CA Has Slammed Online Trolls For Dan Christian:
An angry Cricket Australia called online trolls “uneducated” after all-rounder Dan Christian was attacked for talking about “casual racism” in the sport.
Christian, one of only six indigenous peoples to play for Australia at the international level, took part in a panel discussion this week, “Cricket Connecting Country,” commissioned by the governing body. Christian told the forum, which sought to inspire more Aboriginal people to play cricket and discuss problems such as racism, that he had witnessed the problem firsthand.
“I don’t think it’s as in-your-face as you might see somewhere else in the world or anywhere else in Australian society, but it’s certainly there,” said the 37-year-old. “It’s a little more like casual bigotry.”
His comments saw two Twitter users challenge his Aboriginality on the basis of his race, one asking, “How can someone who looks white be discriminated against?” CA tweeted late Thursday that it was “deeply saddened to see overtly discriminatory and uneducated language.”
“While we have chosen not to publicly name the publisher of these remarks, we want to strongly reinforce the point that any sort of prejudice or discrimination has no place in cricket, sport, or the wider society,” he added.
“Comments like this illustrate just how far we really have to go.” Christian, who played 19 one-day and 16 Twenty20 internationals for Australia, told the panel that remarks about his skin color were one of the issues that hurt the most.
“Small lines that are made to be jokes here and there, and a lot of that, for me personally, has been about the colour of my skin and the fact that I don’t look Aboriginal, whatever that means,” he said. “That’s the most noticeable thing for me.”
Christian added that he had never seen any international sensitivity instruction from any cricket association in his 15 years in the game. “That’s one thing we should at least do to raise awareness and involve people in our sport,” said Christian, who played for Hampshire and Middlesex in England and many franchises in the Indian Premier League.
