Cricket Court Blames The Race Victim (My Daily Sports Alert)Posted by Katie Halper on January 31, 2008 at 1:41 am

Contrary to popular belief, I do not follow sports. But every now and then, sports, by virtue of its popularity, accessibility, and (I’ve heard, though not experienced) entertainability highlights a social, cultural or political problem, bringing it to a broad, far-reaching audience in a way few other media could.

Such is the case of the cricket scandal, which I saw first hand (through TV) while I was in India last month. First, India’s cricket player Harbhajan Singh wasaccused of calling Andrew Symonds, a Jamaican player (the only Jamaican player) on Australia’s team a “monkey.”

Then cricket fanatics blame the umpire, who sided with Symonds, and happened to be Jamaican too, and burn him in efegy.

Yesterday, a Cricket judgecleared Singh of the “racial abuse charge” and said Symonds had provoked his opponent (into being a racist?). And the case seemed closed. Until the same judge said that he shouldn’t have cleared Singh. But he did because of human error. Sound complicated? It is. Read more here.

And to read the best blog about sports, culture and politics, and check out David Zirin’s Edge of Sports blog