"How many more times will I have to protect you?"

Usman Khawaja said it partly in jest but also with a sense of exasperation when we bumped into each other after his net session in Perth. We were four days from the first Test of the Ashes. It was the Australian team's first full training session for the Test summer.

I had been perched in the same spot above the nets, watching training like I have since Test cricket began at the new Perth/Optus stadium seven years ago.

Yet there was a white security guard who decided it was necessary to walk up to me and rudely ask me to piss off. Before doubling down on his nasty tone when I tried standing my ground. Only for Khawaja, as has been the case across the country over the years, to jump in and ask him to "leave me alone". The fact that the "friendly" guard returned briefly with evil intentions when one of the other Aussie players jokingly asked him to "get rid of me" only solidified his resolve in chasing me away.

This was a first for Perth. It's otherwise a routine that gets played out annually elsewhere, and especially at the Gabba. Even Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith have stopped their batting stint and jumped in to support me at other times. At least I don't get ganged up on anymore. It's generally just a one-off fellow who doesn't like the look of me. Even if at times I've made sure to call the Cricket Australia officials beforehand, especially before a Brisbane Test. It's not on them though. For, there's always someone there to get you.

So, when Khawaja pointed at me and mentioned the times, he's bailed me out from the recurring harassment, it was important that he did so. For, he brought it up in the middle of an answer about what it feels like to be racially profiled over the course of a lengthy career. That precise moment during his 52-minute retirement press conference when he realised everything, he had said about his experiences were all going to be immediately chucked under the "brown guy playing the race card" narrative from many outside the confines of the conference.

The fact is he wasn't. And it only made sense to point out the shared experiences with the other coloured man in the room. For, it's just our shared reality.

This is not about me. This is all about Khawaja and why I could relate with the 39-year-old wanting to air his views on a variety of uncomfortable subjects on a day most would have wanted him to "stick to cricket". You don't always plan it. And I can tell you from personal experience, it's never comfortable to bring up issues of discrimination. To be that guy. To shine the spotlight on what others might find confronting. It's also the same with a high-profile athlete talking about real-life politics or religious intolerance rather than "sticking to their lane or their crease".

I met Uzzy an hour after his press conference. We both agreed that he made the best call by speaking from the heart and spilling all his feelings out in one go on Friday. This was potentially his last media chat as a current Test cricketer after all.

And the fair way to deal with the entire gamut of non-cricket issues he spoke about would be to at least acknowledge his perspective, rather than dismiss it unilaterally. Like his views count for nothing.

Khawaja spoke about being "gaslit" regularly when he speaks about being a brown man in a largely white universe.

And often that's what gets to you the most. When you are repeatedly told that you are wrong. That you are imagining the vilification or the bias. That you should as a migrant instead focus solely on being grateful for the wonderful opportunities that this country has given you. Like from the moment you pledge your allegiance to Australia, you lose the right to call out anything that might upset the larger population, even if you are the one being subject to the abuse.

That the gratitude should be unconditional. Even if you anyway add the honest disclaimer of "I love Australia and what it's given me" every time you do talk about how you get treated by some.

I fiercely defend Australia whenever anyone from overseas, especially the subcontinent, accuses the entire country of being "racist". Much like Khawaja does whenever he talks about his role in bringing people together. It is fair to admit that Australia as we know it is by far still a young country, and it will take a couple of generations before the inclusivity that it so desperately seeks becomes a true reality.

But the last 24 hours have been illustrative of, or a reminder of, how long it might take. The amount of hate and vitriol that Khawaja has had to deal with for relaying his experiences has been beyond awful. But something he would have expected to cop, for that's just how it is.

Social media is vile. And I acknowledge that putting yourself out there comes with exposure to hate. But to be unrelentingly called a "grifter" or a "bed wetting sook" or "shit skin" or "poojeet" or "radio DEI prick", and I'm genuinely impressed with the number of terrible descriptors people do continue to come up with for us, begins to get to you. More so the number of times you're asked to go kill yourself or how many in the country are waiting for you to commit suicide, like I have been since yesterday.

They add up. It's an accumulation. And it's generally the cumulative impact it has on you that ends up manifesting in the kind of unhinged narration of your reality as a coloured person in an adopted land. Like with Khawaja in his press conference, and with me in this piece.

You start by trying to fit in, like Khawaja said he did. But you realise you never will. There will be enough people reminding you that you're an outsider. And you'll reach a point when it's more about being accepted for who you really are. Some like Uzzy and I are fortunate to get a platform and a voice to talk about it. A majority do not. Which is why it becomes even more imperative that we do.

But when you are trying to encapsulate in less than an hour everything you have experienced over 15 years of being in the public spotlight as the one who looks different. And over 30 years of growing up in a country where you've routinely been made to feel unwelcome, it's only human for voices and issues to get conflated to an extent.

It's also natural for some in the media and elsewhere to feel singled out with what Khawaja said. Good people who have never treated him any different. The mainstream print media has been fair, very fair to Khawaja this summer. They've reported facts. They've brought up his significant drop in numbers as an opener in the previous 18 months after having been the best in the world at the top of the order. And the fact that he played golf before his back issue in Perth. What got made of those reports elsewhere is beyond their control.

But as I've experienced while writing about these issues, your thoughts do come together in one big chunk of emotions rather than as isolated and rational opinions. So do cut him some slack if you think he intentionally offended anyone in particular.

You question it too, all the time. Is it really all in your mind? Does that colleague in the media centre really glance at you like the shit they've just stepped on and is disgusted by it. Disgusted by your presence. Who look away when you greet them. Maybe it's just that they don't rate you professionally.

But you see it in their eyes. You've seen that look before, in airports, on the streets, at supermarkets. You recognise it but are not sure how to deal with it, since it's now followed you into your safe space, the cricket world.

Do you bring it up? Do you let it slide? But for how long?

You do hint at it with others around you, who more often than not have sympathy for you. They put an arm around you but then very fairly and politely tell you, "It's unfortunate but I won't know what it feels like to have that lived experience."

Lived experiences I've dealt with it as an adult for 8 summers. Lived experiences that Uzzy has had to deal with it his entire life. As being the one prominent brown person in a white-dominated field. I came here as a relatively well-known cricket journalist who had seen a lot of life at 32. Uzzy grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney, having moved at 5 from Pakistan, being called a "curry muncher" and rarely getting a chance to talk about how excluded he really felt in his real life.

He's not playing the race card. He's not playing victim. He's just letting you know how he feels. About how it's felt. About how it feels. And so am I. All we seek is empathy and respect.