Mike Procter interview

[smash84]

Just my thoughts... I'm white and have short hair so the abuse I come in for is more commonly of the straightforward "you're a ****" variety which is (a) tolerable and (b) accurate.

 

[honestbharani]

Does it matter which is worse? The point is neither should happen.

When I was 15, a girl I knew referred to a lad as a 'long haired freak'. I was growing my hair out at the time and thought the comment poor so I told her so. Should I have called her a black ****? Of course not because even if you considered the two comments equally poor (not even close for mine) it still doesn't excuse the latter act. Racism isn't just offensive to the recipient and I think that's a point being missed. This isn't a case of 'can give it but not take it' it's a simple case of racism being wrong.

I would agree with that and just to make it clear, I don't think I said anywhere in this thread that racist slurs are not offensive to people at all. It is just that there are other abuses which are just as offensive to people and unfortunately ICC doesn't seem to think that way. Most certainly, Mike Procter didn't.


I see that people have conveniently side stepped what Procter said when he WAS a ICC Match Official, which showed he was blatantly biased and seemingly proud of it.

 

[smash84]

Can you elaborate on that. I think I've read the Cevno post you're referring to but I'm not sure.

If what I think you're getting at is correct, I don't buy it. Set foot in Malaysia and you'll see incredible amounts of racist comments from "Malay" Malaysians against "Chinese" Malaysians. One can easily argue that the genocide massacres that occurred in Rwanda (Tutsi vs Hutu) are another example. Sure they're both black, but parts of the population were massacred based on their ethnicity.

.

I am at work but I definitely want to reply to this.

 

[honestbharani]

This is what I came here to post. Racism is socially corrosive in a way that other forms of abuse are not. It is often extraordinarily offensive to the recipient. To take your example of being abused for having long hair, well that might of course be offensive to you, but having long hair is not usually something that is an inalienable and fundamental part of your identity, and your family's identity, in that same way that your race is, most especially if you come from an ethnic minority with all that carries with it.

Just my thoughts... I'm white and have short hair so the abuse I come in for is more commonly of the straightforward "you're a ****" variety which is (a) tolerable and (b) accurate.

I do not argue that at all.. The point is that there is a lot of other personal abuse that may be tolerable to an Englishman or an Aussie but that is just as offensive as any racial slur for a SC guy... If the rules don't see them as equally bad insults, the rules are stupid and biased. End of.

 

[Jono]

I am at work but I definitely want to reply to this.

Do some work you lazy prick

 

[Jono]

I see that people have conveniently side stepped what Procter said when he WAS a ICC Match Official, which showed he was blatantly biased and seemingly proud of it.

Is that the treating Asians differently from others comment?

That was a pathetic comment, no doubt about it. I was fuming when I first found out about it.

 

[Spark]

yes, I agree with that part but that is not what is being discussed here, is it? At least, it is not what I am discussing. Abusing the player and his abilities, to me, is one level of abuse. But racist slurs and abusing one's family, to me, form a level higher than that that deserves to be punished in a no-nonsense way.


The whole ****ing point here is that while I can understand why Aussies and English people would consider racist slurs worse than abusing one's family, to a typical SC player they are the same and therefore, the laws should see them at the same level. I just have a problem with the idea that the racist slurs are the worst a person can hear.. It is not so for a lot of SC players. And last time I checked, cricket is not just played by Aussies and Englishmen.

I think one critical difference that GIMH hinted at is that abusing someone's family, whilst inexcusable if the player in question finds it out of order, is much more of a personal thing.

On the other hand, if you abuse someone racially, because they're black etc., you're not just abusing the person at hand. You are, by extension, insulting and degrading everyone of that race. IMO (and I want to be at pains to specify this - though I could point to many legal frameworks which agree to some extent with this philosophy and I don't agree at all that it's somehow a "western" idea) that makes it that little bit more insidious and intolerable. Again, you're of course free to disagree as these sort of things are all about values, culture and inherently subjective, and this is just my opinion. The main point I want to make it is that I find it completely impossible to accept that, somehow, you can draw a line and say that any abuse/offensive act beyond this line should all be treated as equal. Sorry, but no.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Tbh, I suspect that even engaging with someone like you is a complete waste of time, but I'll give it one last try. You've demonstrated such a variety of dishonest and underhand behaviour on this thread - straw manning, deliberately misrepresenting what other posters have said, etc - that you put me in mind of a global warming fanatic I was debating the other day who quite seriously suggested that the academics at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia who were systematically falsifying and deleting data which did not suport their theories about man-made global warming were justified in doing so, because their fraudulent actions were done "in a good cause".

You take racism very seriously. Good for you. But I can assure you that your noble support for the anti-racist cause does not justify the way you've been carrying on on this thread. In fact, speaking as someone who inherently sympathizes with your position, I would caution that your excesses have done your cause more harm than good.

In a previous post, you wrote:

"I think one instinctively understands racist abuse is of a different magnitude to calling someone a "See You Next Time"."

I think this goes to the heart of the matter. You see, I live in the same country as you, and yet do not do not share your instinctive understanding. Although the colour of my skin is nearer to Muamba's than it is to that of the majority of people in the UK, I don't think the guy who made those stupid comments about him should have been imprisoned. Far from it. But we live in an age in which single-issue monomaniacs who lack all sense of balance hold sway in this area, as they do in "gay, lesbian and transgender rights", "climate change" (the craftily rebranded erstwhile "global warming") and so many other darling areas beloved of liberals.

Consequently a criminal justice system which routinely allows genuine criminals to go scot-free for want of capacity in our overcrowded gaols is called upon to deal - at great expense - with idiots who have simply expressed opinions in areas formerly covered by what used to be considered an inalienable right to free speech, but in which the state has arbitrarily decided to get involved. Once upon a time we would have accepted that the Muamba-baiter's real punishment had already been served; viz. the whole world now knows just how stupid and unpleasant he is. But that is not enough for those who make a living from enforcing political correctness: he must be seen to suffer!

To go back to the quotation from your earlier post, your claim to some universally shared instinctive understanding is clearly absurd, because you can only speak of the social context in which you write: the UK in 2012. Even your parents' generation, in say the 70s, would not have shared the same instinctive understanding. Much less those on the other side of the world, today or then. Does that not furnish a clue as to how and in what respect your reasoning processes are failing? Your touching faith in human progress and mankind's gradual moral improvement over time icontinually being disproved by events.

As for your parents - or those of their generation who did not share the new-fangled view that calling someone a "black ****" is an order of magnitude more heinous than calling him merely a "****" without the modifier -; are they monsters? Or Indians, who don't share your belief. Are they simply less evolved than you - do you expect them to develop your sensitivity to race issues with time -, or are they just wicked?

With all due respect to your rather nonsensical analogy, I will reiterate: abuse is abuse. There is, there can be no hierarchy. Once there is, then what immediately springs up like so many weeds is a fully-developed apparatus of Soviet-style nomenklatura and apparatchiks who get to decide whether three-legged pre-op transexuals trump disabled lesbian dwarves in the totem pole of offendability. These administrators would naturally be given powers to decide who gets the gaol sentence and who the lollypop in screaming fits of mutual abuse, based on the pre-determined hierarchy of privilege which naturally flows out of the line of reasoning you're advocating. I want no part in such totalitarianism. I would rather have genuine free speech, and if speech is to be regulated to curb abuse, then for the rules to be made absolutely clear and non-discriminatory, with no particular groups being awarded special privileges.

You say you're "not advocating a western cultural hegemony", but that's precisely what you're doing. Cricket is played in places that are not as "advanced" as the UK; places where the guy who abused Muamba would have been teased for his stupidity merely and the incident forgotten the next day, rather than it becoming a cause celebre and feeding frenzy for newspapers indulging the British public in one of the "periodic fits of morality" to which Macaulay drew such disdainful attention. Yet you would export your racism cant to Mumbai, Galle, Islamabad and Kingston. Why? Is it because the English invented the game? If so, when do the stewardship rights expire, if ever? Your "when in Rome" comments are equally nonsensical: are you really positing different standards based on where a Test match is played? Once we start thinking in unnatural ways it always has absurd and ludicrous results which by themselves should alert self-aware persons to the fact that their mental compass has led them astray. Clearly you lack the self-reflexive capacity, and are quite incapable of perceiving the absurdity of your position.

Australians began the whole sledging rubbish; to be honest it is to be expected that there would persist even to this day a slightly uncouth edge to the mass of people hailing from an excrescence which was transplanted from and forced to flourish a whole world away from the cultural roots from which it should have been drawing daily nourishment. Hence I do not blame Australians for the distasteful 'ocker' ethos which they used to undermine the spirit of the game from the 70s onwards with this culture of senseless abuse. Like everything else, it soon became a race to the bottom, and the 'pioneers' (yes, Australians have pioneered something!) soon found like most bullies that they were rather better at dishing it out than accepting a taste of their own medicine.

What I do object to is the fleet hypocrisy with which the same loutish crew who thought nothing of making the most sensationally ill-mannered and base sallies to their opponents as a matter of course would turn on the Indians using the numen "racism" as a modern-day crusaders' banner. What we must not now do is to run interference for them by pretending that Harbhajan, who I'm in no doubt did call Symonds a "monkey", is somehow ontologically worse than the benighted Aussies who blazed the trail of abuse for having done so.

Finally the penny drops.

Welcome back C_C.

As for the rest: nah, CBA really.

I could try to formulate a psuedo-intellectual argument (as you're clearly a paid up member of the club; autodidacts love their tupenny ha'penny words to demonstrate how desperately learned they are) & point out that racial abuse demeans (by definition) a whole race and abusing an individual demeans only them, but your mind is as closed as a steel bear trap.

 

[Jono]

Haha never thought it could be CC,

He was always pretty nice to me so surely he wouldn't call me an immature 16 year old, even in a new avatar?

 

[Uppercut]

Wasn't the Tutsi/Hutu thing a pretty much artificial construct designed by a colonial power (Belgium) in order to make their censuses easier, or something? And I believe the definitions as set out by the colonial power effectively designated one of those groups as superior to the other (anthropologically speaking) and as such, that "ethnic conflict" could be seen as a direct consequence of colonial intervention?

Yeah. It's a recurring theme in colonial history. The colonial power arbitrarily assigns a higher status to a certain group in society, so that they have an interest in maintaining the status quo. Then when they leave, they leave behind a combination of severe resentment and a power vacuum.

 

[Dan]

My impression is that racist remarks are generally worse than compared to a simple 'See You Next Tuesday' - or insulting a person's mother - mostly because of the discriminatory aspect of the former, and the much larger scope of the slur.

While insulting a person's mother is completely offensive and unacceptable in any context, it is not a slur against an entire racial group. Obviously, the world has a rather significant history of racial discrimination, and unfortunately it still occurs today.

A slur against one's mother is between the two parties involved, and only effects them (and their mother, obviously), whereas a racial slur is abusive to an entire ethnic group. Similarly, caste-based slurs would be unacceptable, as it was a basis for discrimination in India. Ostensibly, a hyperbolic claim of the formation of an intimate relationship with a member of one's family is not as wide ranging in scope.

Interesting that we've got a psuedo-intellectual climate change sceptic on board - looks like someone wants to satisfy a superiority complex through his keyboard.

...and it seems Spark has basically already posted what I'm saying here.

 

[Prince EWS]

To me calling my mother or sister a whore would be far worse than being abused for the colour of my skin.

Stepping aside from your (in my opinion anyway, somewhat reasonable) point about the rights of individuals to take different levels of offence to others at different insults, I have to admit that I find this very hard to reconcile. I am not questioning your honestly here of course, however I am interested in why this may be the case.

The way I see it, it is highly unlikely that your opposition on a cricket field is to have had any actual dealings with your mother or sister, and therefore any insult relating to them specifically would therefore be completely disingenuous and transparent. A racist taunt is far more likely to be genuine and based on real prejudices than one based on the sledger's opinion of the character of woman he has never met. In fact, I would be tempted to go as far to say that anyone who took particular offence to that was either overly thin-skinned or looking for an excuse to get in a slanging match, however obviously this would not be true in your case as you have indicated you would not be affected by a racist taunt.

While I realise that this is a bit besides the point and indeed in many ways a good example of precisely what you're saying (that people will have very differing ideas on what is offensive to them for varying reasons and that perhaps it is unfair to enforce mainstream cultural opinions in a factual way on a non-factual matter) I am interested in hearing the logic behind your personal stance on that.

 

[NasserFan207]

I'm torn on this.

On the one hand, I'm of the belief that if your culture states that racial abuse is the same as insulting your mother, then your culture is straight up wrong in that respect and needs to evolve.

On the other hand, people can't really help their culture. Its something they are born into, not something they chose.

Indian culture is behind other parts of the world when it comes to race. It may be ahead of the rest on other issues, but as far as race goes things are still stuck in a timewarp for me, mostly due to the caste system. I'm not blaming any individuals for that though.

 

[uvelocity]

I've been in groups of people and called out (in another language) "all your mothers are whores!!!" and we all burst out laughing. If we weren't all having fun it would have been murder.

 

[Howe_zat]

Kinda stunned to discover people here saying what would or wouldn't offend them as a yardstick for what's okay. It's not about you.

 

[Teja.]

I wish I could comment on this but I frequently get called and call people a mother****er and it's sister equivalent in Hindi about a zillion times a day without it causing any special offense.

For instance, In traffic in India, one frequently hears the aforementioned expletives but if say, Someone calls another bloke on the road a dirty, thieving Bihari/Tamilian in that scenario, It'd certainly cause more offense and probably cause a fight than calling him a sister****er which would most likely fall on dead ears. I don't really understand the entire Indian culture angle tbh. In real life, amongst the thousands of people I've met, once you meet them once or twice, calling them a mofo is something most people don't particularly care about but abusing them on their religious/regional identity is something they care about much more.

Dunno where Cevno and hb are coming from. Do they live in an ashram in the Himalayas or something?

 

[NasserFan207]

I wish I could comment on this but I frequently get called all people a mother****er and it's sister equivalent in Hindi about a zillion times a day without it causing any special offense.

For instance, In traffic in India, one frequently hears the aforementioned expletives but if say, Someone calls another bloke on the road a dirty, thieving Bihari/Tamilian in that scenario, It'd certainly cause more offense and probably cause a fight than calling him a sister****er which would most likely fall on dead ears. I don't really understand the entire Indian culture angle tbh. In real life, amongst the thousands of people I've met, once you meet them once or twice, calling them a mofo is something most people don't particularly care about but abusing them on their religious/regional identity is something they care about much more.

Dunno where Cevno and hb are coming from. Do they live in an ashram in the Himalayas or something?

Without going to deep into it, since I'm no expert, India is a pretty big place, and is going through quite a few changes. I'd guess that attitudes are different all over the place there.

I grew up in an area of London where whites were a minority, and if you threw out any kind of racism chances were you'd get stabbed (and the majority were from the subcontinent), so racism was definitely taken seriously there.

 

[Jono]

I wish I could comment on this but I frequently get called and call people a mother****er and it's sister equivalent in Hindi about a zillion times a day without it causing any special offense.

For instance, In traffic in India, one frequently hears the aforementioned expletives but if say, Someone calls another bloke on the road a dirty, thieving Bihari/Tamilian in that scenario, It'd certainly cause more offense and probably cause a fight than calling him a sister****er which would most likely fall on dead ears. I don't really understand the entire Indian culture angle tbh. In real life, amongst the thousands of people I've met, once you meet them once or twice, calling them a mofo is something most people don't particularly care about but abusing them on their religious/regional identity is something they care about much more.

Dunno where Cevno and hb are coming from. Do they live in an ashram in the Himalayas or something?

Haha funny you say that, I learned "mother ****er" in Hindi when I was like 8 from my uncle. First Hindi word I ever learned.

 

[benchmark00]

Haha funny you say that, I learned "mother ****er" in Hindi when I was like 8 from my uncle. First Hindi word I ever learned.

Then you had to learn 'I'm sorry I'm such a' so you could form a sentence that would be useful in your every day life.

 

[smash84]