Racism in the Caribbean...but not in the stands

Introduction | Peter English | Rahul Bhattacharya | Neil Manthorp

I have watched a lot of cricket in the West Indies and have never seen anything that made me feel uncomfortable in spectators' behaviour. I might be wrong. I might have been too absorbed to discern. I don't know. I am not unaware of its existence but - especially in Trinidad, where there is no easy way to tell racial ancestry any more - there is little of that in the crowd.

The history of West Indies cricket does, though, have a backdrop of racism. In the process of doing the research for a thesis that explores the autobiographies of West Indian cricketers, I have come across several manifestations of the racism that contrived to keep talented players off teams at club and national levels; that allowed those of the ‘correct’ colour to gain easy entry and leadership positions; that gave privileges and denied opportunity to countless citizens of the West Indies. And this was what happened internally, West Indian to West Indian. This does not yet touch on the racism encountered when playing away.

George Headley was not considered suitable for captaincy because he was black. Jack Grant was made captain of a team that included George, and turned to him for advice. Jack conceded that he knew it was because he was white that he was made captain.

"I affirm that I was aware that I was a white man. Unmistakably, therefore, I was colour conscious,” he wrote in his autobiography. “Also I was aware that in the prevailing circumstances of the day I, as a white man, had advantages which a black man was unable to have. Take the captaincy of the team. I was younger than all of the sixteen players, save three; and most of these sixteen had already played for the West Indies, while I had not. Yet I was the captain. It could not be disputed that my white colour was a major factor in my being given this post.”

Frank Worrell was only made captain because there was a massive movement at the time towards nationalism; CLR James campaigned relentlessly that Gerry Alexander should never lead a team on which Frank Worrell was a member.

Worrell himself was shocked by the aloof and unsociable behaviour of the touring M.C.C. team in 1954, writing that, "Never once, however, did the members of the M.C.C. party show that they wanted our hospitality, and their attitude distressed us beyond words." Yet, the touring party was itself being besieged by white West Indians, wrote the team manager, Charles Palmer. "Every day on the tour we were being invited to social functions, invariably with the white people, and it was difficult to refuse. All the time they would be saying to us, ‘For God’s sake, beat these people, or our lives won’t be worth living.’ It became a big millstone round our neck. We were almost afraid to talk to a white person. We knew what they were going to say. We wanted to win, but not for them. After a while it ate into our souls."

So the cricketers had to take the racism from within and without. That man, Viv Richards would write about how it made the team grimly determined to beat England in 1976 after Tony Greig said he would make them grovel. It had come just after the tour of Australia, where they had been surprised by the hostility of the verbal abuse. The "friendly rivalry" that was revealed in shouts of "You f**k off, you black bastard!" left the team stunned, wrote Richards. In defence of pace, he said, "I can and will accuse them of wanting to see this particular race of people, from the West Indies, being put down."

Richards, as many other West Indian cricketers noted in their autobiographies, defined West Indian spectators as people who loved cricket, knew about it, and talked about it vociferously, but good naturedly. That they would hurl racial abuse to teams seemed unimaginable.

When India visited the Caribbean in 1962, the tension between Afro- and Indo-Guyanese was heightened by the political situation at the time. Frank Birbalsingh observed them at Bourda and noted how they managed it at cricket. "One ploy, when faced with Afro-Guyanese gloating over West Indian dominance, was the Indo-Guyanese riposte: “Man, is wha’ yuh talking? When yuh all can sen’ a team from Africa, den yuh can talk.” But it was good-natured enough banter.

When South Africa toured in 2001, Ntini had already so warmed the hearts of West Indians that spectators pleaded with him as he attacked the West Indies’ batting. “Ntini, don’t forget you’re one ah we,” an Indian man had called out, begging him to show mercy at Queen’s Park Oval.

It is a strange thing, that in a region where racism has been so rampant for so long in such influential ways, there is little enough of it on display at cricket for me to have seen its brutish head sitting in the stands, stands or at the grounds, like Peter, Rahul and Neil have described. There have been reports in the past that attempted to pin bottle throwing on racial factors. Those reports have been scanned and found leaky.

If anyone can tell otherwise, I would be interested to hear it. Like Viv Richards, I know that there is a lot of hypocrisy and racism out there, especially in the inner sanctums of controllers. It hasn't gone away, it's just come off the field.