Racism and different meanings

Once again, the shadow of racism has come up in sports. The hype has apparently died down, but it has dangerous overtones. The victims of racism are openly becoming racist, thus eliminating the one civility which seperates them from the rest. The case regarding Andrew Symonds Monkey Taunt is being questioned as Racial abuse or aggressiveness

The reason for the Monkey taunts was apparently his looks. I took a small but bold test to check out this factor of abuse. The testing ground was in a community on Orkut named T20 World Champions. This community was for die hard cricket fans only, and in that one section was regarding the crowd behavior. I decided to give this concept of abuse a test. Following the Symonds Taunt and it being classified as a Racist incident, i abused the Indian Cricket team and Mumbai. I went to the detail that the Indian Cricket team should be destroyed in Australia and also be subjected to racial abuse.

The last sentence initiated the responses. I was called Bad names, had my looks being destroyed and had my patriotism questioned. It is from here that i will look into the concept of the fine line between Racial abuse and aggression.

The concept of Racism is very controversial. In sport, this is controversial when you mix it with aggression. Now, the fans of any sport will be behind the home team, and they may taunt the opposition for psychological advantage. This may have been the case with the Symonds issue. The Media in this case might be guilty of making a mountain of a molehill. But, this becomes problematic if a person is targetted. Under the guise of aggression and fun, some unfortunate things might occur which could be intepreted in a negative way.

The Crowd behavior may be the outcome of the last statement that i made. This highlights the fact that Cultural differences, if ignored, lead to a lot of problems. Many sections of the population have commented that the monkey chant is because of the way he looks. It is from here that the issue becomes really problematic.

One thing has different meanings in different cultures. Calling Andrew Symonds a Monkey is a personal insult. Let us ignore this fact that we have all evolved initially out of Monkeys. Personal taunts to a sportsmen is just not warranted. What is unfortunate though is that certain sections of the population are going into denial mode.

Who is at fault here? I, honestly believe that you cannot fault Symonds by the way he looks. This is wrong, so the blame might have to fall on the public. But, the question is, can a taunt be labelled racist? It is a difficult question, because racism as a whole is vague. Nobody likes personal abuse. Today, when i conducted the experiment, i realized the amount of hate that i generated because of the abuse that i put forth. How would Symonds be feeling about this?

Nobody will talk that much if the role is reversed. But, the ugly thing of racism is showing up and people are becoming irrational. The danger is that is becoming unambiguous now, and we are starting to loose sense of what is right and what is wrong.

P:S: I would like to thank the people who participated in the experiment, although it is without their consent. Sorry for that, but that is Technology