West Indies and county cricket great Michael Holding has come up with a scathing but layered attack on the international cricket community for its racist attitude and white supremacist approach towards the game. The Sky Sports commentary panel member revealed how he had to sustain racist slurs and attitude all his career.
"As a black person, when you hear certain people say certain things it burns inside,” the 67-year-old told on The Cricket Show of Sky Sports on the eve of Gorge Floyd’s death anniversary and one year of the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM).
“I have had many occasions when people have said something or treated me a particular way when I think to myself 'are they just rude or are they racist? Is it because I am black that they are treating me this way or is it because they don't know any better because they are rude?” an emotionally charged Holding said.
The Jamaican cricketer represented two counties of Lancashire and Derbyshire in the County Championship, Tasmania in Sheffield Shield and Canterbury in Plunkett Shield across white majority countries of England, Australi and New Zealand.
Reasoning why it was necessary for him to just ignore all the racism he felt and remain bottled up, Holding said, "As a young man growing up and playing the game, whenever I came across any racism, I was quite selfish, I just brushed it off. I am glad I had that attitude because if I was to rebel against it, demonstrate against it, I wouldn't be sitting here now. I would not have had as long a cricket career as I had because we see what happens to the people who talk about injustice and racial prejudice.”
Giving examples of Olympians Tommy Smith and John Carlos and how many other people of colour in the past were punished with their careers shitting down post any show of rebel against and solidarity towards racial abuse, Holding narrated the story of American Footballer (American style Rugby) to indicate how the discrimination is still relevant in modern times.
"A picture of Colin Kaepernick is on the front of my book. Look at his career. He stood up and said he is tired of this because it is wrong and his career came to an end. It is obvious if I had stood up and done anything to signal my disgust my career would have ended. That is just the world we live in," Holding, who took more than 1500 professional wickets concluded.