Ross Taylor says he experienced racism from New Zealand teammates and staff during his 16-year career | Cricket News

Recently retired Test batter Ross Taylor said in his autobiography that he experienced racism during his 16-year career in New Zealand cricket.Taylor, who has Samoan descent, explains racist locker room comments and casually racist comments from some team officials

Ross Taylor reveals he was offended by race-based remarks from teammates and New Zealand locker room staff during his career

Ross Taylor has revealed that during his 16-year career, he was offended by race-based remarks from teammates and New Zealand locker room staff, prompting the country’s cricket committee to bring Polynesian talent to the sport. He insisted that there was more he could do to bring it in.

Taylor, who has Samoan descent on his mother’s side and retired from international cricket earlier this year, wrote in his book, Ross Taylor Black and White, that he and other teammates were subjected to insensitive “jokes” from white players. I explained how I persevered.

“In many ways, locker room banter is a barometer,” wrote Taylor, who played his last international match in April.

“A teammate used to say to me, ‘Ross, you’re half good, but who’s better? You don’t know what I’m talking about.'” was

“Other players also had to put up with comments about their ethnicity. [white New Zealander] When you hear comments like that, you think, “Oh, it’s okay, it’s just a joke.”

“But he hears it as a white man and it’s not directed at someone like him. So there’s no resistance. Nobody fixes them.”

Taylor, New Zealand’s most prolific Test hitter with 7,683 runs, said the episode left him feeling conflicted.

“You question if you should pull them up, but you’re afraid they’ll cause bigger problems or be accused of playing the competition card by inflating an innocent joke into racism. increase.

“It’s easier to make a thick skin and slide it, but is that okay?”

He said a former staff member made clumsy comments that “drove in”.

“Let me be clear, I don’t think for a minute that they are coming from a racist point of view,” he said. I think I was missing

“The message is not ‘You are one of us,’ but it is actually ‘You are one of them.'”

Although over 8% of New Zealand’s population identifies as Pacific natives, Taylor is one of the few Pacifica cricketers to reach the highest level in the country.

But New Zealand’s elite rugby is brimming with talent from the Pacifica community.

A spokesperson for New Zealand Cricket told the New Zealand Herald that the National Body “condemns racism and is a staunch supporter of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission’s Give Nothing to Racism campaign and that Ross I am deeply disappointed to have been exposed to this kind of behavior.”