'Educate yourself, open your mind' - Kumar Sangakkara on racism debate

The African American George Floyd’s death has led to more people speaking up on racism. Even cricket is not bereft of it as various players opened up on the matter in the last few weeks. Moreover, the Black Lives Matter campaign has started in sports with even the England and West Indies cricketers sporting the logo on their collar of their shirts.

The players also took a knee in support of the movement and the same was followed in the 3TC game in South Africa last week. Sri Lanka legend Kumar Sangakkara has given his views on the racism debate now and reckons people need to be educated more about it. He feels that children are taught to love their country, but no one tells them to respect and appreciate other cultures at the same time.

He also understands that it isn’t going to happen overnight, but things will only start to change with a change in attitude. “Once you understand what real history is, I think you will find lots of attitude changes. We are all taught to love our country. But sometimes we follow that blindly, and that stops us from appreciating other cultures, other countries, other people, other races, other religions.

“So educate yourself, open your mind, but more importantly open your eyes, because without that change won’t happen and change isn’t going to be overnight,” he said while speaking to Cricbuzz.

Skin colour isn’t the only basis of racism, says Kumar Sangakkara

Kumar Sangakkara further pointed out that racism isn’t only limited to skin colour. He insisted that there are several forms of it and also stressed the need for providing children with the right kind of education. “Skin colour isn’t the only basis of discrimination. There are various ways of racism and discrimination. Some historically and some in a certain context, skin colour isn’t the only basis for discrimination.

“If you take Black Lives Matter if you take racism and discrimination in the world, I think one of the most important things is to teach our children history as it should be, and not the sanitised version of it, so you only see the positives,” the 42-year-old added.