Azeem Rafiq’s account and its reception point to the struggles of a community shaped by colonialism and exploitation
In the days since Azeem Rafiq gave evidence recounting the racism he faced within the Yorkshire County Cricket Club, people of colour across Britain have been moved to share their own accounts. But there is something distinct about Rafiq’s testimony, which reveals how Yorkshire sits in the national imagination and how Yorkshire’s south Asian Muslims have been historically positioned as outsiders.
When Rafiq spoke about being physically pinned down and having red wine poured down his throat at age 15, I thought about the ways that action replicated the logic of a whole range of top-down policies and processes that have violently been imposed on people of colour.
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a writer, spoken-word poet and educator
