Azeem Rafiq & Institutional Racism - Callum Breese
Recently, former cricket player, Azeem Rafiq, stood before the Government’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sports select committee to give evidence of the racial abuse and mistreatment through his time at Yorkshire Cricket Club. The testimony is one for unpleasant hearing. Rafiq details how he was on the receiving end of racist language due to his Pakistani heritage and was regularly on the brunt of stereotypes such as when former teammate, Gary Balance, alleged to have called him a “P**ki” and asked “does your dad own these?” when they drove past corner shops. Ballance, along with former cricketer Matthew Hoggard and Tim Bresnan, have all given statements and have apologised to Rafiq for putting him through such an ordeal. Since then, Yorkshire Cricket Club have sought to reflect on the way this misconduct was handled and have sought to change their ways and stamp out the ‘institutional racism’ which has come to blemish its image.
And there it is - the spectre which haunts all institutions in the Western world – the spectre of institutional racism.
On a serious note, it is pivotal racial abuse must be dealt with when recognised and the individuals involved need to be held accountable for their actions. But, to do this within the confines of institutional racism - thereby saying the structures in of an institution produces unconscious bias and discriminatory language against minoirty individuals - will do nothing to resolve racism. Rather, it lets those responsible for espousing such divisive language off-the-hook by extrapolating a problem into a territory whereby it is deemed to be untouchable, therefore, unsolvable. As Spiked Columnist Tim Black argued:
“By using the Rafiq case to damn society as a whole, pundits and politicians are betraying their own prejudices about supposedly racist and xenophobic Brits. And by invoking ‘systemic’ or ‘institutional’ racism in broader society, they are diffusing the responsibility of actual, individual perpetrators. After all, if everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty.”
Thereby, fashioning the debate of racism through the concept of institutional or systemic racism rids the individual of any responsibility as they have perhaps been influenced within a section of society that fed them a prejudiced outlook. This is a dangerous avenue to go down and one which does not stand up to scrutiny either. Dangerous in the sense it will, undoubtedly, allow regressive ideas to fill the void of the discussion. Such as the question of supposed white hegemony and “diversity” in the context of society more generally.
Keeping to the context of sport, much of this institutional question has seeped into sports discussions of recent. a podcast on Irish sports programme, Off the Ball, recently noted the lack of diversity in the Irish national rugby team saying that “Ireland in modern society” is not “being replicated, and highlighting the problems of the private school system producing “white Irish kids playing for Ireland” over kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Rugby, being culturally and historically associated the private school tradition, is guilty of a structural biased nature which lends a helping hand to privately educated white kids to play their part in the Irish rugby team which supposedly leaves out those from BAME backgrounds (despite Irish Rugby player, Simon Zebo, making 35 appearances for Ireland.) Not only does it inadvertently intertwine a racial worldview on sport (something which has been ongoing from all sections of the sporting industry), but it ignorantly associates 'whiteness' with the concept of class struggle. While perhaps there is room to critique how the private school system discriminates against working-class boys from potentially playing for their national team, integrating a racialised worldview through the means of defining issues as “institutional” invites a myoptic outlook in which discussions are rendered unhelpful and misses tackling the problem at hand. In other words, it lends a politicisation of an issue which gives credence to regressive viewpoints that further problematise an issue which is no doubt already complicated.
Returning to the Yorkshire Cricket Club incident, it is through this extrapolation that a politicisation of society where certain demographics are homogenised under the banner of ‘institutional racism’ occurs. This can be explained further when Yasmin Alibahi-Brown references examples of the racism Azeem Rafqi experienced, along with the rise of far-right extremism through the counter-preventionist unit and the 1662% percent increase of anti-Asian hate speech throughout the pandemic, a rather negative image of the United Kingdom emerges. Whereby, suggesting white people are adamant of their English heritage, culture and only care to mix with those who only mix with others “like themselves” and not taking the time to interact. Therefore, Brown ultimately suggests it is through this cultural and national protectionist attitude that the foundations of Yorkshire Cricket Club are built on, and anyone outside is treated contemptuously.
Granted, while there might be some truth that some white people in the UK might voluntarily refuse to integrate with a “diverse” community , this line of thinking is bound to arguably create more division than actual resolve the issues at hand. As well, it doesn’t appear to stand up to scrutiny either: survey after poll after survey, tolerance, unacceptability towards racist language, and acceptance of different communities and races have increased and continue to. To allow this to be overshadowed through the ideas of ‘institutional racism’ would be a diabolical shame and will eradicate years of progress in healing divisions in society between different groups and communities. What is instead needed is a much wider and freely open discussion on the matter of incidences of discrimination arise. Keeping to view of institutional racism encloses such discussions.
If we consider the side of Huddersfield born and Bradford raised cricketer, Ajmal Shazaad, who was the first British-born Asian player to play for Yorkshire, he provides an alternative viewpoint to the matter. He says that he has never experienced racism in English cricket, having played for five different counties and represented the England team. He even goes on to say further:
“As a South Asian community, we cannot say that the pathways are closed or there's racism out there,” and that “I think that's a very easy place to go and it's actually a very bad place to go.”
Shazaad’s experience should in no way undermine the experience that Rafiq had been through and in no way must it suggest racial discrimination mustn’t be taken with serious intent . But if we are to have honest discussions about racism in an institutional sense, both sides need to be welcome to the table; rejecting regressive views which are based around identity politics and the extrapolation of ideas such as ‘systematic’ or ‘Institutional’ racism do not get us to the cut and chase of the seriousness of racial abuse and discrimination. A more humanist, reasoned approach needs to be taken – and not one which is abstracted into a vague discussion of institutional racism and how that is designed to impact society as a whole.
Callum Breese is a columnist for The Equiano Project.
Follow Callum on Twitter: @BreeseCallum