Watch an emotional Darren Sammy call out the casual racism of his IPL teammates — ‘I saw you as brothers,’ says the former West Indies captain

• Sammy, who’s also a two-time T20 World Cup-winning captain, in his latest instagram video said he realised his team mates using a derogatory word ‘Kalu” as a nickname.
  
• Sammy demanded an apology from his teammates, asking them to reach out to him.
  
• Soon after the Sammy’s video started doing the rounds, Ishant Sharma’s Instagram post from 2014 — where he addressed Sammy using that nickname — also went viral.
  

Darren Sammy, former West Indies cricket captain, on June 9 posted an emotional message on Instagram calling out the Sunrise Hyderabad IPL team, where a racist slur was used by his teammates. Sammy’s call out shows the inherent racism in India which is passed off as casual.

Sammy, who’s also a two-time T20 World Cup-winning captain, said only after he watched the latest episode from Hasan Minhaj’s show Patriot Act, that he realised ‘Kalu’ is a derogatory term. Kalu, which is a derogatory term Indians have used to address people who are dark skinned, was used by Minhaj in his show to portray the double standards of Indians in the US, and inherently, in India too.

Watch here:

View this post on Instagram

So recently I discovered a word that I was being called was not what it actually meant I need some answers. So before I start calling out names I need these individuals to reach out and please tell me there’s another meaning to that word and when I was being called it,it was all in love. #blackandproud #blackandconfident #clarasboy #saynotoracism #stopracism #cricketer #stlucia

A post shared by daren (@darensammy88) on Jun 8, 2020 at 1:18pm PDT

Sammy also said he distinctly remembers laughter at the very mention of the word during his IPL stint.

"...I was angry after listening to him (Minhaj) describing a word that they use to describe black people, which he was saying is not in a good way and it was degrading. Instantly I remembered when I played for Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2013 and 2014, I was called the exact same word that he described,” he added.

Soon after Sammy’s video started doing the rounds, Indian cricketer Ishant Sharma’s Instagram post from 2014 — where he mentioned Sammy using the same word has also gone viral.


However, Indians soon started pointing out how Sammy called himself 'Kalu' in a Twitter post in a birthday wish for VVS Laxman — the Sunrisers Hyderabad mentor. Sammy has now mentioned in the video that he did not know the meaning of the term.


Sammy demanded an apology from his teammates, asking them to reach out to him.

"All those who used to call me that, you guys know yourselves... Reach out to me, let's have a conversation. Because, if it was in any way, shape or form what Minhaj said it meant, I'm very disappointed... because I saw all of you guys as my brothers. So, talk to me, reach out to me, please clear the air," he said.

Sammy's West Indies teammate Chris Gayle had also spoken about having faced racist jibes during his international T20 stints.

The fight against racism has risen globally after the death of the American George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer — which has also resulted in massive protests in the US with the call – Black Lives Matter.

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