ICC To Get Tough On Racists

[Langeveldt]

Where are you when your buddy from the other side of the Thames makes equally idiotic posts ?

Thames? Where's Neil these days then?

 

[FRAZ]

Where are you when your buddy from the other side of the Thames makes equally idiotic posts ?

This is and has been a problem pretty much ,No matter in which field one goes!!! If one keeps on ignoring the Crap from the other side of the Thames then the people (who are way lesser offensive ) ,and are on this side of Thames can't control and try to answer with-in slight limits ..And when they do that then only them are picked up . What a sheer stupidity . I mean if a person keeps on flamebaiting about one's language skills and keeps on fighting and ranting about races and passes stupid remarks about Japanese girl friends and bla bla bla is neglected and if a person just says that "This Hair-Inzamam issue is like the 1965 Pakistan India war " ,is picked up and un-wanted remarks are passed on him .I mean this is un-digestable and problem is that never any justification or explaination has been provided either .

 

[FRAZ]

Hmm an obvious idiot putting me on ignore, that'll keep me awake at night.

I felt the same when you put me on your ignore list . Atleast something is common in us .

 

[wpdavid]

This is actually a very fair point.
A lot of the anti-racism stuff is primarily desgined to garner goodwill and is good PR. It is impossible to actually quanitify success.

It happened with the 'Football Task Force' in English football. Rather than address issues at the heart of the game (illegal payments, corruption etc) it invested most of its time in the "Let's kick racism out of football' campaign. This was a smokescreen to hide inactivity in other areas.

Now the aim of the campaign is honourable, however the reason for its priority is that it was a high profile topic that would deflect attention away from core problems and was area that success could not be quantified.

A good ad campaign and lots of speaches about an issue that most reasonable people agree with and suddenly an organisation that is not addressing more pressing concerns is actually popular and seen to be making a difference.

Politics

Not convinced. "Let's kick it out" was a vastly overdue attempt to address something that had been a problem for about 20 years but largely ignored by clubs, commentators and most of the written media. Those of us who remember the sheer unpleasantness of our national game by the 1980's would struggle to write of the campaign to get rid of the *******s as "politics". Rather, it was an entirely valid, albeit horrendously belated, to make soccer part of civilised society. The fact that it's now seen as unquantifiable and in line with most people's thinking shouldn't make us forget how far we've come over the last 15 years or so.

 

[Langeveldt]

Not convinced. "Let's kick it out" was a vastly overdue attempt to address something that had been a problem for about 20 years but largely ignored by clubs, commentators and most of the written media. Those of us who remember the sheer unpleasantness of our national game by the 1980's would struggle to write of the campaign to get rid of the *******s as "politics". Rather, it was an entirely valid, albeit horrendously belated, to make soccer part of civilised society. The fact that it's now seen as unquantifiable and in line with most people's thinking shouldn't make us forget how far we've come over the last 15 years or so.

Totally agree, although I doubt Cricket is capable of such an effective and co-ordinated response to a problem..

 

[BoyBrumby]

Not convinced. "Let's kick it out" was a vastly overdue attempt to address something that had been a problem for about 20 years but largely ignored by clubs, commentators and most of the written media. Those of us who remember the sheer unpleasantness of our national game by the 1980's would struggle to write of the campaign to get rid of the *******s as "politics". Rather, it was an entirely valid, albeit horrendously belated, to make soccer part of civilised society. The fact that it's now seen as unquantifiable and in line with most people's thinking shouldn't make us forget how far we've come over the last 15 years or so.

Well said. I'm not that ancient (honestly! ) & I can recall John Barnes rather stylishly back-heeling a bunch of bananas thrown by some Everton fans. That was late 80s; 1987 or 88 I'd guess.

Nowadays we, as a football watching nation, are rightly appalled when our black footballers are subjected to monkey chants in (say) Macedonia. Shows how far we've come & (happily) that progress has been made.

That said I'm still to be convinced that white Australian fans calling white South African cricketers a yarpie or whatever is a "racial" taunt. It's not (for me at least) in the same ballpark as calling someone a black whathaveyou & muddies the waters a bit for me. That isn't to say I condone the abuse.

 

[silentstriker]

Well for me, anything except things dealing with race/religion/nationality are OK by me. Those things tend to offend more than just the specific player, there can be trouble.

If you target that player specifically instead of making broader comments regarding race/relgion/nationality, I think you're ok.

Basically, targetting the mother is OK, targettign the mothers' religion is not.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Well for me, anything except things dealing with race/religion/nationality are OK by me. Those things tend to offend more than just the specific player, there can be trouble.

If you target that player specifically instead of making broader comments regarding race/relgion/nationality, I think you're ok.

Basically, targetting the mother is OK, targettign the mothers' religion is not.

Dunno. I personally wouldn't be overly offended by being called an English whatever. I certainly wouldn't consider it a racial taunt.

 

[silentstriker]

Dunno. I personally wouldn't be overly offended by being called an English whatever. I certainly wouldn't consider it a racial taunt.

No, but a religious taunt is also not a racial taunt. Basically anything that targets people outside of that specific player is out of bounds.

Calling someone an SOB is ok, calling someone a n***** SOB is not. Because the latter offends more than just that specific player. Its the same thing about nationality. Sometimes its done in good fun and jest, but the line can be crossed quickly.

 

[wpdavid]

Totally agree, although I doubt Cricket is capable of such an effective and co-ordinated response to a problem..

Unfortunately, neither is world football, judging by goings on in Spain, Italy and various parts of central Europe. The response in these countries is horribly similar to England in the 70's & 80's:

1. Pretend it doesn't happen
2. When the abuse is so excessive that Response 1 is no longer possible, give the bigots a gentle tap on the wrists and ask them please not to do it any more.
3. If all else fails, hand out a token fine to the offending clubs or FA's which could be paid off by asking the ballboys to have a whipround.

EDIT
I forgot to include the timehonoured line that it's "society's problem" as a justification for clubs & associations doing naff all about the problem. Usually trotted out after Response 2.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Err... Flintoff chucks, Bell took that debatable caught-and-bowled in Pakistan last November, and Hall, god knows. Obviously no mention of Rashid "I didn't drop it" Latif, but hey, can't let race get in the way of things.

Can we please try and keep this constructive?

Not to mention Inzamam "it didn't hit the ground" Ul-Haq - what he did off Strauss in the ODI the other day was exactly the same thing that Bell did.

 

[BoyBrumby]

No, but a religious taunt is also not a racial taunt. Basically anything that targets people outside of that specific player is out of bounds.

Calling someone an SOB is ok, calling someone a n***** SOB is not. Because the latter offends more than just that specific player. Its the same thing about nationality. Sometimes its done in good fun and jest, but the line can be crossed quickly.

Religion is a tricky one because "Jewish" (not that I can think of any current Jewish test players, but anyway) is also almost interchangable as a religious/racial classification.

I'm going to make a sweeping statement here & I apologise for it in advance, but religion is probably more important to Asian teams (& seemingly Pakistan in particular) than to other test nations; England, NZ, Oz & The Windies are all quite secular nations & this is reflected in their players. There are a few Saffie Christians (less than there used to be now) in their team so they're possibly a boderline case. With that in mind I would say it would be an offence of a greater magnitude to call (say) Inzi a "Muslim so-an-so" than it would be to call (say) Michael Vaughan a "Christian so-and-so". It'd be water off a duck's back to MPV as he isn't a Christian in any real meaningful way.

 

[silentstriker]

Religion is a tricky one because "Jewish" (not that I can think of any current Jewish test players, but anyway) is also almost interchangable as a religious/racial classification.

I'm going to make a sweeping statement here & I apologise for it in advance, but religion is probably more important to Asian teams (& seemingly Pakistan in particular) than to other test nations; England, NZ, Oz & The Windies are all quite secular nations & this is reflected in their players. There are a few Saffie Christians (less than there used to be now) in their team so they're possibly a boderline case. With that in mind I would say it would be an offence of a greater magnitude to call (say) Inzi a "Muslim so-an-so" than it would be to call (say) Michael Vaughan a "Christian so-and-so". It'd be water off a duck's back to MPV as he isn't a Christian in any real meaningful way.

Well, whether you call someone a Christian so-so, or Muslim so-so, the effect is the same: You are insulting more people than just the immediate player. Devout players may take offense, and secular players may just chuckle, but that type of abuse affects too many people to be allowed.

Say, you call a windies player a ******. Thats probably going to be just as offensive as calling a Pakistani player some kind of religious name. Point is - whenever you make a broad statement regarding a group of people - you get into dicey territory.

 

[wpdavid]

Well said. I'm not that ancient (honestly! ) & I can recall John Barnes rather stylishly back-heeling a bunch of bananas thrown by some Everton fans. That was late 80s; 1987 or 88 I'd guess.

It was 1988 - by when Everton had yet to find a single black player good enough to make their starting XI. You may also remember the abuse Barnes had to take from a bunch of NF goons on the flight back from S. America in 1984, which was the tour when he scored that stunning goal in the Maracana. I really must get round to reading "Out of his skin", or whatever the book was called about his experiences as the first high profile black player in Liverpool.

Nowadays we, as a football watching nation, are rightly appalled when our black footballers are subjected to monkey chants in (say) Macedonia. Shows how far we've come & (happily) that progress has been made.

Yup. But I do shudder when Motty makes a point of commenting on it after years of completely ignoring the same thing in this country.

That said I'm still to be convinced that white Australian fans calling white South African cricketers a yarpie or whatever is a "racial" taunt. It's not (for me at least) in the same ballpark as calling someone a black whathaveyou & muddies the waters a bit for me. That isn't to say I condone the abuse.

There does seem to be a fair bit of hypocrisy where abuse, racial or otherwise, is concerned. People object to their players copping it, but are generally happy to dismiss abuse from their own fans as "banter". I do wonder how big a problem racist abuse is in cricket.

 

[Langeveldt]

That said I'm still to be convinced that white Australian fans calling white South African cricketers a yarpie or whatever is a "racial" taunt. It's not (for me at least) in the same ballpark as calling someone a black whathaveyou & muddies the waters a bit for me. That isn't to say I condone the abuse.

Yarpie AFAIK is irrelevent, It's when they start calling people "Kaffir Boetie's" (N**** Brothers), thats where the problem lies.. There is racial abuse, and then there is racial abuse

 

[wpdavid]

Yarpie AFAIK is irrelevent, It's when they start calling people "Kaffir Boetie's" (N**** Brothers), thats where the problem lies.. There is racial abuse, and then there is racial abuse

Yeah, that's the one I remember. What's the current thinking about those clowns - expat Saffies or native Aus?

 

[BoyBrumby]

My Afrikaans is a bit rusty, but doesn't kaffir just mean "non-believer"?

 

[Langeveldt]

Yeah, that's the one I remember. What's the current thinking about those clowns - expat Saffies or native Aus?

Hard to tell, probably a mixture of both, although Nel and Smith said in SASI that they were as far as they could tell native Aussies..

However I'm not sure how a native Aussie would know what a Kaffir or a Boetie was, but most of the SA expat population in Aus support SA still at both cricket and rugby.. Confusing really.

And why would you call a white guy a Kaffir Boetie?

 

[Langeveldt]

My Afrikaans is a bit rusty, but doesn't kaffir just mean "non-believer"?

Nope, it means the same as Ni****

 

[BoyBrumby]

Nope, it means the same as Ni****

It's come to mean that, but I'm 99% certain it originally meant non-believer or heathen.

Anyway, it's certainly an ethnic slur nowadays.