Paul Adams accused current South Africa head coach Mark Boucher and his teammates for racially discriminating him during his playing days.
Racism is deeply rooted in the world including sports. The recent ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement has done a remarkable job in spreading awareness on this important social issue and has given many people a voice to share their experiences. The former South African cricketer Paul Adams is the latest to share his experience of being racially discriminated against by his teammates in his playing days.
It was at the Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings, where Paul Adams revealed numerous instance of racial abuse including his teammates using ‘Brown sh*t’ as a nickname for him.
Adams made his debut for South Africa in 1995 and was the only player of colour in the team. He remained a minority throughout his career, where he was subjected to racial discrimination on and off the field.
I was called brown s*** when I was playing. It often used to be a song when we won a game and we were in fines’ meetings. They would sing, ‘brown s*** in the ring, tra la la la laa.
Adams said.
When you are playing for your country, when you have had that victory, you don’t make sense of it, you brush it off, but it’s blatantly racist. Some people will say unconscious bias and they weren’t aware but this is why we are here – to change that.
Adams revealed the role his wife -then girlfriend played in helping him understand how it is wrong. She repeatedly questioned him why he puts up with such behaviour from his teammates. Adams did not name Boucher initially but later admitted that the current SA coach was also one of the guys to have called him ‘Brown sh*t’.
I never addressed it with him. Mark was just one of the guys… it only came back to me afterwards. I was caught up in the fun of being along in the team and not (wanting) to ruffle any feathers. For me, when I thought about it, and my wife kept telling me, ‘why do they call you that?’ then I realised it wasn’t right.
Adams said that if Boucher reaches out to him and apologises would result in both having more respect for each other going forward.
The former spinner further added that we as a society and sporting bodies need to talk about it more. Educate one another and have respect for each person. Adams batted for better education within the organisation to ensure the people of all races are treated equally and asserted that the decision to come forward was not to ruin CSA but to help grow it.
