It’s difficult to read respected Fairfax sports journalist Malcolm Knox’s “parody” piece criticising Chris Gayle’s sexist on-air comments to journalist Mel McLaughlin, as anything other than racist.
Dominated by Knox’s use of patois, a dialect infused with racist cultural and political history, its tone leans, for mine, rather more towards a taunt than a parody, and were I to hazard a guess at Knox’s state of mind during the composing of the piece I’d say, red- hot angry.
A keen follower of sport and Knox gave me some background on the relations between Gayle and other West Indian cricketers, and the largely white male media who are knowledgable insiders. It was suggested that there’s a general fed-upness at the perceived latitude enjoyed by Gayle and his colleagues in the matter of their public behaviours: words such as antics, and they can get away with anything because they’re charismatic, were used. Being completely ignorant of just about everything to do with cricket I can offer no opinion, but Knox’s piece does read as if he’s reacting to the straw that broke the camel’s back, rather than the singular McLaughlin incident.
If Knox wanted to make the point that sexist behaviour resembles racist behaviour in the capacity of both to dehumanise their targets, he surely could have achieved this in one sentence of patois. How do you feel, Chris Gayle, he might have asked, when someone speaks to you thus. Angry? Humiliated? Demeaned? Well, that’s exactly how women feel when you speak to them as you did to Mel. Or something along those lines.
A good parody will achieve its goal with the minimum and very subtle use of how do you like it when. Persist in the lesson for an entire article and you sound like an enraged bully.
For mine, I do not need white knights coming to my rescue by attacking misogynists on the basis of their race. The most awful experiences I’ve had with sexism have involved white males, and quite what race has to do with misogyny I don’t know. Privileged white males seem equally capable of behaving badly towards women as do males of any other skin colour. Misogyny is about power, entitlement, ignorance and infantility, not the colour of a man’s skin.
The Knox article fails to meet any of its objectives. It doesn’t work at all as parody. It doesn’t address the issue of male sexism in sport. It doesn’t address the specific incident that inspired it. It reads like a great big dummy spit that benefits nobody, and in fact deflects attention from the issues onto itself. Like those advertisements that are so distracting the viewer can never remember the product the ads were pushing.
The piece also racialises misogyny, and suggests that black men ought to know how sexism feels because racism, so logically white women ought to know how racism feels because sexism. White men, on the other hand, don’t suffer either so don’t have to know anything except how to position themselves as superior to both.
No Place For Sheep 
Knox is upset because Gayle effectively blew the lid on what a contrived farce big bash is.
Personally, I can’t see that Gayle said anything wrong. The formatting had him there as sort of yokel, easy meat for the interviewer to project herself and the rotten f…..g network.
He didn’t play along. He parried her attempts to have him off balance with sophisticated and innoffensive means of his own and I celebrate him for it. He transgressed and subverted the sexualisation of race, as you correctly intuit, more or less.
OK, you won’t forgive me for that, sorry, but I feel as deeply about it as you do, but from a different place.
What a world it has become when you can be bankrupted for saying someone has beautiful eyes. Oliver Cromwell would have seemed Libertarian by comparison.
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Your article is really good in most respects.
Knox’s stuff is more knowingly vile than anything a a naif like Gayle came up with on camera. I salute you for your nous in detecting and examining this neglected racist part of the issue. But because you are very smart, such epiphanies are humblingly commonplace. Like Gayle at cricket, you make the common place look easy as to writing on subjects cultural.
You also intuited correctly that Gayle has a reputation, the reason he is still there is because Windies cricket is financially messed up. Its a poor part f the world and the India dominated WCB won’t finance Windies cricket to the extent it was once supported and rightly so, given the enjoyment it brought to the game.
Once, the pressure on him to conform and perform would have precluded any Champagne Charlie stuff, with others fighting for your spot in the team with the ability to replace said Champagne Charlie, say twenty years ago. At the moment he is about all they’ve got and they hang on to him and so there is a discipline issue because if they pitch him out their performances will become even worse. They are due to be kicked out of Test (real) cricket becuse they no longer are able to perform at the highest level, as young Windies lads are now attracted to lucrative US baseball, particularly as regards Jamaica.
As you well recall, I also have been critical of the far worse Dutton and Briggs cases, involving foul language and genuine intimidation, rather than a little light banter.
I hope some sense of proportion returns to all this…too much real is happening in the world for this sort of stuff to carry on for much longer.
I appreciate many girls and women are damaged by a system of human relations not yet properly evolved. I understand there is thuggery and exclusion on a vast scale involving women amnd oppose that.
But going after Gayle is not the way to win this war. He has been done out of a lot of dough from being put in a no-win situation. The Gayle issue is the sublime deteriorated to the gorblimey and the strange tactic will only bring ridicule to feminism, obscuring its real truths and necessary agenda.
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Well I was creeped out by the interview. Is it not the equivalent of standing up in a large business meeting and asking someone to go out with you? Take another look at the interview and forget about the entitled cricketer, turn up your empathy, and focus on the journalist. She most certainly does not think it’s just a bit of light banter. Then have a read of some workplace harassment and bullying policies. If I did this in my old company and the victim quite rightly complained to HR, it wouldn’t be grounds for dismissal because it’s a one-off incident, but I would certainly be spoken to and be on notice if I did it again.
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But Chris Gayle isn’t Mel McLaughlin’s employer or work colleague. He was an interviewee. However tasteless or creepy his part in the exchange may have been, did it justify this over the top beat-up about a visiting sportsman? Or is it meant to diminish Gayle in the eyes of the public in the context of Gayle sueing SMH over allegations as to him having exposed himself to some other woman?
Shorter Jennifer Wilson: Less would have been more!
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Gayle certainly picked a bad time to do it! They were both at work and workplaces should have a higher standard of behaviour. Thanks for providing some more context. I did used to enjoy cricket but got bored about the time of Mark Taylor.
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Well, I would like to remind everyone that my post isn’t about Gayle, it’s about Malcolm Knox’s article.
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Fortunately, PW, we can disagree on these issues and still remain on good terms, because I obviously don’t see what you saw.
The point was that the incident occurred in the workplace, but you know all that.
I saw the incident and thought it was pretty off behaviour on Gayle’s part. Reminded me of when a real estate agent told me I couldn’t possibly have a PhD because “pretty and blonde.” All these things add up in a lifetime, PW.
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PW, it’s just been explained to me about the different forms of cricket and why you and others don’t like this big bash thing.
Understanding this gives your comment a context I was ignorant of prior to this explanation.
I am pitifully ignorant about sport.
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Thank you for that.
Yes, it is just another enclosured commons to me, something de facto privatised like arinforest for woodchipping corporations,
for the benefit of a very few based on the duping of many.
Think Fuerbach, Marx and the proposition that capitalism, although some times creative, destroys so much that is good, for such ig noble reasons, in its path- everything from cricket to human relationships.
And all this “family ” boganish hogwash with tennis and cricket only reinforces male/ female stereotyping, leaves the family unstudied as the mechanism for commodification and reification- and authoritarianism- and as you were smart enough to observe, inevitably must base itself on the othering of others to keep the herd together, lest they see the forest for the trees, something indicated in some of the comments up.
As for the workplace, as someone else where pointed out, Mclaughlin’s workplace wasn’t Gayles. Gayle is here to play cricket, was neither aggressive, or swore; just made conversation… so much for deep conversations about the skills of the game.
He was not there to prop up the network’s phony image (unless he was payed).
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I used to watch cricket until Richie and Tony Grieg made it all about them and used to perv on the likes of Michael Holden and many of the hunky west Indians, along with Thommo and Lillie in their hey day.
The cricketers are now followed by groupies and treated like gods of old, then we whinge when they behave that way.
Her employer should have protected Mel is they thought the man was so vile but we girls had a revolution to be equal didn’t we?
I found the behaviour of Briggs reminded me of a group of young married men of my youth who got drunk at the local cabarets while looking out for a young fuck because ‘the wife doesn’t understand me”, – I called the dumb fucks the married bachelors and boy did they hate me.
Briggs is just like those blokes but that was almost 50 years ago and silly me thought we might have evolved slightly since then.
Dutton was only called on to resign by so-called feminists when he called Sam Maiden a mad fucking witch, none of them called for his head over the disgusting racist abuse of Abyan, the rape of kids on Nauru or the torture of men on Manus and that makes them as hypocritical as Briggs.
As for the Knox piece, that was the most racist tripe I have read in years, I don’t remember such drivel over the sexist prick Warne who was always joked about by the white boys as a good old boy.
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Ten likes for Marilyn’s comment. Totally agree with observations on the reaction to Dutton’s witch slur.
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Having been raped, beaten and tortured by men a few fucking nasty words are a tiny mound of beans.
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Mr Walter, you have written a number of points in this post. I feel 2 points need expansion.
Firstly, The effect of Mr Gayle’s comments, in the interview, could be clearly seen on the face of Ms McLaughlan. Her expression certainly highlights how inappropriate his comments were. Despite any of his intentions, the effects of his comments on her are the critical issue.
Secondly, you speak of a “not yet properly evolved” system of human relations. Naturally so but i firmly believe that the Gayles, Briggses, Duttons and all of the male trolls putridly commenting as a backlash against feminist directions are delaying much evolutionary hope.
(And): As a very grandiose statement, I say that: I do not want the evolution of human relationships delayed. Debate over the recent “seemingly harmless comments” issues, protecting the culprits, severely diminishes any positive change of a timely evolution.
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I don’t want the evolution of human relationships delayed either.
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This is a link to a comment on the ‘By a man for men’ thread, in which I have embedded a short Twitter conversation
I felt embedding the two tweets again on this thread may have given some relevant perspective here. The interesting thing is that when I went to my own Twitter ‘All tweets’ timeline to embedd the conversation again here, my own tweet was missing!
I am aware there exist Twitter disruption tools that enable these sorts of things to occur, but what is revealing is the need seen somewhere to effectively censor my observation in respect to this whole event.
Click the link and have a look for yourselves at what that observation was!
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Who is manipulating these disruption tools Forrest?
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They know where the Sheep Witch is and coming for ewe.
I should have warned you that dancing widdershins at midnight could be tricky.
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You can read about the claims as to their having been developed by the UK Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, in the link contained within Michaela Bannerjee’s (@LaLegale) tweet embedded in Sheep’s Uthman Badar thread:
It is claimed these disruption tools have been sold on to other interested parties outside the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence community. If that is true it would not be surprising to find Murdoch interests have access to the software. However, if the aim was to exert a degree of control over the internet without destroying its intelligence COLLECTING usefulness, the last thing I would do is sell the software on. Too many independent agendas being pursued with resort to these tools could destroy user confidence and interest in the online experience, and be self-defeating.
So the short answer to your question is “I don’t know”. A somewhat more useful answer would be “In the ultimate, that demographic of corporate neo-feudalists that also overlaps in part the machinery of US governance”. The people of the work culture that would have Assange eating cat food for 25 years or more. Them.
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I am very very sad that David Bowie is gone.
I haven’t felt this sad about a stranger dying since James Gandolfini carked.
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Happy New Year Mr Lawrence.
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Yep, actually feeling stunned. He was unsettling, that was what he did and he was a reality check, post hippy, tracing the downfall of sixties naivety to recession seventies “low” grunge and disillusion, for want of a better word.
He had a mind and his aim to encourage others to use theirs, for them to get real and keep their eyes and minds open instead of just drifting off.
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You always have some thing new and lateral to add. You are one very compelling reason why I’d be glad to back here.
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Hey, and look at what I just found in @MsLou27’s ‘All tweets’ timeline!
The tool seemingly not also applied against her Twitter account.
PS. Do not worry about them coming for the Sheep. They came for her in January 2012, but she did not fold to them. She has a higher baa than them.
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OMG. A higher baa. OMG
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And I thought it was me, PW 🙂
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No, I re-viewed the clip. On second thoughts, it was a little worse than what I noticed the first time.
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PW, I think the Briggs and Dutton transgressions were more worthy than Gayle’s of critical analysis, given their context, and then I thought Knox’s piece more interesting in its complexity than Gayle’s crudity.
I’ve been thinking about your comments on the Gaze and universal surveillance, then I read a piece somewhere about how Dr Phil is being sued for millions after interviewing a Targeted Individual, a lawyer who claimed he’d been subjected to 24 hour surveillance by authorities.
Dr Phil framed him as paranoid and delusional, but the guy has evidence of his persecution and claims the good Dr has ruined his reputation and is in cahoots with authority.
Forrest, this is one for you as well. I think it’s fascinating. Will try to find link again.
Here it is: http://www.inquisitr.com/1745029/dr-phil-sued-for-100-million-guest-claims-he-made-him-look-crazy-video/
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The miserable SOB’s have applied copyright block.
Everywhere is the dead hand.
So, another individual bounced for not accepting her or his role without complaint: They want that he is delusional, regardless of whether this is true or not, there it goes, for the smug virtuousness shared with a complicit audience, as the deemed unworthy subject is excluded.
I hate it particularly when stereotyping is applied to outlier groups, Muslims, blue collar housewives, indigenous people, etc..folk never really understood what it was Adam Goodes finally kicked against.
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“They want that he is delusional, regardless of whether this is true or not, …”
Together with implied ‘appeal to authority’. ‘If Dr Phil thinks so, or even looks like he might be thinking so, it must be so!’
Unable to form any impression of my own due to the copyright block on the video upon which it might otherwise have been possible to base it, I will simply mention the recently reported death of Ian Murdock following an ostensibly randomly administered police beating in California.
Ian Murdock was the ‘ian’ part of Debian, a major Linux distribution. I’m wondering was the beating and subsequent death (with inferences of suicide) targeted coercion or payback for postulated lack of co-operation in facilitation of ‘back doors’ to Debian based systems? Back doors wanted by neo-feudalist overlappers posing as US patriots?
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The very application of the ‘dead hand’ is a red flag to me that there is likely substance to this claimed targetted lawyer’s concerns as to harrassive surveillance. I am inferring that Jennifer’s “Dr Phil framed him as paranoid and delusional, …… and is in cahoots with authority.” is based upon her having viewed the video footage before the copyright block was imposed. If so, I am prepared to bet that her reading of the situation is a fairly accurate one.
The copyright block is aimed at the erstwhile prospective online viewership, that diffuse viewership that will include a sub-class of observers that might otherwise have detected a modus operandi if able to decide on something seen with their own eyes in regard to such claims of harrassment.
The reason I have put on record the otherwise seemingly digressive reference to the death of Ian Murdock is that it was one presaged in real time by a series of tweets under Murdock’s Twitter account reporting his police bashing and hinting at an in the future attempt at suicide in connection therewith. Followed by his death. This real time apparent record is one that would, and did, reach a significant part of the viewership sub-class aforementioned. A sub-class only days away from the observance of an anniversary of the death by suicide of Aaron Swartz in consequence of over-zealous intimidatory prosecution. A sub-class that might see modus operandi in what otherwise passes as ostensibly random misfortune, and a possible reason for the entertaining of suicide in connection with a matter that woud not otherwise be expected to elicit such.
Who knows but that the dead-handed fake-patriot corporate-neofeudalist US-governance overlappers may not have initiated their very own Streisand effect right here on Sheep with their copyright block!
That’s my State of the Union address.
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Forrest, did you Google that, or just use my link? If the latter, try Google, there’s lots of links or there were.
Which only goes to substantiated your thesis of a block on Sheep.
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I did initially use your link, but I also get the copyright block notice when I get to the article via Google. Unless a disruption tool can be deployed against specific users of google searches, it looks like the neofeudalist overlappers just don’t want people making up their own minds in the light of the targetted individual’s claims after watching the video.
If his evidence included footage of what he claimed were vehicles used in harrassive surveillance, and that just happened to be true, it may be that the video has been suppressed because the footage records traceable identification features that might actually PROVE it was (possibly unlawful) surveilance.
Thereby making it a matter of independent investigatie revelation, not just an arguable subjective claim by someone painted as delusional.
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Just to clarify, I have evidence as to the use of Twitter disruption tools against @noplaceforsheep the Twitter account. That was your encountering the ‘blocked by’ tool on your Twitter account when other Twitter accounts could see your tweets in the timeline of the alleged blocker, which should not have been possible if you had genuinely been blocked by them. I am not aware as to any attempted disruption or blocking on No Place for Sheep the blog.
Sorry if there appeared any ambiguity in my reference to the beloved Streisand Effect. Its just that even talking about the Dr Phil and Ian Murdock matters here on Sheep I can see as being potentially enough to invoke an instance of it.
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Bloody hell. I’m a Targeted Individual.
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For the record:
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I couldn’t make it past the first paragraph of Knox’ article. When I read your headline about his piece failing in every way, I thought to myself that at least the spelling and grammar would have been correct, but nope. This white man suffered just trying to understand his written version of black face.
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It is cringe-making. I had to read it a few times before writing this piece and I didn’t enjoy the experience.
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Reading it once was enough to make me feel I wanted a long hot shower.
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I have been busy arguing about this case on AIM. And do not wish to pursue it any further.
That a white guy should use the opportunity to justify his racism worsens any already difficult situation.
PW & FG – you probably know I disagree and hopefully you know the reasons why – although understanding my reasons would be better.
I do not wish to repeat the instances of ‘every-sexism’ – writing about it just reminds me of, oh, so many times in my life when I was regarded as entertainment, an ornament, prey… whatever… in situations where I was either trying to do my job or had not hinted at any interest whatsoever – although apparently smiling is a big mistake.
I would also add on I have called out some people at the time – if it was possible – some of whom responded that compliments are to be reciprocated – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Like I was supposed to be grateful – that gets really insulting – must stop now… had enough.
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Apologies for typos:
‘any already’ S/B ‘an already’
‘every-sexism’ S/B ‘everyday sexism’
PS
I don’t see that it is specifically about cricket, “big bash” or even sport in general – this event typifies the clearly unwanted attention McLaughlin received – perhaps some men just need a course in facial expressions and other body language.
Something about emotional intelligence quotient springs to mind…
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No probs, diannart. I disagree completely, but it is a Tower of Babel situation and its probably not going to improve.
You can’t see what I see, I can’t understand your take.
So be it.
I’ve said before, I understand that women have difficult lives, but never having been one ( that I know of) I obviously can’t understand what I’ve not been and I suppose it is the same for you, as to me and my lived experience.
Seriously, it can’t be ALL my fault, surely?
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You know diannaart, you are actually right. I know many women and many have had foul troubles during their lives. I’ve had a good enough run to say, “Who’d be a woman”.
Jennifer Wilson, you come to mind. I have just thought on what I know of you and you have had a hard trot in too many ways. Others, too, with similar stories, diamonds of people formed under the fiercest heat and pressure, yet taken for granted when they should have been cherished.
It’s probably fortunate for me that I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. Sorry, all of you.
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Mr Walter, you may have locked the door… Permit me to open it and allow you explore attitudes that seem to mystify you. (It’s not a “Tower of Babel” situation. It is actually a situation of using omitted attempts at education as an excuse). It’s not a misunderstanding of languages. It is actually a misunderstanding of responsibility. Try this as a start: http://whatmencando.net/resources/
Then, if you are truly courageous try this: http://www.xyonline.net/sites/default/files/Stoltenberg,%20Refusing%20to%20Be%20a%20Man.pdf
If you would prefer something milder or more soluble, the White Ribbon Australia website has heaps of information so that you no longer need to excuse your self by not understanding the language.
Jackson Katz has presented an exceptional posit to assist to explain why it is difficult for men to understand the significance of male privilege. “What do you do on a daily basis to avoid sexual assault or harassment?” Unless you are in prison, I would suggest that, like me, you don’t even have to consider being sexually assaulted or harassed. Us males, particularly white males, rarely entertain the concept. If, in your life, you know women who are not on the wrong side of your power and privilege and who trust you enough so that you won’t decide to jump in and rescue them, ask them what they may do on a regular or daily basis to preserve their safety. Their safety from total strangers and also from those who present an “undying love” for them.
Taking on the responsibility of understanding this may lead you to understand why Ms Mclaughlin looked so distraught when Gayle confronted her.
I have a long way to go. I still carry on my day to day with and exceptional amount of male privilege. (As seen here). Please drop the “Tower of Babel” approach and listen to women. Our world will certainly benefit from it.
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Another hot night in Adelaide and the restless one, robbed of sleep, surfs the web, stumbling across this: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35233732
It will be claiimed by some that the article is not directly relevant to the Gayle case, despite Gayle himself having had his change room privacy intruded upon by a reporter, with unfortunate results.
I’m throwing it into the ring for consideration as back ground and explanation, because it seems to have become necessary to explain that the source of this writers irritations concerning it is derived not of a sexist slant, but because it concerns an elephant in the room: The Gaze, Surveillance, the Panopticon and social conditioning as well as medias black arts of presentation and audience manipulation..
The article cites numerous examples involving female presenters compelled by their work to intrude on the privacy and territorial integrity of sportsmen, most specifically the media desperate compulsion to get into the dressing rooms after an event, when the players could be emotionally drained from the match, or in a state of undress and showering, adter the match.
I could widen the thing to include junk like Big Brother, where once again the underlying base seems to involve imposing surveillance, objectiving of subject as objects and more to the point, conditioning the public to accept similar intrusions, anything from court cases, to sport, to workplace spying, to computer data collection, to subceptional advertising.
People seem so desensitised that they no longer even consider privacy and more specifically the system’s urge to surveillance, in every nook and cranny of human life- the TV station or news caster or whoever is not querieded on its / their right to invade privacy and any questioning seems to bring forth an emotional defence of the right to intrude and superintend.
Now, it does seem some feminists have appropriated the notion of the Gaze to refer to something invasive specifically of women and their spaces, but I’d contend what annoys about this is TV sport and news’ demand and requirement for intrusiveness right across human affairs and most particularly the entitlement the very act of intrusion reveals about the system.
When Jennifer Wilson suggested yesterday that my concerns went beyond the mere Gayle story to consideration something wider that actually determines the sort of over blown situations that developed with Mclaughlin and Gayle, the cogs must have turned as to the need for some thing specific and it must be a reason this article connected with me.
Since I now now grasp more meaningfully women’s objections to objectivation, I can also put a name to much of what bothers me about my own disempowered place in society.
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You’re comment is so interesting, PW, and reminds me how all of us approach every situation with our own perspective constructed from our own experiences.
I deliberately didn’t discuss the alleged Gayle flashing report as there’s nothing substantial to support it. I find your comments on the Gaze intriguing: you’re right, of course, in noting the universal surveillance of one kind or another to which we’ve become accustomed, repressing its insidious effects because we’re powerless to do anything about it but nonetheless irritated and worse by it.
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You’d have to ask the reporter, as to how big the problem was.
But this obsession with surveillance and control (WASP, Weber /Tawney, Marcuse,et al), we learnt about it during Vietnam and not a thing has dented the pathogen since.
In a way, I can even feel sorry for deranged Abbott. He thinks he is a hardman but is a classic example of the damage the system can do an individual.
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My take on Knox’s piece is that two wrongs don’t make a right.
He obviously seeks to invoke the “shoe on the other foot” method of attack and lays it on thick. Too thick, and unnecessarily laboured.
BTW, Gayle’s earnings were $7.5million last year; a $10k fine is like a tap on the wrist.
But the clip may be of educational value – how not to behave in an interview.
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Good morning DQ- by the timing, great minds hit the aether at the same time.
Do you know anything more of how our friend at TT is going?
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Yes, how is he DQ?
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Silence is ominous..
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I must say I erred slightly and it made a difference. Re watching the clip, his mistake came at the end when he seemed to move forward to cuddle Mel..until then, he might have got away with his little banter routine and no one would have minded much.
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