the race is on

I can’t say this with too much vehemence, but I sometimes feel like there is too much political correctness going around for my liking. Rather, the need for it. And the perceived need for this utmost care in most issues has also spawned the easy option of falling back on bigotry as excuses/explanations for too many situations.

Before I ramble too much (what’s new) in this hopefully returning post to Playing From Home (or work, as the case may be), let me clarify. Its easy for any suspect decision taken by someone whose skin colour doesn’t need Fair & Lovely to be labelled racist. It’s a scary trend, and without actually making a call on the merits of any case per se, its hardly comforting to know that the non Asian members of this sport can spend quite a bit of time worrying that decisions against their subcontinental colleagues will be misconstrued. Its almost as shameful as being racist, is using the race card indiscriminately. (and well said, NK.)

Then there’s the CA chief, who believes that “stupid Indian” is not racist. I don’t care to quibble on semantics, but is that the only question? What are you gaining by making that point? Surely not being ‘racist’ doesn’t preclude the phrase from being crude, boorish and quite simply pathetic? I haven’t been to a game Down Under, so I naturally can’t say; and not for a moment do I think that this is true of all the crowds, or most of the people in Australia. But there are enough to make this an issue and smear the sporting spirit that country is so proud of (and indeed, looked up to for). Get down to trying to fix it, not making irrelevant points.