I am sure if you follow cricket you must have heard about Bhajji-Symonds racist row. It got me all confused. I just did not understand the term "racist". So, as I often do when I am confused, I googled. And surely google gave me some definitions for the word. Here is one of them :
racist
adjective
1. based on racial intolerance; "racist remarks"
2. discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion
noun
1. a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others
Now, Mr. Singh allegedly called Mr. Symonds a "big monkey". If atall it is true, does it mean that Mr. Singh thinks that all the people in Mr. Symond's community are inferior? Is it possible to hate just a person and not the entire community? If a person abuses another person, does it mean that he hates the entire community? Is there a difference between abuse and racial abuse? Is there something like a context to a word or does every word have a fixed, rock-solid meaning? If you call someone a monkey, are you a racist?
These are some of the questions even Google could not answer. If you know the answer, please let me know.
I think what we need here is common sense and not laws. For same reason, dynamically typed programming languages, in the right hands, are almost always more flexible than statically typed programming languages.
Yours Sincerely,
Labels: Cricket
