, if it meant people could go about their job without being racially abused. So long as 'borderline' isn't taken to ridiculous lengths - and I know that's what you're arguing would be the problem. But I think we can stand to move the "border" a fair bit further towards prescriptive than it currently is.

 

[pasag]

Bunch of Animals is NOT racist.
Bunch of Monkeys will not be racist either

That's fine, but having been on here for both controversies and following them closely, it seems like people (on the whole, not accusing anyone specifically) pick and choose arguments to support their side and the current side of the fence they find themselves on.

A guy like Silentstriker, I remember, said over there this is unacceptable by Gibbs and he's said the same thing here - that I greatly respect, it shows he has a strong opinion against this form of racism and will not bend his opinion just because he finds himself on the opposite side of the fence of an argument.

 

[Cevno]

The only extra thing that it did show was that the reaction was immediate, rather than being something that they agreed to do after consulting between each other. That might be seen as making it less likely that they colluded in their evidence.

They might have colluded before to say these things in front of the mics to bring about false charges.

 

[Cevno]

There's secondary and circumstantial evidence that would have allowed me to reasonably form that view.

I say the aussies are deliberately and very cleverly putting these false charges forward because of their personal and proffesional rivalry.
This is also based on evidence and can you prove me wrong?

 

[social]

1.True but accepting injustice is as big as giving injustice.

2.India dropped pretty good racism charges against hogg and symonds gave a signed document to judge.so it might be a trade off.

3.The stump mike was late evidence And the indian voices in that are not clear,so it proves nothing as aussies can clearly be saying these things as a planned strategy on field to bring false charges.It could also argued that this evidence was presented so late and channel 9 is a biased australian company.

1. True - if only the BCCI was worthy of such faith

2. The accusations against Hogg were absolutely laughable

3. Why would the Australians want to remove a bowler they bashed around the park for the entire series? As a strategy, that stinks.

 

[Matt79]

1.True but accepting injustice is as big as giving injustice.

2.India dropped pretty good racism charges against hogg and symonds gave a signed document to judge.so it might be a trade off.

3.The stump mike was late evidence And the indian voices in that are not clear,so it proves nothing as aussies can clearly be saying these things as a planned strategy on field to bring false charges.It could also argued that this evidence was presented so late and channel 9 is a biased australian company.

That's a much more extreme and un-credible charge than the one against Harbhajan itself - that you've insisted shouldn't be repeated because there's no hard evidence. Apart from anything else, Channel 9 could rightfully expect to get sued should it emerge that it fiddled with the tape or the transcript, and if you think misguided patriotism is a stronger influence on them than the opinions of their company lawyers, you're delusional.

 

[chaminda_00]

The only extra thing that it did show was that the reaction was immediate, rather than being something that they agreed to do after consulting between each other. That might be seen as making it less likely that they colluded in their evidence.

Still it seems they only way Harbhajan got off was the fact that it was felt the Australian miss heard what he said. So even if they reacted immediately, it wouldn't prove they heard the exact words of english monkey. Unless the stump mic had him saying those words, it wouldn't have made a difference IMO.

 

[Matt79]

I say the aussies are deliberately and very cleverly putting these false charges forward because of their personal and proffesional rivalry.
This is also based on evidence and can you prove me wrong?

What evidence?

 

[Matt79]

Still it seems they only way Harbhajan got off was the fact that it was felt the Australian miss heard what he said. So even if they reacted immediately, it wouldn't prove they heard the exact words of english monkey. Unless the stump mic had him saying those words, it wouldn't have made a difference IMO.

Sure, and I'm not for a minute saying that the stump mic proves what Bhajji said or didn't say. All I'm saying is that it seems to show that the Aussies all thought he said it - as you say, they might have misheard him.

 

[Cevno]

1. True - if only the BCCI was worthy of such faith

2. The accusations against Hogg were absolutely laughable

3. Why would the Australians want to remove a bowler they bashed around the park for the entire series? As a strategy, that stinks.

1.they clearly have shown faith

2.The accusations against harbhajan by symonds the instigator are laughable too.

3.They bashed him afterwards after bringing those charges and ponting struggled against him throughout before that.They probably remember his 32 wickets against them.He has a history against symonds personally too and symonds might want to get one up on him.