Yorkshire, Azeem Rafiq and racism

[sussexpob]

DFM,

As mentioned recently, the England team recently broke a record for private educated representation when (IIRC) all of its British born players picked for a match were from private education. Only Jofra Archer, not from the British Schooling system, was not. In the context of a debate about inclusion, one could make as much of a case about class being an institutional barrier to entry into the game than race. Remember that education level and academic achievement is written into the ECB player pathway as a requirement for top level coaching and opportunities, so this established bias is very much part of the game and is no fluke that inside the 10 years that Downton and Flower made it a criteria to represent England, the next generation coming through fit that mould more and more.

I have stated many times here before about my experience with class issues in club cricket, it is very real. Its sufficient to say working class people with low education levels are not accepted at clubs in my experience, regardless of their merits as cricketers. You have to fit a certain type of person and if you dont you simply get batted away. I have talked about my younger brother here in the past, who struggles academically and has learning difficulties - I have seen him bowl in nets to established club pros and rip them apart, but he never got a game at a club despite years trying. He was much better than me as a player - but I got chances. I went to Uni and had a strong academic background, it was the only difference.

If this Rafiq issue is supposed to be the moment to embrace change and inclusion on al levels, having it lead by a member of the house of Lords does not in anyway make me encouraged. And do you think young cricketers will see a member of the aristocracy riding in and feel the wind of change coming with him? To a large extent what he achieves matters little, this is a confidence and trust issue, one about optics - and the optics of this for me are wrong. I guess the ECB see the optics solely on race - he ticks a box of inclusion because of his Asian heritage, but as a working class kid does he make me think he's going to end elitism in the grassroots of the game? As a women, do I feel like this sort of appointment makes me safe in the game? Not really for me.

I feel very strongly about that. Others might not care, might feel different - or that my opinion is dumb. But its honest.

As for Grammar schools, arent they by their very nature elitist? I dont know how old you are, but if you were at school in the 60s then you could say it was less elitist, but the 11 plus exams under the tripartite system were designed fundamentally to test a certain type of curriculum taught in middle class schools, and were not designed to test cognitive capacity. Which meant there was an overwhelming bias to separate middle class kids from working class ones, which very much in general would be separated from one another under the Grammar School system. If you went to school in the 70s, by that stage I think only 5% ish kids went to Grammar schools, and in both cases university admission was based almost exclusively on Grammar school attendance (as Grammar schools taught the Uni entry exams, secondary schools did not, meaning a secondary school children had zero hope even in cases of excellent achievement and cognitive ability in getting in).

[sussexpob]

Press seems to be backing Joe Root, at least at the moment. Rafiq has said he is a good person and didn't engage in racism, so saying he should step down seems a bit far to me. Joe wasn't captain when many of these incidents occurred - he was a pretty junior player at Yorkshire just making his England debut. But I agree he needs to clarify what happened

If the ECB are serious about purging racism from the game and restoring trust and confidence in minority players, then how exactly can they be taken seriously if the person with the most capacity and privilege to speak out in the whole of the cricketing structure of the country refuses to do so? As a person of colour entering the dressing room for England, essentially you now know that Joe Root is the type of guy that will watch you get called a P--i for 2 years, and when asked to back you up, will say he never seen anything. How do you think that enshrines confidence in non-white players? Does that make them feel like the captain is ensuring a safe environment for them where they can be confident in approaching him to take action on their behalf? No.... its the total opposite.

The fact Root is not racist and a good guy matters little. The actions (or lack of) he has taken in the last week have been at the detriment of the solutions required to tackle this stain on the game. The fact is, this issue has represented English cricket as ignorant and bigoted, and the net effect will have been to push away people from the game. I mean, if I were black or Asian and 14, would I choose to play cricket and subject myself to this culture? If I were gay, non-binary, trans, a women, a POC.... no. Not until the game proved to me its cleaned its act ...... so Roots steps not only confound the problem in hand, but that in turn will make English cricket as a whole weaker.

As national team captain he is the player most responsible in the game for maintaining the image and integrity of the domestic game. Refusing to condemn racists is a dereliction of his duty as a custodian of the game, and for that he should be removed. He says he doesnt remember countless uses of racist terms, but ironically I remember his coach when he was 12 or something at Yorkshire once saying he had a throw away conversation with Root as a child where he made an off the cuff joke that if Root ever played for England at Lords, he wanted 2 tickets left at the gate as a thank you. When Root had his first test at Lords, he left those tickets at the gate...... leading the aforementioned coach to conclude he had a very good memory.

Seems like he has a very bloody selective memory.

[sussexpob]

As for Root being a junior player, its suffice to say that if a person with Root's relative privilege cannot speak out, then who exactly do we expect to do so? Root had Michael Vaughan as a personal mentor as kid, courtesy of Vaughan being a close family friend of his fathers and growing up with Vaughan around. He had Graham Thorpe and Ian Bell mentor him at stages, was fast-tracked as a standout prospect through the grades, played for England youth teams.

If a player with the current England captain in his corner fighting for him cant speak out along with direct contact with senior ECB coaches or players, then how do we expect others to do so? You expect the young nobody kid with no cricketing family links backing him up to do it? Or the senior player fighting for his next deal? Or the youngster who aint tipped for birth to be a cricketing god?

Not that I really fault him for that particular issue. Its hard to speak out - the point of this is to make it easier, which Root's actions as an influential adult make harder. His conduct when it happened is disappointing, but understandable.

[Durhamfootman]

I don't disagree with you at all about the class barriers in cricket, SP, it's been a problem for a very long time and no-one has really paid it much more than lip service. On selective education, I went to a grammar school in the '70's and it would have been around the same time as Lord Patel (I'm 60, he's 61). Nowadays schools with 'Grammar' in the name tend to be fee-paying schools, so aren't really representative of grammar schools in my day, and it was while I was there that grammar schools were phased out. Mine was actually the last grammar school year in my school. In the part of Stockton where I lived secondary education was served by 4 schools. One was a RC faith school, two were grammar schools and one was a secondary modern. My school was split into boys and girls, class size was 40, 3 classes of each gender per year... roughly 1200 pupils, the other grammar school was mixed and of roughly comparable size. I have no idea how big the secondary modern was but I doubt it would have been anywhere near double the size of the others, so back in the 70's in my part of the world, a very substantial percentage of school aged children would have had a similar education to me, which isn't particularly elitist. I've no reason to doubt that this will have been fairly typical of Lord Patel's schooling

I think we have generally similar opinions on the subject of class and elitism. I certainly agree with you about inclusivity and not just in cricket either, but it felt like a bit of a side swipe at someone who may very well be the kind of person, with the experience needed, to turn Yorkshire CCC away from this abhorrent culture. If he can do that, then I would hope that this would then filter down through the leagues and remove precisely the kinds of barriers that have kept the sport white and middle class for far too long (and to its detriment). That as much as anything would surely bring people of all backgrounds and ethnicities (and genders) into the game, which I think is what you want

If he only pays lip service to any of that, then I'll very happily join you in being acerbic about his appointment

[Arthur Crabtree]

It's hard to speak out in respect of opposing the team culture. But it's not that hard to report your grievances to those in charge. If JR did at least that, then he did act. And if he did that much he can say so.

[Durhamfootman]

In the 60's and probably the 50's too, Grammar schools were the bridge that got working class kids into universities, I think. Before that it was very rare for the son (let alone the daughter) of a miner to go to university..... if I've got my history right (it was long time ago that I was in school)

[sussexpob]

On selective education, I went to a grammar school in the '70's and it would have been around the same time as Lord Patel (I'm 60, he's 61). Nowadays schools with 'Grammar' in the name tend to be fee-paying schools, so aren't really representative of grammar schools in my day, and it was while I was there that grammar schools were phased out. Mine was actually the last grammar school year in my school. In the part of Stockton where I lived secondary education was served by 4 schools. One was a RC faith school, two were grammar schools and one was a secondary modern. My school was split into boys and girls, class size was 40, 3 classes of each gender per year... roughly 1200 pupils, the other grammar school was mixed and of roughly comparable size. I have no idea how big the secondary modern was but I doubt it would have been anywhere near double the size of the others, so back in the 70's in my part of the world, a very substantial percentage of school aged children would have had a similar education to me, which isn't particularly elitist. I've no reason to doubt that this will have been fairly typical of Lord Patel's schooling

Drifting off topic, but....

Even at their peak, working class children had little chance of getting into Grammar schools, because the whole tripartite system was built to entrench class divides. At their peak, grammar schools had 15-20% working class children, while pretty much the entire middle class went to grammar school. This is because the 11 plus entry exams used to select a child's educational path were based very much on middle class primary education and cultural knowledge - someone who was a whizz kid at maths but didnt know who Mozart was, or couldnt speak basic Latin, would fail. Many working class children with better cognitive abilities were rejected in place of inferior performing middle class children. And once relegated to a modern secondary, their educational outcomes were reduced to null - modern secondary schools didnt even provide qualifications in the vast majority of cases, just "practical skills" of which there was no actual measure to determine.

This mattered a lot for a person's economic outcomes too, because the bottom fell out of the old technical/skilled blue collar labour market around the same time. It was replaced by white collar service sector emerging, which required academic qualifications - something only Grammar school kids had. Modern secondary graduates (if you can call them that, because they didnt graduate with anything) would filter automatically to blue collar unskilled jobs, where as stated, there remained no avenue for career progression due to the death of these industries and jobs. Originally the tripartite system was supposed to have technical colleges that trained working class people in technical jobs - I guess in a system based on class, its no surprise the funding to build schools for the cream of working class kids left after selection never got built. All the funding ended up in grammar schools. So Grammar school graduates by their very nature formed an elite level of the workforce with little to no social mobility existing between the two.

I believe that as Grammar schools faded out after Wilson's government in the mid-60s, they became more elitist and less working class, as working class kids would filter to the emerging comprehensive schools more, now offering qualifications. Worth noting that, in the few modern secondary schools that insisted in teaching certification syllabus (which was exceedingly rare), examination outcomes were on par with Grammar schools, rather proving that the whole tripartite process of giving the apparently smarter kids better teaching and funding had no actual merit. Kids with a fraction of the resources, funding and teaching quality proved, where given the opportunity, to excel just as much - one could argue more, given the barriers.

It was all about making sure middle class kids had a leg up over the plebs.

You shouldnt treat this as a personal attack. Everyone should attain to be the best they can, the fact you excelled academically in a system designed to work against you is very impressive, and should be something you have a lot of pride in.

[sussexpob]

In the 60's and probably the 50's too, Grammar schools were the bridge that got working class kids into universities, I think. Before that it was very rare for the son (let alone the daughter) of a miner to go to university..... if I've got my history right (it was long time ago that I was in school)

I think working class admittance into Universities had almost negligible outcomes until the 1980s. Certainly the review into the tripartite system undertook by MacMillian and Wilson's governments concluded in the 60s that offering free education and LEAs access to increased funding to send children to tertiary education was pretty much entirely exploited by the upper class, with University institutions still very closed door and largely controlled by old academic institutions. A small amount of middle class benefitted, and an a tiny dot of working class people, to point of almost non-exitance. You would have had to be an academic god from the working class to get anywhere near a degree.

[Durhamfootman]

You shouldnt treat this as a personal attack.

I absolutely don't, SP. I like a good debate, and i like well thought out arguments

[Durhamfootman]

ironic that I had a grammar school education and my grammar is shocking

[Arthur Crabtree]

Azeem getting headines for his own historic texts. This won't change the job that cricketing bodies should do, but it will undermine the message that gets through to the public.

[sussexpob]

Azeem getting headines for his own historic texts. This won't change the job that cricketing bodies should do, but it will undermine the message that gets through to the public.

Someone did a lot of digging through old social media posts. Its amazing how many teams of PR people hire to assist them, but how many high profile people come unstuck when it subsequently is found their twitter account has some 14 year old terrible post on it that never got removed.

I think in the first hint I ever became semi-aware to the public, I would delete everything off social media and burn all my old hard drives and phone cards.

Id have to have everyone on this site hunted down and murdered too..... god knows what you lot would have on me!

Very regrettable in all regards. CAnt help but feel this is awfully convenient for a lot of people looking to dodge Rafiq's questions.... the whole issue will naturally lose steam after this.

[sussexpob]

Alex Hales continues to take a battering. After "Kevin the racist dog" comes photos of him fully blackfaced at a party a few years ago. He claims it is a homage to his favourite rapper Tupac Shakur, who he was pretending to be for fancy dress.

In Hales defence, I think blackface was seen as culturally acceptable (wrongly, but mainstream nevertheless) up until only a couple of years ago. I can think of a lot of 2000-2010 era comedies that have quite liberal sensibilties (Parks and Recreation, The US Office, 30 Rock) which have had to remove blackface scenes from episode in the last couple of years, as an example of the cultural mainstream acceptance of it until recently.

If the photo was last week, then it speak for itself, but I think it was over 10 years ago..... doesnt prove anything to me either way.

[Durhamfootman]

The comedy show Little Britain had a blacked up character, which they later apologised for

[Arthur Crabtree]

They blacked up after it was commonly felt to be insensitive, so the apology didn't really count.