“The brown face on the vanilla squad” – Ross Taylor opens up about racism in New Zealand cricket in his book ‘Ross Taylor Black and White’

Former New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor opened up about racism in New Zealand cricket in his book “Ross Taylor Black and White”. She has Samoan heritage on her mother’s side. He explained how he and other teammates had to endure insensitive racist “jokes” from players.

“In New Zealand, cricket is a pretty white sport. For most of my career, I’ve been an anomaly, a brown face on a vanilla cast,” he wrote in his book Stuff.co.nz.

“In many ways, the locker room joke is the barometer,” wrote Taylor, who played his last international game in April. A teammate said to me, ‘You’re half a good guy, Ross, but which half is good? You don’t know what I mean.’ I was pretty sure I did,” Taylor wrote.

“Other players also had to put up with comments based on their ethnicity. In all likelihood, a Pakeha (white New Zealander) would listen to such comments and think, ‘Oh, it’s okay, it’s just a bit of a joke’. But he hears it as a white person and it’s not aimed at people like him. So, there is no recoil; nobody fixes them,” he added.

Taylor is considered one of the greatest New Zealand players to have played the game. He collected more than 18000 international runs for his country. He retired from cricket in April this year.

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I think they are insensitive and lack imagination and empathy. – Ross Taylor

Ross Taylor also mentioned a comment made by former coach Mike Hesson. Mike Hesson had guided the New Zealand men’s team for six years, starting in 2012. He once told Taylore ‘my cleaner is Samoan’. She is a very nice lady, hardworking, very reliable.’

Taylor said, “All I could say was ‘oh, great.’ “I have no doubt that[authorities]and the ‘joking’ men would be horrified to learn that their statement went down with a rumble.

“Let me be clear: I don’t think for a moment that they came from a racist point of view. I think they are insensitive and lack the imagination and empathy to put themselves in the other person’s shoes.

He later added that for white players these comments were harmless, but for non-whites he said they saw them as different people. “The message is, instead of ‘You are one of us man’, it is actually ‘You are one of them’.

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