“Brown face in vanilla line-up”- Ross Taylor opens up about racism in New Zealand cricket in his book ‘Ross Taylor Black and White’

“Brown face in vanilla line-up”- Ross Taylor opens up about racism in New Zealand cricket in his book ‘Ross Taylor Black and White’

Ross Taylor

Former New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor opened up about racism in New Zealand cricket in his Book “Ross Taylor Black and White”. He has Samoan heritage on his mother’s side. He revealed how he and his other teammates had to endure insensitive racist “banter” from while players.

“Cricket in New Zealand is a pretty white sport. For much of my career I’ve been an anomaly, a brown face in a vanilla line-up,” Stuff.co.nz quoted him as writing in his book.

“In many ways, dressing room banter is the barometer,” wrote Taylor, who played his last international match in April. A teammate used to tell me, ‘You’re half a good guy, Ross, but which half is good? You don’t know what I’m referring to.’ I was pretty sure I did,” Taylor wrote.

“Other players also had to put up with comments that dwelt on their ethnicity. In all probability, a Pakeha (white New Zealander) listening to those sorts of comments would think, ‘Oh, that’s okay, it’s just a bit of banter’. But he’s hearing it as white person, and it’s not directed at people like him. So, there’s no pushback; no one corrects them,” he added.

Taylor is regarded as one the greatest New Zealand players to have ever played the game. He has amassed more than 18000 international runs for his country. He took retirement from cricket this year in the month of April.

“I think they were insensitive and lacked the imagination and empathy”- Ross Taylor

Ross Taylor
Ross Taylor

Ross Taylor also spoke about a comment which former coach Mike Hesson had made. Mike Hesson had guided the New Zealand men’s team for six years frm 2012. He once told Taylore, ‘my cleaner’s Samoan. She’s a lovely lady, hard-working, very trustworthy.’

“All I could say was ‘oh, cool,’ Taylor wrote. “I have no doubt that (the officials) and the guys who engaged in the ‘banter’ would be dismayed to learn that their remarks landed with a thud.

“Let me be clear: I don’t think for one minute that they were coming from a racist perspective. I think they were insensitive and lacked the imagination and empathy to put themselves in the other person’s shoes.

He then added that for the white players, these comments are harmless but these tell the non-whites that they are seeing as different people. “Instead of the message being ‘You’re one of us, mate,’ it is, in effect, ‘You’re one of them.’”

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