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The Forum > Article Comments > Adam Goodes kicks goals for Australia's race industry > Comments

Adam Goodes kicks goals for Australia's race industry : Comments

By John Slater, published 4/8/2015

The Adam Goodes saga says little about the state of race relations in Australia.

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In the seventies, I lived at an Aboriginal community in the Riverland of SA. On Saturdays, I collected entry fees on the gate at ovals where the 'mission' team was playing against a whitefella team and occasionally I acted inefficiently as a goal umpire.

People do funny things when they are in crowds, even 'crowds' of fifty or so. The lovely old ladies from the mission used to really let their hair down when it came to abusing the other teams: as someone from a very sheltered background, I learnt some wonderfully new terms of abuse which, I'm sure, those aunties would disavow ever afterwards.

In a crowd of forty or fifty thousand (about the same number as that of Indigenous university graduates), it's understandable if people sort of submerge themselves in the mass, each person being as one with their fellow-supporters, liberated to cast various aspersions on the manhood, etc. of enemy players.

Canetti and other writers have studied crowds and their surrender of individuality on such occasions. And let's face it, it's enormously enjoyable to swear your head off in a big crowd, cursing every enemy player up and down to your heart's content for a couple of hours. Wit may be in short supply but is highly prized by one's fellow-supporters: solidarity is all. Violence is never far below the surface. Hence the paper cups rather than cans and bottles.

Perhaps there is something primal about being part of a mob. It must have been enormously exciting to be part of a football crowd fifty years ago, cheering on the blokes belting the piss out of each other behind - and even in - the crowd. Mere words wouldn't have cut it.

Just saying :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 6 August 2015 3:36:59 PM
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I'm a "nice", white, middle class boy, too, just like this contributor. But unlike him, it seems I have some compassion! His main so-called "argument" against Adam Goodes' performing his dance is that he's "well-paid" and should also be "grateful he's paid to play football".

But as Alexander Pope, the English poet, said several centuries ago, "No man is an island". In other words, Goodes has relatives and friends he cares about who are NOT well-paid football stars and he would care about their welfare -- and that of his community -- in much the same way that this contributor would care about HIS family, friends and community. So Goodes isn't just obsessed with his bank account and TEMPORARY status as a star footballer in the way that this politically-RAW, STILL wet-behind-the-ears contributor seems to think!

AS for his comments on multiculturalism in Australia, he knows virtually nothing about that, too! I would basically agree with the female journalist he tried to ridicule. Unless you're a EUROPEAN-born member of Australia's multicultural community, then she's basically dead-right: the only aspect of immigrant cultures that the VAST majority of white Australians can tolerate is their delicious food -- which leaves for dead the AWFUL food we inherited from the British -- and an occasional folk-dance or two in quaint costumes during multicultural month!

Overall, I support Peter Fitzsimons' views on the race issue in Australia. There is no way in the wide, wide world that such an immature and EXTREMELY privileged individual such as this contributor could EVER understand this issue. I'm not a Christian, but wasn't it Jesus who said you should "walk a mile in a man's shoes before you judge him"?

Finally, this contributor ALLEGEDLY studies Arts/Law at Queensland's best university, so why is his so-called "case" against what he DESPICABLY calls "the race industry" so PATHETIC? And by the look of it, he's apparently grooming himself for a career in Federal politics. God help the rest of us if he ever does make it! We'd have yet another born-to-rule careerist like Christopher Pyne on our hands!
Posted by peb1950, Monday, 10 August 2015 9:14:46 PM
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Firstly I didnt realize there was a 'race industry'. The whole situation has been so exaggerated, used and abused. The 13 year old certainly learnt her lesson. AG's 'war dance' was inappropriate, a bit arrogant and unsportsmanlike. The crowds response of booing and head shaking was understandable and not at all racist. But no... someone like Waleed Aly turns it into unquestionable racism, his comments themselves reek racism and are his opinion only, not a qualified view. The author adds comments from 'intellectuals' mentioning uni's they are involved in whose comments like 'he wont be a nice quit aboriginal...' then 'when one color stands out...'Really?? Have these people even visited aboriginal communities/towns and experienced racism themselves? Another 'a society taken over by other cultures to the detriment of their own'. What a load of crap. The likes of AG and Stan Grant, though proud of their aboriginal heritage, are very mixed race. Stan Grants great grandad was among the first settlers, Scottish prisoner. Apart from the traditional full blood aboriginals, every other of them has varying amounts of European heritage.
Posted by jodelie, Saturday, 29 August 2015 2:55:06 AM
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John,
I don't think anyone is saying that 100% of the booing is coming from a racist element. But there is this aspect, described by Aly, as the 'uppity black' who doesn't know his place. If it is just 50%, or even 30%, or 10% of those in the crowd who boo Goodes because they take a dislike to the colour of his skin, then that is a shameful representation of our game and our society. And it's no wonder the football community (Goodes' true peers) were united in striving to make the booing stop.

The AFL tried to ignore it in hope that it would go away. They did this for many months until it became a stench that couldn't be ignored.

You want to make apologies for those who boo Goodes. You speak of certain reasons such as the imaginary spear throwing incident. The fact is that Goodes was being booed that night before the invisible spear appeared (or didn't). The booing started over a year before that, and also before he was announced Australian of the Year, an award given not least for his outstanding career achievements, but also for his off field conduct.

I love going to the footy, and I love the privilege of booing the villain. That's part of the theatre of the spectacle. But in this case, it had gone beyond the pantomime. It had turned ugly. And the football community and all true footy fans have said, 'Enough!'
Posted by Dan S de Merengue, Saturday, 5 September 2015 3:25:33 AM
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