Leinster to investigate racism claims

First topic message reminder :

http://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/2011/0827/mujati.html

Leinster are holding a "full internal investigation" after Northampton prop Brian Mujati claimed he was the subject of racist remarks during last night's pre-season friendly at Donnybrook.

Mujati, 26, made the allegations on Twitter this morning. He later removed the postings, in which he claimed the remarks had come from Leinster prop Heinke van der Merwe and lock Steven Sykes.
Press Association Sport understands that Van der Merwe and Sykes deny the allegations.

The only comment that Leinster would make was in a statement which said: "Following allegations made by a Northampton Saints player this morning via his personal Twitter account, Leinster Rugby are holding a full internal investigation.

"The managements of both teams are in close communication and hopefully the matter will be resolved as soon as possible.

"No further comment will be made at this time until that resolution has been reached."

Zimbabwe-born Mujati, who has won 12 caps for South Africa, was clearly upset when he posted on the social networking site.
A Northampton spokesman told Press Association Sport:

"The club takes any allegations like this very seriously. We will be talking to the player concerned about it and contacting Leinster.
We will not make any further comment at this time."

The Rugby Football Union have confirmed that because the alleged incident took place on Irish soil it falls outside of their jurisdiction.

The IRFU have said they are in touch with Leinster and Northampton on the matter.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:One thing that should also be mentioned is that if lets say Hayes was booring in, would Skyes have called baboon?

Can we keep the conversation within the bounds of reality please. If Hayes was boring in it wouldn't have had any effect.

Most people are just armchair do-gooders who don't really have a clue whats going on.

Cymroglan wrote:Most people are just armchair do-gooders who don't really have a clue whats going on.

Great input

Like I said earlier, using the word 'bobbejaan' was stupid and it's no surprise Mujati reacted the way he did. At best they are guilty of rank stupidity. Think it's time to move on.

greybeard wrote:

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:One thing that should also be mentioned is that if lets say Hayes was booring in, would Skyes have called baboon?

Can we keep the conversation within the bounds of reality please. If Hayes was boring in it wouldn't have had any effect.

It really doesn't matter whether I have a problem with it or not. What I'm saying is that if Tendai Mtawarira didn't have a problem with it then it seems highly unlikely to me that there was any racial slur intended.

Surely that is the most important thing.

Yes there was probably no racism intended.

BUT any fool with a brain in his head should be thinking twice before shouting that out. Baboon is a racist term maybe not in SA but certainly in the UK

British writer calls Africans baboons - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/21/protest-lrb-blogpost

Celtics Bobo Balde referred to as a baboon - http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Fan's+'baboon'+rant+at+Balde+is+NOT+racist+,+says+sheriff%3B+Abuse+row...-a0128304940

Farmer claims that black man resembles baboon - http://africanpress.wordpress.com/2007/04/06/racist-white-farmer/

Detective charged with calling man a baboon - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369807/Anni-Dewani-murder-Detective-charged-fraud-racism.html

Football player leaves field after being thrown a banana - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2007665/Roberto-Carlos-considered-retiring-banana-thrown-crowd-Russia.html

Footballer speaks about monkey racism during matches - http://edition.cnn.com/2008/SPORT/football/06/13/etoo.interview/index.html

Guys, we've already gone over all of this.

Serious question and not one to cause offence.

How many instances of racial abuse by black people end up in court ?
I would think very few,, does that mean it does not go on ?

Of course it goes on.

greybeard wrote:Guys, we've already gone over all of this.

You have you mean.

I wasn't the only one involved in the discussion, there were plenty of others.

Why let the racists steal a perfectly acceptable word?

If I was in a room full of extremely overweight people I would probably not steer the conversation towards beached whales as they might be offended but if I am speaking to a black man I would feel no discomfort in discussing baboons or monkeys or any other animal because I see no reason why he should feel that discussion had anything to do with his race. I see no more similarities between the black man and monkeys than I do between myself and monkeys.

Why should I let someone else's racism change that.?

I don't think a discussion on baboons was taking place in the scrum, though.

Exactly greybeard. There was no zoology being debted. A word was shouted as a code and it was a very poor word to use.

Why not use another less controversial term?

Still.

Should we stop using a word because racists have another use for it?

No we shouldn't stop using it but lets use our noggins when we do.

We should stop using it while punching black people in the face, certainly, poissonrouge.

If a team used Futurama characters for various calls they might only be thinking in terms of cartoons and nothing else, but someone else on the opposing team might just have a personal reason for being angry that he was hearing "Bender" each time he was thumped.

Common sense would suggest steering away from it.

greybeard wrote:We should stop using it while punching black people in the face, certainly, poissonrouge.

This. SO, SO, SO obviously this!

poissonrouge wrote:I would feel no discomfort in discussing baboons or monkeys or any other animal because I see no reason why he should feel that discussion had anything to do with his race. I see no more similarities between the black man and monkeys than I do between myself and monkeys.

Would you feel discomfort at shouting the word 'baboon' and punching him in the face? What conclusions do you think he would draw?

So...if the opposition front row is all white?

You see what I mean? I want to be able to use words without having to think about the colour of the skin of the people around me. It shouldn't matter!

Of course they will have to change their call now but it feels a bit like that is letting the racists win.

Edit: I well I wouldn't advocate punching him in the face at all.

poissonrouge wrote:Sin,

You don't think that maybe some South Africans had a bit to do with the ending of apartheid too?

I am not suggesting that there are no racists in South Africa just that it is unfair to lable all/any South African as racist because of their ethnic origin.

Is it possible that these two lads have moved on in their view to the point where they did not think about the colour of the players they were facing?

I'm not labelling them racist because of their ethnic origin - its because of their culture. It will take a generation or two to eradicate. To illustrate further what I mean about ethnic origin - I had a gran aunt who went to live in the US (southern states) in the early 50s. Lovely lady - brought up in Ireland, but boy did she not have any time for black Americans. I remember her saying that she would not walk on the same side of the street as the N word! She would not have considered herself racist!

I've been reading up a bit about racism in SA now - thought this piece was interesting:

"South African Human Rights Commission CEO, Tseliso Thipanyane, in an address to the media on racism early in March 2008, admitted that talking about racism, especially as it affects blacks, has become unpopular. Instead Blacks are encouraged to keep quiet about their experiences and move on. He told journalist that South Africans “should not delude ourselves and think we are out of the [racism] woods.”

One point that has been made is that when apartheid ended, the non-whites had 'Truth & Reconciliation' to help them, but the white South Africans had nothing and this is a mistake that has bred nothing but resentment.

poissonrouge wrote:I want to be able to use words without having to think about the colour of the skin of the people around me. It shouldn't matter!

I agree, I join you in wishing that was possible. But it's not.

They way i see it now is that sykes is new to the club
From my memory we have never had a tactic to stop the tighthead boring in.

Sykes probably brought this up and told them he had a move at the sharks
that they called baboon, the team probably thought great lets try it out
And away they went. i would say at no point did someone even think about what would happen using it against a black man.

And that is where i see it not being racist, poor choice in word and i would hope in hindsight they would have changed it.

Notch,

"Would you feel discomfort at shouting the word 'baboon' and punching him in the face? What conclusions do you think he would draw?"

I would hope he would draw exactly the same conclusions as a white man would if he thought I was calling him a baboon while punching him in the face.

That just seems very utopian to me, he's inevitably going to draw different conclusions because of the fact there are racists out there and people do use that as racist terminology. In an ideal world no-one would be racist, but the world we live in is far from ideal.

D24tress wrote:They way i see it now is that sykes is new to the club
From my memory we have never had a tactic to stop the tighthead boring in.

Sykes probably brought this up and told them he had a move at the sharks
that they called baboon, the team probably thought great lets try it out
And away they went. i would say at no point did someone even think about what would happen using it against a black man.

And that is where i see it not being racist, poor choice in word and i would hope in hindsight they would have changed it.

Yes I think thats a nice summary.

VDM certainly wasn't able to stop Mujati boring in during the HC final.

Front row are not capable of drawing any conclusions

poissonrouge wrote:I would hope he would draw exactly the same conclusions as a white man would if he thought I was calling him a baboon while punching him in the face.

You're kidding? Do you honestly think he's going to spend time wondering if this happens to all of Leinster's opposition props? That's a rather quixotic hope.

Which bit Grey,

The shouting or the punching?

The shouting; the punching is a given. I mean, it's a scrum.

Just as an aside, I was describing this incident to the lads in work who don’t follow rugby. They thought that the controversy was because of the punch.
You’ve got to love this sport!

D24tress wrote:They way i see it now is that sykes is new to the club
From my memory we have never had a tactic to stop the tighthead boring in.

Sykes probably brought this up and told them he had a move at the sharks
that they called baboon, the team probably thought great lets try it out
And away they went. i would say at no point did someone even think about what would happen using it against a black man.

And that is where i see it not being racist, poor choice in word and i would hope in hindsight they would have changed it.

Considering he used the Africaans word for baboon, it would be hardly surprising if the non Saffers in the pack didn't know what he meant.

I think that Leinster's good reputation will take a serious dent with this.

Mickado wrote:Just as an aside, I was describing this incident to the lads in work who don’t follow rugby. They thought that the controversy was because of the punch.
You’ve got to love this sport!

To be honest that's not great either. Premeditated triggers to allow thuggery is nothing to be proud of.

It's a bit of a hangover from the self-policing of the amateur era. Essentially if you don't want to get punched in the face, don't be boring in. Par for the course.

There are so many other words to chose from, I don't see how one can't have a problem with it if it unintentionally causes offense to another person

Notch wrote:It's a bit of a hangover from the self-policing of the amateur era. Essentially if you don't want to get punched in the face, don't be boring in. Par for the course.

Oh I know why it's there, but I'm wondering how sensible it is. Is this something that needs to be practiced between front and second rows? Are there other things that teams practice that are specifically against the laws of rugby and could get the second row player a 2-6 week suspension if caught?

greybeard wrote:

Notch wrote:It's a bit of a hangover from the self-policing of the amateur era. Essentially if you don't want to get punched in the face, don't be boring in. Par for the course.

Oh I know why it's there, but I'm wondering how sensible it is. Is this something that needs to be practiced between front and second rows? Are there other things that teams practice that are specifically against the laws of rugby and could get the second row player a 2-6 week suspension if caught?

I would say most definitely there are.

I'm sure the trigger call will be changed now but think about, the Beast calls it when playing for the Sharks.

Mickado wrote:

greybeard wrote:

Notch wrote:It's a bit of a hangover from the self-policing of the amateur era. Essentially if you don't want to get punched in the face, don't be boring in. Par for the course.

Oh I know why it's there, but I'm wondering how sensible it is. Is this something that needs to be practiced between front and second rows? Are there other things that teams practice that are specifically against the laws of rugby and could get the second row player a 2-6 week suspension if caught?

I would say most definitely there are.

arm pulling in the lineout

Arm pulling isn't a citable offense though. Practicing things that are (in this case striking) isn't a pleasant idea.

oh ok, what about practicing taking blood capsules to make a blood sub

Sin é wrote:

MBTGOG wrote:Sin é,

To be fair, you called Sykes a bad apple.

Well, he was the one who introduced that particular call to Leinster, the one that has a) Leinster answering charges of racism and b) has a trigger call for something that will get Leinster into more trouble.

I would now contend that he isn't the brightest. A black person making those calls will get away with it. A white person won't.

So do you admit you were wrong to call him a bad apple?

MBTGOG wrote:I'm sure the trigger call will be changed now but think about, the Beast calls it when playing for the Sharks.

Its ok for a black guy to use it. Its not ok for a white guy to do so. The 'N' word is used by blacks between each others for instance. Rugby is a white sport in SA - I just checked the Sharks website - there are about 4 non-white players in the squad of 36. Much easier for any black player to just keep their head down and ignore this if you are in a minority.

Even Brian Majati said as much in his twitter 'about nothing changing with regard to racism in SA' before it was deleted.

And when you think about it, he probably knew the clubs would take no action.

D24tress wrote:oh ok, what about practicing taking blood capsules to make a blood sub

Equally unpleasant, of course.

greybeard wrote:

Mickado wrote:But orange scum can pretty much only be used in an offensive way. You can see a baboon in the zoo.

"Baboon", while being punched in the face... can only be offensive unless you already know it's a trigger call. Even just "Orangeman" and a punch in the face would be offensive, even though there is nothing ostensibly offensive about the colour orange or the Orange Order.

. Id say the orange order are pretty offensive tbh greybeard, a bad example perhaps?

Only to some, so no, I don't think so.

greybeard wrote:Only to some, so no, I don't think so.

to 50% of the people living in ulster considering that for rugby purposes ulster consists of 9 counties not 6. Id imagine ulster rugby wouldnt want to be aligning themselves with the orange order. Might explain why you see plenty of ireland jerseys in places like Omagh but very few ulster ones

50% is some.

Anyway, that's off topic and I have no interest in a political discussion

greybeard wrote:Only to some, so no, I don't think so.

By your logic what the Leinster lads said is acceptable as its only offensive to some You mentioned the orange order and then said it was off-topic. I said it was a bad example to use and you disagreed.