By Emily-Rose Toohey
Former Australian cricket player Greg Ritchie is no stranger to the spotlight.
However, during his post-cricket career, Ritchie has become a figure who causes controversy.
During a stint on Channel Nine’s The Footy Show, he created a ‘comedic’ character named Mahatma Cote – a Punjabi man who loved sports.
Not only did he dress up in brownface, a racist and dehumanising act, but his caricature-like impersonation was for his sole gain.
Ritchie has been publicly criticised for this and for other racially insensitive comments – he was even banned from all Cricket Australia events during the 2012-2013 season as a result.
Nonetheless, Ritchie was MC at a Stanthorpe-based event last Friday night, and much to my horror, his opening bit was an impersonation of a Punjabi Sikh pilot.
It was not funny.
In fact, it was mortifying – he even blatantly referenced his Footy Show character without a hint of remorse.
A simple nod to this character speaks volumes.
It means that Greg Ritchie has not learned anything, or simply does not care about who he offends and how appalling this continued performance is.
His appearance last Friday served as an unpleasant reminder of Mahatma Cote and everything this character symbolises: inherent racism.
Brownface and blackface have been performed by white people for centuries in film and minstrel shows, and were purposefully designed for comedy and to entertain white audiences.
Instead, as Kendall Trammell (2019) wrote, these performances were “hurtful and demeaning because they reinforced white people’s notions of superiority”.
Furthermore, Washington State University’s David Leonard wrote in 2012 that blackface is “part of a history of dehumanisation, of denied citizenship, and of efforts to excuse and justify state violence”.
In 2022, to see someone on stage in front of hundreds of people and unashamedly reference an outdated skit is concerning.
It does not matter that Ritchie did not actually dress up in brownface at the event, as his impersonation was horrendous enough and a call-back to the many times he did.
Greg Ritchie, it is time to wake up.
The world has changed and it is time you changed with it.
