Andrew Symonds does not mind the odd racist comment at his expense, but only from people he is friendly with, the Australian all-rounder said.
MELBOURNE: Andrew Symonds does not mind the odd racist comment at his expense, but only from people he is friendly with, the Australian all-rounder said on Saturday.
Symonds labelled Harbhajan Singh's alleged racial taunt as "unacceptable" and vowed not to cop remarks from rival players with whom he has no friendship.
Ahead of the Perth Test against India, Symonds declared he could tolerate racism - but only from those he knew.
"I'm not a sensitive person about it," he said.
"If you know me well you can have a joke to me about anything and any part of racism and I'll laugh," he was quoted as saying by 'The Daily Telegraph'.
"I mean, I'm not sensitive about it but if I'm not your friend, if you're an opposition player or something like that, it is unacceptable."
However, Symonds said some rival cricketers could afford to make a racist comment without raising his ire.
"Even with opposition players, if I do know them well and they want to joke about something like that, it doesn't stir me up so what's happened is something I and the Australian boys have taken very seriously.
"It (the racism affair) is a really difficult thing for me to comment on as it hasn't been totally resolved," he said.
"Obviously, people are very interested in what's happened but they probably won't actually know exactly what's happened for quite some time, until the dust has settled," Symonds said.
But he claimed Harbhajan's actions, during a Test match, had annoyed him because it breached the boundaries of social acceptability.
"I'm very relaxed about life and I understand there are many different types of people," he said.
"You know, I used to have a bit of fun and people used to have a bit of fun with me in the playground when I was at school so I understand that kids are very blunt about that sort of thing.
"But it (racism) is one of those things that, in the modern day, is obviously very publicly unacceptable," Symonds added.
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