The problem with taking offence to a word, rather than to the context the word is used in, means that you will always find something offensive to complain about - do we ban use of the term whitefella if I take offence at someone drawing attention to the colour of my skin, or do we support red-heads that hate the name Blue, or what about englishmen who find the term Pom offensive? When a word is used to celebrate a person or an event or other great happening, it should be viewed as such - a celebration. We should not always be jumping to the lowest common denominator. Use of words to denigrate people should never be condoned (such as use of the word redneck in this thread). In this case I agree with Jacqui - education is the key. We should all fight to ensure that cheap shots are not taken at anyone, and explain to our kids where necessary about historical usage and why its no longer considered acceptable. However I take offense at a campaign to stop a celebration of a person by his commonly known name. Does this mean I can sue Stephen Hagan for emotional distress caused by his inappropriate condemnation of a local footy hero?

No Country Gal.... it means that all of those people who are pretending that the 'N' word (since we are unable to write it on this OLO site because the editors/publishers clearly find it offensive)is just, 'the name of shoe polish' or 'just what paint used to be called' or that ES Brown's nickname was 'nothing to do with racism' are kidding themselves and are barking up the wrong tree.

Try walking through Redfern and shouting 'Hi #igger!' to your auld Indigenous pal on the other side of the street and see whether the others on the footpath are able to discern 'the context' in which it is said.

'#igger' has never been used as a term of endearment.

It IS a term of abuse, with a long history behind it and a very particualr political meaning.

No body expects to be called a '#unt' in public, which is just as offensive and carries an enormous amount of political baggage with it too.

If 'there's nothing in a word', why do WTO rounds fail as the 'right form of words' cannot be agreed upon?

Why did journalists and others pounce on Alexander Downer for his 'innocent joke' about 'the finks that batter'?

Didn't people SEE THE CONTEXT and know it was ONLY A JOKE?

I think not.

And so it is here in Fortress Groom.

The real problem lies in the Qld culture of anti 'book learning' as it's known here, and the celebration of sporting individuals as if they were God, or at least 'gods'.

This numbs the brain and prevents any thoughtful approach to anything.

It's worth watching Stephen Hagan's film...and seeing the white councillor up in North Qld who did sponsor a name change to a creek, and why she changed her mind about a lifelong familiarity with the old name, similar to the Rockhamton Black Gin Creek skirmish others are geting in to now.

Surely if people in the deep Deep North can 'get it' others from around the wide-brown-land could have a go too?

The fascinating thing is the context, of course.

A black man calling another black man #igger is a term of solidarity, of mateship, even sometimes of endearment.

A white man calling a black man #igger is an insult, pure and simple.

A little old lady observing that there are a lot of #iggers on TV is a form of time-travel. She had no inkling that she was giving offence, the word had a very simple meaning for her.

In the context of the "#igger" Brown Stadium, I'd strongly suggest that we are closer to the third example than either of the other two, and that deciding to call it something else is akin to applying Savlon to an outbreak of buboes.

A mere gesture.

And one that, while providing the delusion that the problem is being addressed, actually does nothing to cure the plague itself. And the delusion is itself dangerous, since it draws attention away from looking for a genuine cure.

To underline the futility of this pretence at do-goodery, my post was initially chastised for "profanity", when merely performing copy-and-paste on the topic itself.

I'd suggest that such verbal prurience adds to, rather than alleviates the problem.

Blue Cross, the point here is that the stand was named after someone who was white, for crying out loud. If I call someone a _igger, I fully expect to be set on for it. If someone has a nick-name _igger (or anything else), I might find it somewhat distasteful until it was explained to me, but we are talking about a person rather than a label. You appear not to be able to distinguish between the two. To call someone a _unt is the same as calling someone a _igger - the link is the word "a". If someone has the nickname _unt, much as I might raise an eyebrow, there's no point in getting offended by it (in fact its a name for something, but tends to be used as a denigrating term - its the method of usage that I have a problem with).

The name of a creek may be an entirely different kettle of fish, depending on why it was named. I know of a large rock outcrop called Gin's Leap, where an aboriginal woman committed suicide (not sure why). Its named after a specific person, but using a label which was intended to be derogatory. So if Mr Hagan decided to take that on, then I'd support it. Its all about context.

Dear Blue Cross
1. "'#igger' has never been used as a term of endearment."
Wrong. It was the name of Wing Commander Guy Gibson's dog.
It certainly wasn't an abusive epithet when attached to E S Brown.
2. "It IS a term of abuse, with a long history behind it and a very particualr political meaning."
The term "N....r" never applied to aborigines in Australia up to the sixties. The abusive terms before then were boong, burri and abo. "N....r" and "C..n" are more recent arrivals in keeping with the Australian infatuation with American slang and abusive language.
3. Calling a murri, kurri, kanak, a ""N....r" today would rightly be regarded as extremely offensive and, depending on the circumstances dangerous. But the name of the Stand was not the Stephen "N....r" Hagan stand. No person was being abused.
4."Black Gin Creek". Are you saying now that the term "gin" for an aboriginal woman irrespective of context is also offensive? Gin is derived from a Murri word meaning woman or wife. It later obtained its derogatory meaning from the predatory practice of Europeans cohabitating with “gins” and/or the practice of “gins” cohabitating with Europeans in an effort to survive. Both practices violated the moral codes of both cultures. Certainly now if you called somebody a gin it would be deemed offensive.
5."The real problem lies in the Qld culture of anti 'book learning'"
I would be interested in how you arrived at this view and how you can defend it.

Dear 'Blairbear'

The 'book learning' position is well known in Qld. They don't like it. Although education started well here in 1875, it was all over by 1910.

And as the years progressed, it became even worse. Do read Phil Cullen's gem, 'Back to Drastics', a worthy little tome.

Perhaps this typical Qld moral crusader sums it up rather well:

"The Gold Coast Bulletin reported Rona Joyner, an alliance spokesperson, as saying 'Children don’t go to school to learn to think. They go to learn to read and write and spell correctly.'

"When the aims of public schooling are not made explicit, such extreme minority views can prevail with divisive consequences" (EQ 'Purposes of Education 3 Final Report).

Prevail they have, and there is still very much a fear of 'book learning', particularly within Education Queensland where the Minister is more concerned with filling schools with Hillsong programmes, Pentacostal unqulaified school chaplains, and complete nutters who volunteer to deliver religious indoctrination as if the fate of the (flat)world depended on it.

Our latest Qld school results demonstrate the lack of skills, funding, and value put on education here.

'Book learning'... no good on the farm is it?