A New Spinner on Our Bad Habits
January 10th, 2008
[Blogger: S.I.] Yes, I used a cricket pun in the title. But this is more serious than that.
This will be one of my shorter rants. The recent controversy from the cricket match between India and Australia has disappointed me. Not because Indians are accused of making racist comments, and not because the Aussies have taken offense. Though they have some stories of their own, right Lleyton Hewitt (”Just look at ‘im mate!”)?
Instead, I’m sadly unsurprised that Indian player Harbhajan Singh targeted Andrew Symonds, an Australian player of mixed African descent (I believe part from the West Indies), with the term “monkey,” and I’m a bit disgusted at how some have tried to play it off.
Will we ever learn?
It’s a cricket match. In my eyes, not nearly the kind of heated affair that American football is, or world football (yes, soccer), or basketball is. But clearly it’s all that matters to some people. Fine. I get that it’s competitive, and as it’s a bunch of men swinging heavy sticks, it of course means that tempers flare. I even understand that the Aussies seemed to have been goading the Indians before the slur, and some sketchy calls went against us.
But I don’t care, because it doesn’t justify the comment. Considering that Symonds was greeted with the slur when his team was in India, I don’t think it requires a leap of faith to assume Singh used it as well. And when you look at just how hypocritical it is, maybe you’ll feel a little ashamed of our boys as well.
We’re Indians. We’ve subjugated various segments of our own people for thousands of years, to no great effect other than to weaken the society and the culture by excluding capable citizens, or denying them basics to such an extent that they became incapable, thus fitting the imposed stereotypes. The government tried to change this kind of caste discrimination. Gandhi tried as well, along with a slew of others. The increasing presence of “caste no bar” matrimonial ads would indicate that society has decided that caste bigotry is indeed an unwanted and morally reprehensible quality. If you agree with me on that, then Singh’s discriminatory comment should be taken as all the more backward, because it’s imposing the same thinking that our own people currently struggle against. Some of them, at least.
We were also invaded by a couple different groups throughout history, and on the whole, we’ve been stepped on because of our race, deemed to be inferior to the invading stock. I believe we’ve proven otherwise. But if we’re so stupid that we then turn around and do the same to another race in our very position, I feel we’re only proving that we may indeed lack mentally. At the very least, we’re not learning from history. This same kind of episode has repeated itself in Africa, where Indians acted similar to the white powers, lording over the natives.
And on a more specific note, Singh himself is a minority that’s unjustly lampooned day in and day out. It’s like you can’t go out in an Indian city without hearing a “Sardhar” joke, and his people have faced discrimination from other Indians frequently enough that there are always fresh reminders. All this while Sikhs comprise a huge portion of the Indian army, protecting the nation. For him more than others on the team, the idea of racial inequities and discrimination should hit close to home. I guess, judging by his comment, it did.
And the real let down is that Singh’s comments probably won’t be thought of much in India when the furor dies down. In fact, people might support it. Some have even tried to say that Indians revere monkeys, so the comment was more of a compliment, or at least, Singh must not have understood that it was a slur. Pa-thetic.
I get that few countries are as PC as the US, and every country everywhere is racist in some way. I even had a random uncle try to convince me that it’s scientifically proven that blacks aren’t as smart as the rest of the world, and that Indian children from another part of India couldn’t be as smart as we are, hailing from the Tamil segment of Bangalore. So, maybe I’m making too big a deal of it.
Or maybe no one else cares enough to realize that this kind of hypocrisy cripples us on multiple levels, from our bigotry towards people from outside and inside our own race, to those who complain about how India’s lost her natural beauty as they littler the ground with styrofoam, to the politicians who shake a fist at corruption while the other hand waits, open, for the next bribe.
Can’t we do better than this?
UPDATE: Apparently Singh admitted to “using abusive language” which the Australians must have “misunderstood” to be “monkey.”
Tags: Andrew Symonds, Australia, Cricket, Harbhajan Singh, Sikh / Sikhism
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January 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 am
I’m racist - when I was a kid, I used to play frisbee, and after we got bored of D-O-N-K-E-Y, we started playing for M-O-N-K-E-Y. Really, unless the world is divided into the monkey-race and the human-race, I dont understand how the comment is racist. There’s this Hindi actor called Rahul Roy. I thought he looked like a horse. I still think he looks like a horse. I look at Tamil Superstar - Ajith, and I think he looks like an eagle. Am I racist?
All I’m trying to say is that no one means “monkey” as a racist comment in India. You have no idea how many people I had to explain the funda to. So many people, in all earnestness ask me, “I think he looks like a monkey. I call him a monkey. Is that racist?”
And where was the Politically Correct Media when Jayasuriya was called “Black Monkey” (caught on stump camera) by Glenn McGrath? If this is racist, then that is too. And if this is lop-sided media attention isn’t racism, I don’t know what racism is!
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
“And where was the Politically Correct Media when Jayasuriya was called “Black Monkey” (caught on stump camera) by Glenn McGrath? If this is racist, then that is too.”
exactly. so why do you think it’s fair to call someone else monkey? just because someone else did it to you doesnt make it fair game. if it was wrong then, its prolly wrong now.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I am making two points:
a. Harbhajan Singh’s comments (if he even made them at all) weren’t racist. We (Indians) frankly don’t understand why “monkey” would be a racist slur.
b. The media is racist. Not one Australian newspaper, journalist or media person came out to condemn McGrath’s comments, while they expect or even require the South Asian media to be supportive of their cause. So, as I said earlier, “And if this is lop-sided media attention isn’t racism, I don’t know what racism is!”
Oh, on another note - have you seen the “reasoned order” of Mike Procter? While we’re playing the call-everyone-around-you-racist game, we might as well call Mike Procter racist for that judgment - he takes the word of three Australians, but ignores the fact the nobody else heard it. Check that out here - http://lawandotherthings.blogs.....ision.html
January 24th, 2008 at 5:45 am
“It’s a cricket match. In my eyes, not nearly the kind of heated affair that American football is, or world football (yes, soccer), or basketball is. But clearly it’s all that matters to some people. Fine. I get that it’s competitive, and as it’s a bunch of men swinging heavy sticks, it of course means that tempers flare.”
Not warranted at all. Don’t comment on issues you don’t understand. Have you ever played a game of competitive cricket? (Not some game organised by the Indian uncles of your neighbourhood who feel nostalgic about those days when they played cricket in their little gully.) Play one game and you’ll never think that cricket isn’t a contact sport.
“But I don’t care, because it doesn’t justify the comment. Considering that Symonds was greeted with the slur when his team was in India, I don’t think it requires a leap of faith to assume Singh used it as well.”
Did I just read that?? You’re sounding more and more like Mike Procter. Is that how you’ve convinced yourself that those words were said? Hell, Procter’s judgment doesn’t even tell you what was said! I know there’s a lawyer who reads this space, I’d like to ask him to read through that judgment and tell you if its fair, or if that reasoning and logic appeals to him. (I’m assuming it appeals to you, because you’ve stated it in this post.)
On another note, this reminds me of something from literature - very disturbing literature - Albert Camus’ “The Outsider” (What will you post on next - how it shocks you that the illiterate scofflaws in India have learnt to read?) where the protagonist gets convicted for a murder, even though evidence was not fully conclusive based on the fact that he didn’t show grief when his mother died. Harbhajan isn’t being convicted, by your own logic, for what he allegedly said in Sydney (which no one is able to prove conclusively), but for what the crowds did in India.
“We’re Indians. We’ve subjugated various segments of our own people for thousands of years, to no great effect other than to weaken the society and the culture by excluding capable citizens, or denying them basics to such an extent that they became incapable, thus fitting the imposed stereotypes.”
Yes. Of course, the West was always benevolent and fair to everyone around. The Indians and the Blacks in the US were integrated in society very early on, and they’ve always been treated with the greatest respect. Martin Luther’s most famous speech was about Freud’s theories on the interpretation of dreams. Feudalism in Europe never happened. The Aborigines in Australia were a part of Australia’s mainstream. The French Revolution was only a war between competing cosmetics giants. The Holocaust, as many websites say, never happened. Face it - the caste system has existed in every culture, although not with the same name. To use this to say that we, specifically, should not indulge in racism is immature.
The reason it irks you that Harbhajan gets support from many quarters is because you believe that as non-whites, we Indians should not doubt the intentions or allegations made by the Whites. They have no reason to lie, but we have centuries of subjugation to take revenge against. Right?
January 24th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
To respond to your last couple of comments:
1) I cannot believe that we Indians don’t consider the term “monkey,” when directed at someone of darker skin, to be racist. You’ve claimed that I’m undercutting Indians’ intelligence and development. Well, saying that Indians “don’t understand why monkey would be a racist slur” undercuts our ability to grasp the world in which we live. Only someone with very little knowledge of the outside world could claim that he did not know “monkey” would be a slur. And having been subjugated by the Brits for all those years, I think we’re familiar with racial slurs, be it “Darkie”, “Sami”, or any other enjoyable terms. What happened with the match in India would only make the connotations of “monkey” plain as day for any cricket fan (as though those chanting it didn’t know what they were doing—if you claim that, you’d be assuming they were a bunch of uneducated bumpkins).
2) The Australian papers are doing what most regional papers do, wrong or right–defend their boys. Had this happened in India, with an Aussie calling Singh a “darkie,” do you really believe the Indo papers would have leaped to the Aussie’s defense, even if there had been words exchanged beforehand?
On to your more recent post:
1) Fair enough. I have not played a “competitive” game of cricket. But to the naked eye, on TV, in person, and from those who have played, it is not quite the “contact” sport that football or basketball is. I do not, however, have first hand knowledge of this. But my point, which I did not clarify well, is less about the sport and more about the fact that it is sports, period. And sports are far less important than the vast majority of things in life. I know it’s country vs. country, national pride, etc., but there are more things to focus on in both countries, and if fixed, those issues should be a source of far more pride than winning a match. So that people would get worked up to slur-throwing levels in any sports appears foolish.
2) The judgment by the ref is irrelevant to me. To me, this was all about the intent and goes well beyond the context of cricket. You are correct in that I assume Singh said it. I don’t think people generally make up allegations of racial slurs. Maybe it’s common, maybe I’m too much on an optimist. Just know that, if the Indian team said they had been called a slur, I’d believe them too. Had there been words or actions exchanged before those comments? I’m sure. The penalty, considering there’s no actual proof, does seem a bit stiff.
But it’s when other Indians try to justify his comment (“if it even happened”), with arguments like yours (“we didn’t know it was a slur” / “They’ve done it to us”) that brings me to the bigger point…
3) You treat slurs and racism like a tit-for-tat exchange. Like two children who get into a fight (”He started it!”), you make it sound like, because other people have done it, it’s not a big deal for Indians to be racist. As though I’m some sort of self-hater who is shocked that we can read. Ha.
My question is, shouldn’t we hold ourselves to a higher standard? My stance stems from my Indian pride. It takes love to care about something enough to want it to be the best it can be. I take pride in how we haven’t invaded countries, haven’t persecuted others based on religion (at least, that kind of conflict is pretty new to us), etc. At the same time, I am Indian. I know how we talk. I’ve had uncles try to convince me that it’s a scientific impossibility for blacks to be as smart as Indians (and Indians from other regions to be as smart as us). And his views did not raise an eyebrow. At least in the US, the word “kallu” is all too often used when a pejorative statements about blacks is on the way.
To pretend we don’t discriminate about others would be a mistake. Yes, all races do, as we know firsthand. But that still includes us. And if you think I’ve got excess love for the white man, I invite you to read any other posts in this blog.
The reason all this really irks me is because we can be better. Racism will always exist, but for people who have firsthand been subjugated to sink to the lows of the oppressors and use it ourselves, or to justify it “if” it happened? Pride isn’t justifying our faults (“My friend is fat, so why can I be obese as well?”). It’s correcting them, even when everyone else says there’s no point or we’re wrong. To paraphrase and extrapolate on what one famous Indian said, one who is a great source of pride to me, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
Maybe your definition of pride and mine differ.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:55 am
To Aandthirtyeight & SI :
Enjoyed your posts, and the discussion on Bhaji’s case, although Aandthirtyeight (A38) at times was a bit emotionally driven. A38, when you said:
(What will you post on next - how it shocks you that the illiterate scofflaws in India have learnt to read?)
I thought that was an unfair prediction of SI given this post and a bit of an unnecessarily attacking statement.
With regards to the case itself:
Bhaji calling Symmonds a “monkey” can certainly be construed as a racist. However, without proving that Bhaji INTENDED for it to be RACIST may be a bit too difficult. Sure, it was an insult. Sure, it seems like Bhaji was looking to piss Symmonds off, but to say Bhaji was being racist, where I define a racist statement as one in which the perpetrator intended to say something about a person’s race (or make a decision based on race as the case may be), then we cannot call Bhai’s statement as such.
I believe this cuts to the heart of the disagreement between SI and A38. It is the nuanced differences in their respective definitions of racism that is the cause of debate.
All said, I commend the two, NRI and home-grown Indian, for the debate. I think NRI’s and those who have grown up India all have very unique vantage points, and this forum provides an excellent opportunity for healthy debate in the spirit of FIRST, understanding and learning different views and SECOND playful joking to assert our identities.