Poirot, "If the girl was targeted, it's the fault of her comrades in racial abuse"

That is your thinking, it is OK to scapegoat a child if your greater political good applies. According to you the end justifies the means. You use it to justify the abhorrent humiliation, detainment, interrogation and treatment of the 13 year old minor, legally a child, by the parties concerned and the media circus.

Your school example is an irrelevant diversion, where in any event behaviour management policies appropriate to children and the context do apply.

The simple, overarching condition and concern should have been to protect the child (as is the case in education policy). Legislation in all jurisdictions identify the paramount importance of the principle of the "best interests of the child”. Minors are minors and they should be accorded their rights and our protection, not held up for public humiliation, divorced from their carer/s, summarily marched to a secret location to be interrogated and admissions of guilt obtained.

As a child minor this girl required and deserved the highest priority for care and protection. She has legal rights. But her treatment at the hands of those responsible was downright shabby and disgusting. That you cannot see that and seek to justify the warping of this child's rights, and her parents' and carer's rights as well, reflects sadly on you.

"Slips of the tongue are usually confined to one or two words. "

Unless you have concussion.

". It's the pervasive attitude of a craven and vacuous mindset, who apparently think it's just dandy to call a footballer an "ape" "

We live in the age of craven and vacuous (that word really gets a good run in the leftie Herald letters, nearly as common as De Rigueur and Beggars Belief!)

Sure, it's offensive and insensitive and ignorant, but is it really racist?

Anyway, I thought your position was it's only not ok to call a black footballer an ape. Feminists have been calling all footballers apes and neanderthals with impunity for decades. You keep side-stepping that one.

"Just what do you think would happen at a school sports day event if that sort of behaviour errupted?"

Depends on the people involved.

Girl calls white boy Ape: Nothin.
Girl calls black boy Ape: Trouble.

Hence, the 'outcome' of the exercise effectively trains a young black boy that he should appropriate the hardships of his forefathers, and feel different, damaged, and loaded with all the dark symbolism of the words that are being used, even though the girl, and he, had no concept of them. The adult themes projected onto the boy to set him up for a different life. The adult has projected and actually protected the concept of racism, and the protected the power of the insult.

Houellie,

"...I don't believe he has rights to assign motive like that."

What pray tell do you believe was the motive then, apart from general ignorance and a predilection to emulate the people she consorts with?

If Goodes had been eating a banana, grooming his fellow players for parasites or acting in a generally simian way to entertain the crowd, then I'd say perhaps you're onto something.

But he was playing football, just like the other players on the ground.

Why should someone call "him" an ape?

"If you've
had your consciousness raised in any way, you'll know that
shame is not an optional ingredient in the process."

Hahahahaha!

The original sin. The white boy born with the sins of the patriarchy and racism, before he can even walk or talk. Love it!

So the crux of the matter is self-flagellation. It's a pity the side-effect is actually counter productive, maintaining the segregation, and ignoring the individual. We should rather move toward ridding ourselves of appropriated grievances, and take people at face value, assign motive generously and lose the chip on our shoulders.

I am white, you are black, nice to meet you. You are an individual, not a member of a minority group, the slate is clean. That's the world I want. If you call me names, they relate only to my lived experience, and I have no confidence to assign any motive to your behavior, for we are all people who have traveled different roads.

"Why should someone call "him" an ape?"

I think, I would be with you if he was playing a violin, and was a slim man with no beard, and still black. Then I say you'd have more of a case. But as you keep side-stepping, footballers and athletes, any testosterone fueled individuals really are considered very synonymous with apes in the gender studies departments of the world.

Houellie,

Oh you're so right.

Goodes is the only player with a beard - and hair...and all the rest of them are playing violins and strutting around with bowler hats and and a cup of tea and a plate of cakes (with doilies)

They were all doing the same thing - men being human.

Why should Goodes shut up about being singled out and being called an ape?

How do you know he was singled out? Perhaps he just reacted strongly because he was the only one who had a complex about his race?

He decided to be offended as a black person, not just as a man. That's obviously the stronger identity. We can have men offended, as they are not the oppressed, just not black men. This idea in my view perpetuates the division.

I am happy enough that you have decided to be ungenerous, and cynical, and not give the girl the benefit of the doubt. But that doesn't mean, ipso facto, that she's racist. That's your perception, being racist as you are, that you noticed the guy being called an ape is black. She may not have noticed, she may have been attempting to defend him as an oafish man.

Perhaps a better word would be brutish, or oafish. Or Neanderthal. But she chose Ape!

I have already discussed that he does look more ape like anyway, and I sincerely believe it's an objective truth. Men who are hairy, have a short beard covering their face, are atheletic and slightly rounded in the shoulders. That's why I gave the example of a refined, slim less hairy man, with the same skin tones.

You cant keep hiding from this issue forever Poirot. It's feminism 101; Men are overloaded with testosterone and primitive urges, and are more hairy, particularly the more athletic, aggressive and less gentile ones are apes.

Regardless it's not very relevant to my point. Is ironing clothes, while being female, in and of itself, a demeaning act? No. Similarly calling a man an ape is not necessarily racist.