Michael Holding breaks down on camera discussing racism his parents faced
Former West Indies cricketer Michael Holding broke down in tears live on camera while discussing racism his parents faced in the past.
Yesterday the ex-fast bowler made an impassioned plea for society to change on the first day of England's test match against West Indies in Southampton.
In an interview with Sky News' Mark Austin today, the former cricketer, 66, revealed he was thinking about his parents when he became emotional on TV.
When Austin asked him about how he felt in that moment, Holding's voice began to break.
"To be honest, that emotional part came when I started thinking of my parents. And it's coming again now."
Holding paused, before continuing: "Mark, I know what my parents went through.
"My mother's family stopped talking to her because her husband was too dark.
"I know what they went through, and that came back to me immediately," Holding said, wiping tears from his eyes.
He also spoke about times he faced racism over the years, including when he and his white friend were assumed to not be booking into a hotel together in South Africa.
"We laugh about it when not living in that society, and sometimes I grimace in my head and I move on. But I cannot keep on laughing, grimacing and moving on," he said.
"It's time for change."
He added he hoped tackling institutional racism would not be "brushed under the carpet" and again urged for better education on black history.
He said: "I hope people understand exactly what I'm saying, and exactly where I'm coming from. I'm 66 years old. I have seen it, I have been through it and I have experienced it with other people.
"It cannot continue like this - we have to understand that people are people."
Yesterday during a delay for rain Holding revealed he had attended Black Lives Matter protests, and referred to the case of Amy Cooper, who called police after arguing with a black man in New York's Central Park.
He said: "She threatened this black man with her whiteness, saying that she was going to call the police and tell them there was a black man threatening her.
"If the society in which she was living did not empower her or get her to think that she had that power of being white and being able to call the police on a black man, she would not have done it.
He went on to highlight the case of Lewis Howard Latimer, the black man who perfected the carbon filament that made the lightbulb possible, but is virtually unknown compared to its white inventor, Thomas Edison.
