Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
Well, I'm glad you finally outlined what you thought because it was not clear beforehand. If I'm guilty of jumping to conclusions (and I'm still not 100 per cent sure I did), I apologise, but then I can say the same about you. I have taken care not to call anyone in this thread, or Ollie Robinson for that matter, a racist, but, clearly, there was an instance of racism from him at one time, so what I have been saying is that people who seek to excuse or defend him when it comes to that instance of racism are apologists.

I have never said they are "racist apologists", but they are racism apologists. I think there is a, subtle, difference between the two because the first one carries the suggestion that the apologist is a racist themselves, whereas I hope the second one is suggestive of someone who is being an apologist for an act of racism because that is what meant when I said some in this thread were being apologists for racism..

I'd read what Michael Holding had to say on the matter and, for me, it all boils down to what he means by "I don't think you should come down too hard on him". I can confirm that i "did a lot of rubbish as a youngster", but that rubbish never stretched to putting downright offensive opinions into the public domain of the type Robinson did at an age when he was, to all intents and purposes, considered to be an adult. Because of that, I'm firmly of the opinion that Robinson should have been suspended or omitted from at least the test following his debut.

I've said that there is the precedent here of the Craig Overton case where he served a two game ban and would argue that such a punishment is not coming down too hard on Robinson in the way that, say, a four game one might be. However, if it is decided that missing the current test is sufficient punishment for him, then so be it - the important thing is that he has served a punishment for what he did which, for the reasons I mentioned when I talked about the four players Robinson may well play international cricket for England with in the future, had to be imposed.
Thank you for the apology Bob even though it does come with a bit of a sting in the table (why aren't you 100% sure you jumped to conclusions, and why can you say then same about me?)

I meant to say racism not racist apologists and even though you sat there is a subtle difference between the two words, my arguments about your use of the phrase still hold good.

Yes they were Michael Holding's words and I deliberately didn't put his name because I reckon that if one of the message board contributors had used the same language, especially the bits I put in bold, you would have used it as an example of their being a racism apologist!