Lexi, before you go, would you explain why you think ethnicity is a specially protected characteristic?

I understand the historical context, but why is ethnicity any more deserving of protection from insult than any other class membership identifier?

Exactly Antiseptic, though that isn't the point Ive been trying to make. I'd add to your question: When does a slur or insult like 'Ape' 'Dog/Bitch' 'A-hole' 'Bastard' 'D1ckhead' and so on become race specific without adding a adjective or two?

Lexie - the way you dodge and weave, are you a Politician or in training? You refuse to recognise there is another issue. The bigger victim in the Goodes fiasco is the CHILD. So - straight out - yes or no. Was the harm done to this child far greater than any harm done to the footballer?

If she were your child (and if you are a parent you know that from time to time kids will do or say something inappropriate despite your best efforts) how would you feel about what happened to her?

Her 'crime' was rudeness, not racial vilification. His was attention seeking over-reaction. Some might say bullying. After all she was clearly a pre-pubescent girl, not a 13 yr old who looked 20.

The ABC and other media outlets that made a huge song and dance about the incident plus the AFL figures who then got in on the act then blew the incident completely out of control. The media is definately most responsible for the damage all round.

I'm thinking Goodes and several Media companies are fortunate this was a 13 yr old from a working class background. Family probably loves the footy (or did) and probably prefer this matter go away. A more sophisticated victim would likely have lawyers working on a compensation case as I type.

divine_msn,

Clearly this was not a clear-cut incident.

What has amazed me is the number of commenters who have attempted to reverse the issue and suggest that the person being abused was the "bully'....because he pointed in the direction of an abusive member of the crowd.

So highlighting culturally ingrained and regularly delivered vilification aimed a people playing on a sports field turns out to be an over-reaction or bullying act....according to some.

Strangely enough, I don't hear the same posters offering any critique of the adults who have mentored children and adolescent's to broadcast abuse at sporting grounds. Nobody will explain to me why such behaviour would not be tolerated at junior level, yet, according to some, is accepted and should be beyond criticism at senior level.

I'll say it again, that Goodes is not responsible for the policies of the MCG or the AFL in dealing with minors. Nor is he responsible for the pack-feeding habits of the media or the general public in commenting on his actions.

Poirot, it's the double standard that interests me. I am potentially liable to be labelled as "violent" and handed an order to stay away from my children if their mother or anybody else decides that I have been abusive by chastising them for some wrong-doing and complains about it to the police. At the very least I will face a court hearing to decide the matter and the magistrate will be sure to tell me to watch myself in future, even if he doesn't find I deserve a DVO.

The people who were effusively supportive of Goodes would be the very ones who have been most active in promoting the broadening of definitions of violence to include what Goodes did.

If I was to give my child a smack on the bottom or a clip over the ear or even grab their arm to point out their error in making a silly comment that others might object to I would certainly be arrested if seen by police and a whole Department would swing into action to "protect" my child.

If a 13 year old attacked me physically, I would be expected to exercise restraint in my response, or once again face action. If a black kid spat at me, ditto, racism be buggered.

Why is Goodes not expected to be able to exercise that restraint?

Hiya Anti,

Goodes pointed to a person who was abusing him.

Protocol at the ground resulted in the person being removed.

How could that be construed to meet a broadened definition of violence?

Whether it was meant as racism or meant just as general abuse, isn't really the point. Goodes himself highlighted the fact that this sort of behaviour is endemic at football fixtures.

Why shouldn't the person who is throwing the abuse around be the one to exercise restraint?

Why shouldn't those who teach kids to hurl abuse exercise restraint -

Why should it be the target of the abuse who is expected to exercise restraint and not point it out?

Dear Lexi

I must say you must talk to an awful lot of Australians to be able to say that many
'believe that now is the moment for a
decisive change of direction, that now is the time to
transcend the surviving legacy of colonialism' and 'People now want to know the truth about the
past and to come to terms with it. They see this not as
finger-pointing but as an essential step along the way
towards national maturity.'
Where do you meet all of these people and do they include the enormous number of Asians arriving every week, and who are, at least when I was at University, totally excluded from the possibility of being 'racist'?
You sound very much like a concentric (and eccentric) academic yourself. I have no doubt you would comfortably sit in a room surrounded by books discussing heatedly the merits of 'post-structural functionalism being a simple or a complex abstraction of dialectical materialism.'
Tell me something, if you were onboard an international or a domestic flight and all of a sudden an Arab Muslim stood up and beneath his gowns displayed a bomb and started screaming 'God is Great!, would you seek to (A) deconstruct his justifiable anger at the westernised patriarchally imposed but distinctly non lesbian context that has been imposed on him or (B) pick up a blunt object and beat him senseless?