Azeem Rafiq

[mediciempire]

I honestly want to sit there and cry at the level of abuse Azeem Rafiq faced at Yorkshire CC. It's awful. Absolutely awful. And you know what, I doubt the majority of the things he's speaking about have even passed the thoughts of the people who did them or stood by and watched them happen because they view it as normal or as 'banter' and it doesn't affect them. I constantly see cricket fans trying to tarnish football as a racist sport but there is no one racist sport just a whole lot of racist people who are never pulled up on their actions.

I listened to the whole thing with my heart in my mouth. Awful.

Yes it’s just awful.

pinning a child down and pouring wine down their throat is assault
no one can possibly do that and not know it's wrong

I believe him.

I've heard similar vile language in major business offices in this country from people who would on the surface be considered "respectable". Right out in the open in the open plan office. In front of management and BY management.

This country has a serious racism problem.

It’s shocking. I was listening to some of the analysis on 5live after and someone mentioned the word “banter” and the presenter was spot on when he said (paraphrasing but the basic gist) that that’s rubbish because everyone knows these things aren’t acceptable, they haven’t been for a long time so that can’t be used as an excuse. They know what they are saying is wrong.

Unbelievable behaviour and attitudes in this day and age. I hope heads roll for this.
Horrible experience for this poor man and, I'm sure, many others.

Wtf are you
Talking about?? 2014 wasn’t ‘back then’ you idiot. It was 6 years ago. Can you count?

Also that means that because people sexually abuse people ‘back then’ they shouldn’t make a fuss now. Do you agree with that too?

The man was a professional sportsman subject to racist abuse. Why should he forget about it

Sadly not surprised.

I did a gross misconduct disciplinary on a member of staff who used the P word as a slur against a customer. In the course of investigation I reviewed their file and found that they had racially abused someone in public whilst drunk and on company business DURING THEIR PROBATION.

They weren't even fucking made to apologise the first time . And yes, I fired them.

7 years even.

He purposely said today this wasn’t about naming and shaming individual players but looking at the institutional racism that is still such a part of cricket

Also racist abuse is in fact a crime

Heartbreaking testimony. And the comments on social media are horrendous too, no wonder he didn't come forward earlier.

Just dropping in to say that any discussion about race on MN will make you put your head in your hands and simply despair

I honestly couldn't believe what I was seeing today. Shocking

It was awful but honestly? I think 99% of the abuse he suffered still happens in cricket. It’s a big reason why players of colour don’t opt to play professionally.

He is incredibly brave for doing this

...Preparing to be flamed.

Hoping for it more like.

That poor man. I am so glad he has spoken up, it's an incredibly brave thing to do. I hope real change can come from this.

It's quite disheartening, or rather it leaves a bitter taste, that people are shocked.

Can anyone summarise what's happened?

@VladmirsPoutine

It's quite disheartening, or rather it leaves a bitter taste, that people are shocked.

Why - why are you disheartened that people are shocked? I live in Birmingham - I worked in a public facing role for an education establishment in 2006 to 2014 I would have been sacked for this

@bleedinora Has your Google failed?

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59304381

Summary: systemic racism at every level of cricket.

Someone tried to tell me that forcing a Muslim child to drink alcohol was not racist, "I bet they did it to everyone". Lots of people are desperate to minimise abuse.

I am not surprised tbh and it takes a lot of strength to stand up and speak out. I'm not surprised it took so long it's not an easy thing to do. Apart from the humiliation of reliving the abuse a 2nd time around, he also has to defend himself to people who do not believe him. There are plenty of MN who have stated that racism is not that bad in the UK. Just because they see a minority of black and brown people reach a certain level they think the abuse stops at that point - it really doesn't.