Of slurs and races...

Scenario 1

Ram : "Ma'am, ma'am, Shyam just called me a m******f*****!!"
Teacher: (Sipping her tea in the staff room) " Ah, well boys will be boys, Shyam stand up on your desk. Don't say that word again, its not a nice thing to say"

Scenario 2

Ram: "Ma'am Shyam just called me a Big Monkey!"
Teacher: (Spills her tea as she topples over) "Shyam Shyam, you racist racist boy! You're suspended from school for three months. I want to meet your parents tomorrow, hell today!"

In case you're wondering just what the hell I'm talking about - http://in.sports.yahoo.com/080106/48/6paol.html

Now don't get me wrong. I hate prejudices and racism as much if not more than the next guy
(Heck, my favourite book is 'To kill a Mocking Bird' - if there's a better book with a background of prejudices, I haven't come across it) but sometimes people take things a bit too far and start exploiting and misusing anti-racism efforts.

Now the aussies are just using it to put pressure on a visiting cricket side. Atrocious that they would demean the efforts put in the war against racism to derive a petty advantage on the cricket field. When the aussies 'talk' on the field its always playful banter but when their back starts getting against the wall, 'monkey' becomes racist (cmon!). They know that just putting a racial abuse spin to anything would get immense media and public attention, pressure on the visitors and , as a bonus, a ban against a player.

These are perfect diversionary tactics employed by them. The thing that should be talked about in this match is the poor, biased umpiring that saw nine indian wickets falling through the umpires ineptitude and/or partiality. What should be discussed is why is Ricky Ponting's word 'above the law' in case of the grounded catch, why none of the aussie batsmen walked when they knew they were out (Yes, Mr. Symonds, that would be you), why Ponting repeatedly gets away with murder and why all visiting teams face the brunt of poor umpiring in Australia - even with nuetral umpires.

Instead they've comfortably focused the attention on Harbhajan. In a my word-vs-your word argument the match referee again takes the aussies' word as sacrosanct and imposes a huge penalty on Harbhajan when no umpires or batsmen heard him say the offending word.

Now if there something that reeks of racism in this entire incident, this is it.