The racism controversy brewing between the cricket teams of India and Australia has seized the attention even of those not usually interested in the game. This is because the incident is about getting right not only the rules of cricket but also the subversive politics of a Western team pointing a finger at a postcolonial team and accusing one of its members of racism. Put another way, when Ricky Ponting and other white men accuse one man of colour, Harbhajan Singh, of uttering racist slurs against another man of colour, Andrew Symonds, the issue warrants analysis through not only the usual framework of ‘the spirit of the game’ but also a sociological lens.

Historically, the term ‘racism’ has evolved to describe that against which racially oppressed civilisations seek to wrest political agency for the sake of justice. Underscoring the definition of racial justice is the belief that every human being, regardless of skin colour and ethnic origin, is entitled to universal human rights and a life of dignity. But for the last few hundred years, for obvious reasons, racism has mostly come to mean the oppression of coloured, non-Western civilisations by white Westerners. It is news to no one that the consequences of racism have been debilitating for not only those who have experienced it first hand but also those born after. Conversely, the term ‘white privilege’ has come to signify the political, social and economic advantages enjoyed by white people then and now as a direct result of racial inequities. Both racism and white privilege are said to be at play when the word of a white person is automatically considered more trustworthy than that of a person of colour.

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