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Racism at Yorkshire CCC

It is systemic and been that way for decades.

Syd Lawrence had a banana skin pushed through the bottom of the door of his hotel room while playing for Gloucestershire.

Phil de Freitas was told by the National Front his and his family's lives were in danger if he ever played for England.

Dean Headley was told he was soft.

Chris Lewis was told he doesn't bother trying as much against black players.

Devon Malcolm, who had destroyed South Africa at The Oval and was feted by Nelson Mandela in the return series, was told by the England coaches he was a nonentity and couldn't bowl.

When a coach had his car stereo stolen, the first thing he did was accuse Michael Carberry of stealing it, in front of the rest of the team.

Wisden cricket magazine referred to black players as negroes and said they didn't have the same commitment to England as white players.

This is before everything at Yorkshire came out, and is beginning to seep out at Essex.

There's your bottom line. Institutionalised racism for decades which had been ignored for decades until now.

It needs rooting out and kept out of sport and society. Not used as an opportunity for whataboutery to keep the status quo. It's how the bigots win. Not now though. It's time to get to fuck whataboutery and confront bigotry in all its forms head on. If that makes the apologists for YCCC uncomfortable, good.
 

The Hesford Diet said:
It is systemic and been that way for decades.

Syd Lawrence had a banana skin pushed through the bottom of the door of his hotel room while playing for Gloucestershire.

Phil de Freitas was told by the National Front his and his family's lives were in danger if he ever played for England.

Dean Headley was told he was soft.

Chris Lewis was told he doesn't bother trying as much against black players.

Devon Malcolm, who had destroyed South Africa at The Oval and was feted by Nelson Mandela in the return series, was told by the England coaches he was a nonentity and couldn't bowl.

When a coach had his car stereo stolen, the first thing he did was accuse Michael Carberry of stealing it, in front of the rest of the team.

Wisden cricket magazine referred to black players as negroes and said they didn't have the same commitment to England as white players.

This is before everything at Yorkshire came out, and is beginning to seep out at Essex.

There's your bottom line. Institutionalised racism for decades which had been ignored for decades until now.

It needs rooting out and kept out of sport and society. Not used as an opportunity for whataboutery to keep the status quo. It's how the bigots win. Not now though. It's time to get to fuck whataboutery and confront bigotry in all its forms head on. If that makes the apologists for YCCC uncomfortable, good.
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Good post. But you ignored the Dominic Cummings argument
 
Steak Pie said:
Progress comes in two stages, very very slowly then very very quickly. With regard to racism, it feels like we're reaching stage two.

Progress always comes eventually. It doesn't matter how long those that love the status quo try to obstruct, they will lose as the next generations take over. They will look at a phrases such as 'virtue signalling' and 'PC gone mad' with disdain, old language for those who resisted change.
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Sometimes, sometimes things end up going backwards as well. History of the human world is a mixture of civilisations progressing and then turning to shite over and over again ain't it.
 
Chatty83 said:
Sometimes, sometimes things end up going backwards as well. History of the human world is a mixture of civilisations progressing and then turning to shite over and over again ain't it.
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Racism issues do get better with every generation. We still regularly see the ugly side of racism as we have in recent days and indeed on this thread. However we don’t have Jim Davidson on the telly in fron if 20 million viewers telling racist jokes and the black and white minstrels where it was much more generally accepted. In schools equality is part of the curriculum and you would never get kids under 25 making the arguments that say Behind Enemy Lines or the SAfC kid make. As older people die off, younger people more educated in equality replace them.
 
Steak Pie said:
Progress comes in two stages, very very slowly then very very quickly. With regard to racism, it feels like we're reaching stage two.

Progress always comes eventually. It doesn't matter how long those that love the status quo try to obstruct, they will lose as the next generations take over. They will look at a phrases such as 'virtue signalling' and 'PC gone mad' with disdain, old language for those who resisted change.
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Virtue signalling is to constantly reiterate righteous thoughts and beliefs to others [online] to garner acceptance & show what great morals you have. Despite potentially not leading that life away from a phone or computer screen.

it’s a massive scourge of social media

And you think that is just a myth and something used by those who resist change.

Okay. Sound.
 
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rentaghost said:
Racism issues do get better with every generation. We still regularly see the ugly side of racism as we have in recent days and indeed on this thread. However we don’t have Jim Davidson on the telly in fron if 20 million viewers telling racist jokes and the black and white minstrels where it was much more generally accepted. In schools equality is part of the curriculum and you would never get kids under 25 making the arguments that say Behind Enemy Lines or the SAfC kid make. As older people die off, younger people more educated in equality replace them.
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That's like the history of West from the last 80 years though. There's no guarantee that we crack racism and then down the line when our society inevitably goes to shit that it doesn't start up again.

I mean hopefully it won't but it probably will go down that route as that seems to be the case of all the Empires, eventually something will fragment it and itll fall apart and from the ashes there will be lots of carnage until another empire takes charge.

Let's say in the next 50 years the west ends up in some form of a war with China (obviously hope not) but if that happens then you can guarantee than racism towards East Asian people would go through the roof.

As sad as it is, it's often just the way of humans, we are tribal by nature.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Why is that the first thing that springs to mind? It's not the first thing that came to mine. My first thoughts were that he's been an arsehole, but I never thought it made his claims about racism any less valid.
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I dont know mate, I barely know anything about the wholre thing but I do know you need to be squeaky clean.
 
SAFCOldie said:
I dont know mate, I barely know anything about the wholre thing but I do know you need to be squeaky clean.
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I disagree, with all due respect. Rafiq having made anti semitic remarks does not negate the years of vile racist abuse he suffered. In order for a person to be treated properly it isn't necessary for them to be perfect. I'm reminded of an incident many years ago during the miners strike in 1984. A few of my mates had set up a musical evening to raise funds for the striking members. At the time there were a few people up from London as part of a wider support network and they came along to watch the music. We were in a pub (in Stanley) and somebody had organised a bit of a spread. While we were hanging round the bar there were a couple of women from London standing next to the food table. They were what would have been known back then as your typical 'SWP Wimmin‘ types. One of the lads we were with went over to get some bait and as he did so he said to one of the lasses 'Excuse me pet, can I just nip in here' and budged one of them aside. There was nowt malicious about it, just a gentle nudge to get himself a bit of space. Fuck me, you'd think he'd attacked her. She started going on about how sexist he was calling her 'pet' and throwing his weight about. It ended up with her attempting to lecture people about the language we should use and how she'd come all the way up to Newcastle (we were in Stanley like, all the same to her I suppose) and how we didn't deserve to be supported. I lost my rag a bit and told her to fuckoff back to where she'd came from. In my view the man's behaviour was irrelevant. It wouldn't have mattered if he'd been a racist, or a sexist. The point was she was supposed to be there supporting the cause of the striking miners. The behaviour of those miners is irrelevant. You either support them or you don't, never mind how they behave. I feel the same way about Rafiq.He might be a bit of an arsehole, but it doesn't matter. What ultimately matters is the racism he suffered. That's the issue here, nowt else.
 
rentaghost said:
I could dismantle and systematically destroy this post but by bit but haven’t got the time and inclination and this thread is having an impact on my own mental health. It smacks of someone who has taken a quarter interest in the story - being unaware of the background to why Rafiq returned to Yorkshire for example. Yet another example of someone who had little interest in this when all they knew was a person of colour being systematically racially abused on a daily basis by white cricketers, administrators, managers and commentators etc. then had massive interest when person of colour is seen to have sent a couple of unjustifiable racists tweets 10 years ago when he was a teenager. I had decided to give this thread a wide birth but when you see racism and bigotry right in front of you it’s really difficult.

Les Ferdinand who is a vehement anti racist and had done some great work regarding racism definitely wouldn’t have seen the funny side.
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There’s a video of Les Ferdinand being shown the photo of a young Newcastle fan that ‘blacked up’ pretending to be Ferdinand who he idolised. Les thought it was hilarious.
 
SAFCOldie said:
I dont know mate, I barely know anything about the wholre thing but I do know you need to be squeaky clean.
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So do you think when Rafiq was suffering day in, day out systematic racist abuse and not been supported when he asked for help to the extent that he contemplated taking his own life he should have kept quiet on the basis that he had sent a racist tweet once as a teenager 10 years ago?
 
rentaghost said:
So do you think when Rafiq was suffering day in, day out systematic racist abuse and not been supported when he asked for help to the extent that he contemplated taking his own life he should have kept quiet on the basis that he had sent a racist tweet once as a teenager 10 years ago?
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I wouldn’t bother. It was posted in prime oldie drinking/talking shite time.
 
SAFCOldie said:
I dont know mate, I barely know anything about the wholre thing but I do know you need to be squeaky clean.
Click to expand...
Well have a read of this 57 page witness statement submitted to the government.

Then you might be able to offer up something valuable

You must be logged on to see external links
 
The Hesford Diet said:
It is systemic and been that way for decades.

Syd Lawrence had a banana skin pushed through the bottom of the door of his hotel room while playing for Gloucestershire.

Phil de Freitas was told by the National Front his and his family's lives were in danger if he ever played for England.

Dean Headley was told he was soft.

Chris Lewis was told he doesn't bother trying as much against black players.

Devon Malcolm, who had destroyed South Africa at The Oval and was feted by Nelson Mandela in the return series, was told by the England coaches he was a nonentity and couldn't bowl.

When a coach had his car stereo stolen, the first thing he did was accuse Michael Carberry of stealing it, in front of the rest of the team.

Wisden cricket magazine referred to black players as negroes and said they didn't have the same commitment to England as white players.

This is before everything at Yorkshire came out, and is beginning to seep out at Essex.

There's your bottom line. Institutionalised racism for decades which had been ignored for decades until now.

It needs rooting out and kept out of sport and society. Not used as an opportunity for whataboutery to keep the status quo. It's how the bigots win. Not now though. It's time to get to fuck whataboutery and confront bigotry in all its forms head on. If that makes the apologists for YCCC uncomfortable, good.
Click to expand...

I heard Syd Lawrence interviewed on Radio Gloucestershire during half time of our FA Cup match against Gillingham.

He said when that incident happened it was obviously awful and shocking but that it was just how things were in the UK society back then. He said Glos CCC have since apologised and he is confident the club is different and there would be no issues now. But that he thinks Yorkshire must be stuck in the past and the attitudes of the 70s and 80s remain there.
 
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