What constitutes racism?

[Workingman]

Does anybody know any more?

We keep hearing that this footballer, athlete, sleb has suffered racist abuse, but we never, ever, get any details of that abuse.

Azeem Rafiq is one. He has had a long running campaign against Yorkshire CCC resulting in it being suspended from International cricket matches because it did not take "appropriate" action in his case. What action should have been taken? We do not know because we have no details of the 'racism' he apparently suffered.

Back in the day "No dogs, Irish or blacks" on rental adverts was blatantly racist. Who knows what it is nowadays?

[TheOstrich]

Who knows what it is nowadays?

The simple answer - racism is in the eye of the beholder.

But what concerns me over Ballance is that he thought it was mate's joshing, lads in a crowd, sort of thing. Silly schoolboy humour. But that's not acceptable these days.
We all know what was said, which I won't commit to print on this forum for the usual reasons.
Rafiq appeared to have originally accepted the joshing in order to fit in, but has since decided it was racist abuse and gone public about it.

In an alternative universe, Rafiq would have sat down with Ballance, told him his joshing upset him, Ballance would have apologised profusely, bought him a pint after the apology was accepted, and never done it again.
But of course in this universe, Ballance has to be pilloried and suspended indefinitely, YCC lose Headingly Test Matches until they have rehabilitated themselves, and goodness knows how many sponsors have now pulled out in fright.

I know which universe I'd rather live in, but then I'm old, un-woke, and basically tiddled off with the whole modern scene.
Whippersnappers like you, WM, are going to have to live with it! Mind how you go, now .....

[victor]

Snowflakes.

I am surprised that compensation hasn't come into play yet

[cromwell]

Compensation is already in the air Vic. Rafiq has turned down an offer of £100,000 from Yorkshire according to Wikipedia. The offer was conditional on him saying nothing.
What constitutes racism?
Well it seems to me that you have to be white to be racist; that's the way the accusations always fall. Obviously in theory any colour can be racist; in reality it always seems to be whites. Racism is used as an accusation to shut people up and intimidate discussion on touchy subjects. It is the worst thing you can be accused of; it can and does destroy careers.
Also because it is such a dreadful accusation, the police (for instance) will tread very carefully in certain circumstances, to avoid the accusation.
Racism is a very hard creed if applied logically. If there are 200 different races in the world and you are fine with 199 of them, but irrationally dislike the 200th then you are a racist.
Personally I pay as little attention as I can to racism. For a fact people with certain views use it as a tool to suppress debate, intimidate people and advance their own agenda. For me the accusation has lost it's force.

As far as Yorkshire CCC is concerned, there have been other accusations so this one isn't a surprise. One person who played at Yorkshire and is known to my son's gf has described Rafiq a a trouble causer. Maybe. Maybe also he had reason to be.
Certainly a few years ago a captain of Yorkshire was disciplined for calling an opposing player a "Kolpak ****" and told him to get back to his own country.
Yorkshire CCC has had a long, long history of internal fall outs going back decades and it looks like it's still the case.


ETA - More allegations have come out. The latest is from an unnamed player but is obviously I.smail D.awood, who used to keep wicket for Yorkshire. I think this is going to get pretty nasty.

[Workingman]

The "P" word pisses me off. We can contract the "stans" and add an 's' for plural - Afghans, Baluchs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Tajiks - and all is fine, but if it is done to Pakistanis it becomes a racial slur.

I live just up the road from Headingley and when teams from there play you get the chants "Come on England", "Come on you P...s", "Come on England", "Come on you P...s". They use it to describe themselves but nobody else can. Double standards.

The racist card is freely used yet we rarely get to know what the racism was or is. We can see it when ethnic players disgustingly have bananas or monkey nuts thrown at them - that's full blown racism. If Rashford or Sterling are having a bad game and supporters shout "You're crap, get off the pitch" that's racist, but if Kane or Maguire have a bad game (it has been known) and the same is directed at them it's all fine and dandy.

I am rapidly starting to lose support for those who make racism claims, especially when they do not back them up, and I suspect that I am not alone.

[Suff]

Who knows what it is nowadays?

The simple answer - racism is in the eye of the beholder.

Actually I was thinking

Racism is in the eye of the Offended

And we are building a society of people who become offended if you don't agree with them on every single thing they say.

[cromwell]

We are building a society of people who become offended if you don't agree with them on every single thing they say.

There's a point to that, imo it is not accidental.
If you can shut 1,000 people up because one person is "offended" then what you are actually doing is placing minority attitudes above majority attitudes and beliefs; it's like democracy in reverse. Like the party with the least votes get to be the government.
"Offence" is another trick to shut people up and suppress debate; in particular I'm thinking of how Trans people - a vanishingly small minority - are managing to suppress feminist views by claiming "transphobia". They are just taking offence and shutting other views down.
It's nuts, but they are getting away with it.

[Suff]

You might, or might not, have noticed that BLM went quite quiet when one of their activists was shot.

By a black person.

Didn't fit the narrative, need more time for it to be forgotten.