In case some country institutionalizes racism in today’s age, he will be wiped out. It will be the perfect reason for a war to break out which the world seems to be waiting for!

Yes, we need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves first. But I am wondering who did that?! Nobody ever did that anywhere. Having a point of view that “Indians have a low self-esteem”. Like you said, there is no point extrapolating a few stray incidents to the entire society’s attitude.

My reaction to the Gibbs episode is: Who cares what some idiot cricketer thinks? Do his comments suggest a racist attitude? Possibly, but may be that’s what he calls Australians and English fans too. What bothers me is our reaction to such incidents. Is it because we suffer from low self esteem that we’re extremely sensitive to perceived racist attitudes? To the point that we care about what some nobody who swings a cricket bat for a living thinks? I’m just curious: Would we make the same noise if a West Indian cricketer were to make that comment?

I’m not suggesting, btw, that we ignore racism. When racism is institutionalized, like it was in South Africa during apartheid it must be fought and that is why Mandela is a hero. It is nothing like that in the US and the UK and in most of the world.

When it comes down to it, Adi, what bothers me is the “I’m a helpless victim” attitude that people take. Be it people who complain about glass ceilings, or about feeling like a second-class citizen in the US/UK or moaning that international cricket is racist. Strong, independent and fearless people do something about it. For example, India can stamp out racism in international cricket because we control the money and that’s where power is derived from. We just have to stop feeling sorry for ourselves first.

Yes, I see your point. And agree that we cannot extrapolate from these stray incidents that an entire society is racist. But racism is purely an array of stray incidents. Racism cannot be something like regular crimes, hence we can only get to racism through stray incidents. And that is one of the pitfalls of trying to identify whether racism is rampant or not.

Just a question, what do you say about the Gibbs incident?

“A horde of my friends staying in the US and UK are constantly telling me about the racist attitude they need to put up with.”

Ah yes, two popular stereotypes! I can’t speak for the UK but I can say that the US is as close to a merit-based system as you can get. No system is perfect but there are too many people who use the racism card as a crutch and as a way to explain away their own shortcomings. Are there isolated incidents? Certainly there are but it is unfair to extrapolate from these and call an entire society racist.