< What would you do? Your options come down to ignoring what you heard, or pointing out what happened and becoming the centre of the nation's attention and risking harm to a 13 year old girl and/or being ridiculed for making a big issue out of a silly comment by her. >

< Adam Goodes, made the right call. >

Really?

If an offensive jibe had been delivered by the same girl, but which did not have any possible racial connotations, Goodes could indeed have been ridiculed. The incident would most probably have been viewed entirely the other way around.

The girl’s comments would have been passed off as just being within the normal banter amongst the spectators of a football game.

Why is racism so different?

With this issue involving Goodes and later McGuire, the whole racism thing has blown right out of all proportion.

McGuire’s comments should NOT have gained any negative publicity!

Again, if he’d made a similar sort of attempt at humour which had had no possible racial connotations, even if it had been directly offensive and demeanouring, he would have got away with it scot-free.

Why is racism deemed to be so much worse than sexism, sexualorientationism, agism, overweightism, politicianism, bureaucratism, or any other group of people that a lot of us love to hate??

Because 'racism' is a term that is used exclusiveley against white people of course, so of course it is a scourge that must be eliminated.

You are a brave man Ludwig. Gone are the pre-thought -police days when we were able to chant defiantly " Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me".

the remarks are simply a result of the idiotic evolution fantasy. They 'observe ' that some people are more evolved than others. The reality is with people being slaughtered in Syria, Muslims murdering Christians in Nigeria (try blaming Abbott on that one) and people dying of hunger throughout the world, one overpaid man who I once respected has chosen to be a victim despite enjoying nearly all benefits brought to him by his privileged position. While hate based on race is pathetic this goes even lower when one is so convinced of his victim status. No wonder so many indigenous find themselves sitting aroung believing the world owes them everything.

Ludwig asks: "Why is racism deemed to be so much worse than sexism, sexualorientationism, agism, overweightism, politicianism, bureaucratism, or any other group of people that a lot of us love to hate??"

Racism has been a justification for slavery and discrimination. It has also justified mass murder. The Nazis were not unique in their slaughter of those thought inferior and/or hated. In the early years of white settlement in Australia and through the twentieth century it has produced massacres of Aborigines.

Harm has been done by all the types of things you mention, but the harm that has been by racism is worse. I appreciate Adam Goodes' action and Poelman's defense of that action. They both said what I think should have been said.

There are two ways you can live our life. You can attempt to build yourself up by putting/keeping others down, or you can grow up and lift as you climb.

Eddie is not a victim: he is a mirror of the ignorance of many. We have a recently retired national cricket captain who thinks sledging is okay and it is part of the game. Guess what? It didn't used to be.

Racism sexism, heterosexism, ageism, elitism - you name it - is a snobbish consideration of superiority by virtue of characteristics of birth, or luck in life.

And it is not just white anglo saxons who need to grow up. Immature Aussies bag people for being better than them or worse than them. The tall poppy syndrome is alive and well. Not everybody gets to earn squillions on the minesites, but many who do are demeaned as cashed up bogans. Many women who benefitted from the struggles of past liberators are the first to bag feminism, and are some of the most sexist, racist, ageist and homophobic creatures in society. Many blacks are also racist, sexist, homophobic etc.

There is even a football team that proudly calls itself 'the barbarians'. What next? The Rapists or the Slayers or the Bashers?

Thanks Adam Goodes for pointing the finger, and to the young girl who showed that we mirror our life experiences. But Eddie?? If that was 'a slip of the tongue' then it showed what he was thinking - even if he didn't intend to verbalise it. And it shows that his comment was far worse than any immature and impressionable young girl.