How Yorkshire CCC racism scandal betrays young people – Jayne Dowle

The first thing to know is that although barbed comments, slurs and name-calling may be dismissed as ‘banter’, there’s nothing casual about it.

Yorkshire CCC shames this county as Azeem Rafiq racism scandal deepens – The Yorkshire Post says

As Yorkshire County Cricket Club is finding out to its shame, such so-called banter quickly becomes a charge of institutional racism, brought against the club by its former player Azeem Rafiq.

Yorkshire CCC reputation is beyond repair over Azeem Rafiq racism scandal – Peter Eastwood

This situation does our county no good at all – regressive culture is being exposed which shames Yorkshire cricket in general and certain participants in particular.

There has been much hand-wringing about how professional cricket, not just in Yorkshire, but across England has become so dominated by white players.

As I said, I’m not qualified to comment on this, but I do know that there is a nasty undercurrent of racism which infiltrates all our towns, cities and villages. And it should have no place in 21st-century Britain.

If anything positive is to emerge from this scandal, it should be that we all take a long, hard look at our own attitudes, challenge our assumptions and examine the language that we might use, often unthinkingly, to describe other people.

In the last decade or so, Barnsley, where I live, has become much more diverse. I accept that there are plenty of people who don’t like this, and who make their displeasure loudly known.

Sad to say, it’s often a generational thing. I’ve stood in the market queuing to be served and heard old ladies make the most derogatory comments about people walking by, making assumptions that they are “foreign” and therefore presumably stone deaf.

I know several elderly gentlemen, extremely polite and respectful in all other ways, who use offensive racist terms and take great offence if anyone dares to pull them up on their choice of words.

“But I’m not racist”, they protest. And this in itself is a huge part of the challenge; apparently like some of the YCCC officials still in denial, they blithely assume that it’s acceptable to say certain things that are, without doubt, unacceptable.

“It’s just a descriptive thing, like having red hair or one leg,” one older chap at a local volunteer group once told me when I commented that a certain word was not appropriate to use in conversation.

To some extent (although still not right), that’s understandable, but it is never acceptable to use judgemental terms about ethnicity. That’s the line that must not be crossed. And it’s why this kind of attitude must be rooted out and challenged at every turn – left to proliferate it inevitably has far nastier repercussions.

I’ve brought up my two teenagers to never judge anyone by the colour of their skin, their religion, sexuality or where they live. I’m pleased to say that I’ve never heard either of them utter a questionable term that could in any way be denoted as racist.

In fact, I’d go so far as it to say that both my son and daughter go out of their way to make all other people feel okay. In their eyes, there should simply be no racism and every individual should be judged basically on whether they’re a nice person or not. It’s that simple.

Their schools and college, to be fair, have gone a long way towards promoting and supporting such tolerance. And this does give me hope for the future.

I won’t be popular for saying this, but it’s at home where the nasty attitudes take deepest root. I’ve had to personally intervene when accompanying my daughter to dance competitions, to tell certain individuals that their racist comments about particular dancers are out of order. On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself reprimanding a mother, not a daughter. What annoys me is that in these situations there’s a kind of complicit assumption that everybody will agree. For the record, I don’t. I find it disgusting.

Jack tells me that he’s heard other people make rude comments about an African family who regularly shop in the supermarket where he works, but he goes out of his way to help them just to make a point to his less-tolerant co-workers.

I’m proud of him for setting such an example. Small acts of kindness and acceptance are what make the real difference. As a keen footballer and observer of the sport, he has seen how the Black Lives Matter movement has made such an impact in recent years, but it’s the everyday actions which will lead towards an equitable and non-judgemental society.

It’s sad to say that as the shameful situation at Yorkshire Country Cricket Club indicates, some corners of society are still living in the past. However, I can report that, on the evidence I see, young people are setting an example that many others would do well to follow – starting at Headingley.

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