Euro-Chess

There was a bit of controversy in cricket recently when Andrew Symonds complained that Harbhajan Singh racially abused him by calling him monkey.

But is calling a monkey is a racism?

I'm not going to take about the light sentence Singh subsequently got as a result of an error, thats another story. This post is about whether it was a racist thing to say in the first place.

From my childhood, I have seen people calling each other monkey, donkey etc and have never considered it is a racial abuse!!! So I am curious to know then how calling someone a monkey be viewed as racism?

When Symonds came over to India previously the Indian crowds chanted "monkey" when he was the only non white on the team so maybe it took on a racial tone. Therefore, if Harbajan Singh said "monkey" the umpires interpreted it as a racist remark in the context of things.

However, I do think that Symonds and Pontings were being hypocrits because they do the same thing to the Indian team and get away with it. They are not using racist remarks but the remarks they do use are insulting.

So whats the difference really? The subject matter of a person's insults I guess.

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“When you see a good move, look for a better one” - Emanuel Lasker

Arrogant-One

I think there is a big difference between insulting someone over something they do have control over, and insulting them over something they do not have any control over.

In chess, many years ago, there was a 1900-2100 player who had a deformed hand, such that only one shortened curled finger was on this hand. This player was more often than not the biggest clown/door knob you've ever met (but not as big as some certain chess admin officials here in Aus). Anyway, some of my chess friends started referring to him as Captain Hook.

One day another chess player heard this and took the offender to task saying its inappropriate to call him that because it was something beyond his control, to which the offender stated "Well, being an asshole is within his control" to which the other player said, then insult him for that, not something over which he has no control. I had to agree, even though I said nothing at the time.

Are there parallels here?

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... for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too . . .

~ Charles Dickens novel ~