Taylor wrote a memoir titled “Black & White,” in which he discussed the racism he experienced during his professional sports career.
After retiring from international cricket earlier this year, New Zealand legend Ross Taylor published his autobiography on Thursday. Taylor wrote a book called “Black & White” in which he discussed the racism he experienced during his professional sports career. He mentioned that it would come up in the locker room chitchat and in the remarks of some employees and officials. He said he was confident that the statements weren’t made out of “racial perspective,” but rather out of “insensitivity” and a failure to empathise.
He described himself as “an abnormality” for a significant portion of his career, and Taylor, who is part Samoan, agreed.
Cricket is a predominantly white sport in New Zealand. Stuff.co.nz cited him as saying, “For much of my career, I’ve been an aberration, a brown face in a vanilla line-up.”
That comes with difficulties, many of which your teammates and the cricketing public may not realise, Taylor wrote.
Discussions in the locker room are an indicator of morale for several reasons. As one of my teammates used to say, “You’re half a good man, Ross, but which half is good?” That’s because you have no idea what I’m talking about. I thought I had,” he said.
And other players had to listen to remarks that made racial slurs. A Pakeha hearing such remarks would likely say, “Oh, that’s okay, it’s just a bit of banter.” However, he is hearing it through the lens of a white person, and it is not meant for him. Because of this, they receive no opposition and are never corrected.
The burden, he concluded, was with the recipients of such criticism, but he acknowledged that this presented a dilemma for the players.
Therefore, the burden of proof rests squarely on the targets. You consider pulling them up, but you’re afraid of making matters worse or of being accused of using the race card by misconstruing lighthearted ribbing as offensive bigotry. It’s less effort to just let things roll off your back, but is it really the best course of action?” he said.
Mike “Roman” Sandle, the Black Caps manager, remarked to Victoria (Taylor’s wife) not long after taking over that he had noticed the Maori and Island guys have trouble handling money when he was the manager of the Blues rugby team and that Ross “wants to talk about it if he wants to” Victoria just laughed it off, and I’m sure Mike quickly realised that, although well-intentioned, he’d been a bit hasty in his conclusions, but that’s just my guess,” Taylor wrote.
Moreover, he mentioned an offhand remark made by former coach Mike Hesson.
After the captaincy debacle, I was reunited with the team in the airport’s Koru Lounge, where I met coach Mike Hesson. He had walked over from his own residence. According to him, his cleaner is Samoan. “She’s a nice person; she works really hard and is completely trustworthy.” Oh, cool. That’s all I could muster up.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Roman and Hess and the guys who engaged in the ‘banter’ would be disappointed to learn that their remarks fell with a thud,” Taylor continued.
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Let me be perfectly clear: I do not believe for a second that they held racist views. The seasoned batter reflected, “I think they were insensitive and lacked the imagination and empathy to imagine themselves in the other person’s situation.
What they seem to be lighthearted banter is actually quite intimidating for the targets, who learn that their differences are being taken into account. This is not a message of “You’re one of us, mate” but rather “You’re one of them.”
