About Mark Vermeulen’s Racial Slurs And His Weird Apology

Mark Vermeulen has shown himself to be a bit strange at the best of times.

A man who once showed loads of potential has got more inches of commentary around his behaviour elsewhere but with willow in hand.

Whether it’s the burning down of the then CFX cricket academy or the weird fight with fans in the UK, it’s all very sad.

It has often been treated with kid gloves but his latest episode is just strange.

What makes what he said absolutely disgusting and so far removed from any semblance of a world we want to live in is that it says three fundamentally racist things:

he calls black people apes
he said black people belong in mud huts
black people were incapable of invention since they should not have been educated by whites

That right there is where the issue is. He says people are handicapped not because of ability but that it is the colour of their skin. That is being said in 2015.

Then came the apology which you can read in NewsDay.

Here he says:

He added his ‘five cents without thinking of repercussions’. Not that what he said was wrong. It is simply the consequences of what he said
He compares this statement to sledging, qualifying it as the way a cricketer’s mind works. So it is not his fault. It is cricket’s fault right? That he qualifies his apology is just plain strange. He says apology if you are offended but you have to realise it is not my fault. In fact it is you who doesn’t understand the cricket mind.
By equating it to sledging where one tries to get people’s minds of matters, he essentially says there are people he wants to upset with that. He just feels that he was right but he could have said it better. So instead of ape what would he have used?
Then he says the comments were not meant to be menacing? Racists call black people apes and it was always menacing. If you say it is meant to upset the opposition as said before how can it not be menacing.

Look we are not people who will label anyone and we will not call Vermeulen racist. But that is a racial slur and there is no excuse for it. It should offend everyone with no equivocation.

There are probably race issues in cricket as there are in society but what he said is unforgivable if qualified. It can’t be sanitised.

He may say he is sorry, but that he transfers blame, ah well… since cricket causes him to say these things, should we allow him to play it?