I am an Aboriginal Australian. A very close non-Aboriginal friend recently bought a black dog and called it Jigga Boo. I pointed out to her that this name is another name for n....r, and that some people might find it a bit offensive. She responded by saying that the word has different meanings now and like a lot of other words that were once considered racist it can now be used as a word of empowerment. (I find this comment just as offensive coming from a middle class white person). Since that response she has not spoken to me. I guess I just want to see what others think about this? Was my reaction to the dog's name justified?

Was my reaction to the dog's name justified?
Jansey,
My answer is No ! Jigga Boo is a term that is used to indicate a useless non-thinker, it is not aimed at any race at all. I live amongst indigenous & if I were to take their every word serious I'd have to think that they are the most racist people on the planet.
Your reaction is racist not the term. I quite often refer to our judiciary as useless Jigga Boos. I never get corrected by anyone except by those it is aimed at, strange really ?.
I knew of a dog called Motop (faggot in local lingo) & everyone just laughed including the faggs.

I guess in light of the public discussion now occurring as a result of the racist taunt by a young girl towards Adam Goodes at the Collingwood v Sydney game on Friday night, I have been thinking about how words and names can harm - they perform an act as well as an utterance (see J L Austin - How To Do Things With Words). I don't believe that racism is ever inadvertent, as the contemporary language of unconscious bias plays to. I beleive that racism, or using words that hurt is always a conscious decision, and those that making justification claims ("it was a joke", "I didn't mean for it to be taken that way" etc etc ) are ignorant of the power of language, or worse, hide behind the obfuscation that occurs when claims of racism are made. I have way more to say on this subject, but I'd like to hear what other people have to say.

Jansey, there is a concept in the criminal law called mens rea, which means an intent to do a wrongful act in the knowledge that it is wrong. That concept is at the heart of the law. If someone does a bad thing but doesn't intend to, they may be negligent, but unless that negligence is wilful in the knowledge that the outcome will be bad, they will probably not be convicted of the more serious crime.

What you are doing is saying that if you find an expression offensive, then the intent of the person using it is not relevant. What you are effectively seeking to do is to make that person responsible for the way you choose to interpret what they say, despite their own claim of a lack of intent to offend, which as they are your friend, would seem to be genuine.

The problem with that approach is that it has no reasonable means of being tested. If you say you find something offensive, then it has to be either accepted or rejected on whim, since nobody can get inside your head. You may have a personality disorder such as NPD or you might be politically motivated to cause a stir. You might have misinterpreted an ironic or satirical remark. You might be very sincere but excessively sensitive to perceived offence because of your personal history. At this stage we're still talking about you, not about the person who is accused of being offensive.

On the other hand, their intent might be easily tested. It may have been said as part of an argument, or they may have a history of involvement with racist groups, or evidence about their expressed racist opinions might be brought. Until that intent is demonstrated, however, then basically it's a case of assuming good faith on their part.

If we didn't take this approach, then it is clear that the rule of Law on such topics would become impossible, since anybody could be silenced by somebody else claiming they found it offensive.

as a result of the racist taunt by a young girl towards Adam Goodes
Jansey,
I heard about it on the news but they only said that the girl made racist remarks, they didn't disclose what she actually said. If they want to make it a public issue then they need to tell us what the offensive remarks were. How else are we to judge ?

Time to grow up & move on Jansey. You can spend your entire life blighted by continually looking for some slight, or you can enjoy your life to the full. Big people are very hard to offend, small can find a slight or insult behind every bush.

When I spent time in the islands I found the people in some parts of Papua referred to white people as dim dims. Some of these were simple village people who used it as I would refer to some people as Slav, or Indian. Some were very highly educated & were well aware of the meaning of dim in Oz. The ones I knew well as friends, used it as a well meaning joke on me.

Some were probably anti white who used it in a derogatory way. No matter how they referred to a white it would have the same meaning to them. Please tell me why I should let the nastiness of some spoil the joke between me & my friends?

Any grown man who lets himself be upset by something some 13 year old kid shouts at a football match has some growing up to do. It is both weak & stupid to give someone else the power to spoil your day. If you grow up & let any nastiness slide off you like water off a duck, you diminish not only the attempted insult, but even more the one who attempted it.

No Jansey, I don't believe it was racist.

You stated that this non-indigenous dog owner was a close friend of yours.
Could you really expect that a close friend would be maliciously racist in naming her dog with a name that would insult you?

Now that it appears that you have lost them as a friend, do you think it was worth the fuss you made about the dogs name?

As for the racist remark made against Adam Goodes at the football, I believe they did the correct action by removing the nasty little teenager from the venue.
You are warned before going to the footy that racist taunts against players will not be tolerated, and there are plenty of advertisements on TV etc reminding people about how unsporting and wrong this behaviour is.

Both the teenager and the parents of this kid should be ashamed of themselves ...

Jansey, the other thing I forgot to mention is that being offended is not in and of itself something our society has bothered to protect us from, although with the rise of feminist activists and other professional outrage-mongers into positions of influence that is changing, which is to be deplored.

Basically, it's a case of have a sense of perspective, suck it up and move on, as expressed in the "sticks and stones" chant we teach children. In the case you have raised, it's not even a personal attack, just what I suspect to be a rather silly ironicism which it was assumed would be understood as such. I suspect your friend is upset that you would assume she was in any way similar to the sort of redneck who might have been expected to use the term.

In other words, it's crass and childish, but not offensive.

NO!
I have never heard the word used that way.
Having been mates will hundreds, played foot ball with at least a hundred, Aboriginals NEVER.
However used as an insult and in pure friendship, [as a club once existed to help charity's called the *old Barsta*ds*] the term are used by our first Nation talking to each other.
Our site automatically bars those words so it will not be seen here and rightfully so.
I am concerned at the truely bad things young Aboriginals are calling whites, sad but true, not even heated words but as surely racist as any.
The instant handling of the Melbourne football thing has my support and I am very pleased by it.
But fear things like this threads subject are doing more harm than good for these folk, stop racism but lets also stop inventing it too.

It's highly offensive for a non-African American to refer to an African American with the N word, but a friend of mine from Brazil tells me it is consider a compliment in there.

Does anyone know for certain that a deliberate & overtly racist comment was made ?? If the few seconds of media reports I heard told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (that alone is a very long shot), the comment wasn't even remotely racist & the player should take a spoonful of concrete and harden up. Problem here is that our fine upstanding media is rarely guilty of allowing the truth to interfere with a good story, consequently its unlikely that anyone who wasn't actually there at the time really knows what REALLY happened. Sporting stars are also inclined to be exceedingly precious and its not inconceivable that an over-reaction occurred.

>>very close non-Aboriginal friend recently bought a black dog and called it Jigga Boo. I pointed out to her that this name is another name for n....r, and that some people might find it a bit offensive.<<

Would it have been as offensive if she'd bought a white dog called it Jigga Boo?

>>I heard about it on the news but they only said that the girl made racist remarks, they didn't disclose what she actually said. If they want to make it a public issue then they need to tell us what the offensive remarks were. How else are we to judge?<<

She called him an 'ape'. I've been known to call unpleasant women 'bitches' and cowardly men 'pussies' and 'dogs' and nobody bats an eyelid. Shakespeare himself referred to women as rodents - 'The Taming of the Shrew'. I can't see how insults referring to a person's animalistic qualities are racist.

I'm not entirely sure who Adam Goodes is but he seems to be an AFL player. If he is slow-witted, violent and more in slave to his passions than his reason - as so many footballers are - than I would also describe him in simian terms because they seem quite appropriate. Is that really racist? I don't even know what colour Mr. Goodes is... so much for Antiseptic's mens rea.

>>Was my reaction to the dog's name justified?<<

No.

I am reminded of this scene from the film 'Clerks 2':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0R3OjMcOqg

Is Randal being racist? If he is it is clearly only by accident - that doesn't really count in my book. Racism is offensive because it says that some people are inferior to others because of their pigmentation. Randal isn't referring to pigmentation, much less suggesting inferiority on the basis of pigmentation.

Your friend is like Randal: she may have used a 'racial slur' but she obviously didn't intend it to suggest that some races are inferior to others. You are like the black woman in this scene: over-reacting.

I like her husband. That bloke has definitely got the right idea.

Cheers,

Tony

She called him an 'ape'.
Oh for crying out loud ! This bloke Goodes needs to change his name to Eve Pathetic if he wants to feign indignation. He is a footballer & therefore is justifiably compared to an ape. Look at those white footballers who are more ape than homo sapien. I say to all racists out there stop bleating racism when you're one yourself.
Only racists feign indignation.

"so much for Antiseptic's mens rea."

It's the intent that creates the crime, not the actions alone, so indeed it is relevant. Your intent would be to insult his intellect and character rather than his race in this case, so you are not guilty of the heinous charge of racism.

I'd keep a weather eye out for footballers for a while though.

Having just been prompted to do so, I too looked up what had been said and it seems to me that Mr Goodes has overegged his impressively light and fluffy pudding of offence. Hard to do that, I'm told. Apparently such creations are often prone to becoming a bit rubbery and hard to swallow.

individual - Oh for crying out loud ! This bloke Goodes needs to change his name to Eve Pathetic

:) :) :) :) :)

How pray tell can a single word with no racial overtones whatever barely be worth a shrug when used on a caucasian player but constitute the worst possible racism when used on an indigenous player ?? Are we talking about big strong football players or prima-donna girls ??

Dear Jansey,

Of course Jigga Boo is a racist term and you have every right not only to be offended by it but to express your concerns to your friend.

We in this country are about 20 years behind the States with this issue. We are not capable yet of allowing our indigenous folk to take ownership of such terms in the manner of African Americans. That time though will come but it will take continuous effort. Unfortunately that burden falls largely on people like yourself. Perhaps it will cost you friendships but striving to educate those you care about sincerely, effectively and gently may serve to mitigate the likelihood of that happening.

I'm afraid I have little more than words to support you but I wish more strength to your arm.

Jansey,

I'm with C. Steele on this. It's one thing to try to humiliate someone by a look or a gesture, but words sometimes - in the presence of others - DO a great deal of damage, it's not just a matter of sticks and stones. If a word is used that is MEANT to hurt, and other people witnessing it do little or nothing, then by Christ, it is bound to hurt- it's a sort of social support for fukcwittedness.

That stupid girl certainly deserved to be thrown out of the game. And your friend needs a good clip around the ear.

Surely we can all be aware of how we use words, especially if we have any claim to be someone's 'friend' ? Let's stop playing around with words. Get some sense, some of you. Christ, what a bunch of dumb-@rses.

Joe

In my younger days when I played Rugby League and often heard racist rants aimed at me (I'm Aboriginal) or at fellow Aboriginal players. On one occasion I stepped off the field of play and confronted one ranter by challenging him to put some boots on and to get out onto the paddock and play against me - or shut up. The ref stopped the game and came over to see what was happening and I told him what it was all about. After a while the ref just resumed the game, he didn't do or say anything. He was like many non-Aboriginal people who when asked if they condone racism say they do not, but often when confronted with an incident happening before their very eyes say and do nothing. When more non Aboriginal people learn that its their responsibility to intervene on behalf of victims of racism we will see less and less blatant racism occurring. Playing footy was perhaps the only level playing field I experienced growing up. It only lasted 80 minutes but at least everyone on the field were there performing on their own merits. Off the field, in education and employment or in most every other social environment, there was no level playing field and racism was an everyday experience. I know how Adam Goode felt and I would have done the same. Eradicating racism is everyone's responsibility! It would have been good for someone near that child to inform her that what she was yelling out was offensive. But alas, its still the victims of this kind of racism that are somehow seen as the only one's responsible for intervening and this needs to change!

Rainier,
Stop bringing things on yourself & then blame others. It's not smart, it has not an ounce of integrity, it gets no-one anywhere, it only festers rather than heals. Accept the reality that there are morons on each side. If one of them offends then tell them & be done with it. Stop that incessant bleating of poor black fellow me ! There are more white fellows who cop crap everyday, they don't have an industry to back them with others' money.
In case you don't get my drift, what I mean is if someone is offensive than by all means let them have it but for crying out loud stop feigning indignation, it's too yesterday.

I find just so amusing when some people get upset over colloquial racist names or "blackfacing", when negroes in the USA quite commonly name their "gansta" pop groups "Niggerz with Attitude" or "Drug Runnerz", and then "sing" rap songs endorsing the virtues of "smacking their bitches up", selling drugs, or killing cops and killing white people.

Rainer quite true, years ago a young man turned up to play grand mum had his hand and he was met with pure filthy names.
As we both came from the bush Is tood with him and we started a life lf mateship.
This young Aboriginal proved in just minutes he was better than any of us on the two teams.
Went on to great things on the field and off.
But that was 40 years ago, the thread builds mountains out of nothing.

Never heard the term before !
Seems like a real over reaction.

Can't believe I am bothering to reply to this !

The bottom line here is that whilst relevant legislation might possibly have a purpose in life, its been so poorly executed by the mindless muppets that frivolous complaints vastly exceed genuine ones. We possibly need some kind of deterrent for blatant racism, but we most certainly don't need to encourage mummys little prima-donnas to clog the system with their pathetic little sob stories.

When I came to this country nearly 50 years ago, I expected all sorts of insults and was quite disappointed when no one called me a Pommie Bastard. One Australian guy I had never met before, did say to me one day that there were a lot of good Englishmen down at Rookwood. Not knowing it was the largest cemetery in Sydney at the time, I believed him. When I found out what he was implying, I laughed out loud. I thought it was quite amusing. People are so sensitive and it is so easy to laugh it off and defuse any angst caused by either an intended or unintended insult. I have been called all sorts of names all my life and it hasn't worried me.

All you have to do is turn it into a joke. Like the time I was told to go and get fxxxxxd. So I just said "do you think I haven't tried ? He just then had to laugh.

Indy: I heard about it on the news but they only said that the girl made racist remarks, they didn't disclose what she actually said.

It was, " Ya big ape." It could have been, Ya big galoot." or "W@^K#r."

I agree with Antiseptic & with the footballer that there was no intent from the kid to be racist, just kids being kids caught up in excitement of the game. And we all know how tight AFL fans are to their own Team. However the footballer went on to expand the incident by blaming the average Australian. Or, playing "The Race Card."

Jansey: A very close non-Aboriginal friend recently bought a black dog and called it Jigga Boo. And that some people might find it a bit offensive.

Jansey don't get caught up in the Race Movement please. ASTIC has an extremely bad reputation of playing the race card for its own gain without regard for the people involved.

A few years ago there were two mates who were born on the same day with-in minutes of each other in the same hospital. One Aboriginal, one European. They were raised together like brothers, went to school together, started work together at 14 on the Links in the Railway. Married on the same day at the same time. They wrestled, fought, cajoled, and supported each other only like two brothers & best mates can. Until, one day, at work the European bloke cajoled the Aboriginal bloke with something like, "ya silly black b@$T@&d." A European Railway inspector, nick named, by the way, "The Black Prince," visiting the site sacked him on the spot. The Gang & his Aboriginal mate tried to talk to the Inspector to no avail. "Rules are Rules" & there was no room for tolerance. The Aboriginal bloke went to ATSIC for help. Did he get it? NO! ATSIC saw an opportunity to make an example of a "White" bloke & they went for it tooth & nail. Now these two are bitter enemies. Sad so Sad. Check with anyone on the Links in North Queensland.

Dear Jansey,

Our language reflects our view of the world, and so
it is always changing. New words are being added all
the time as discovieries are made in medicine, science,
and technology. You can probably think of many examples
of this. Words for things no longer in use are dropped
from our everyday language.

For example words like "unisex" relfect our changed
attitudes to men and women. This word would have been
meaningless in past years when men and women were
expected to dress and act differently.

There are many terms which reflect the feelings of
superiority of some people of one race over people
of other races. For example, "n###r" referring
to African negroes. "boong" referring to Australian
Aborigines. "dago," referring to Italians, "wog"
referring to migrants living in Australia. "Savages"
or "barbariabs" referring to natives of non-European
lands.

These outmoded words are no longer acceptable to most
people today. However it's good that you explained
the historical content of the word to the young person.
They need to be told of the meaning of these old-fashioned
words that show us very clearly how some people viewed
one another. Words do reflect our society after all.

Jansey, I implore you don't let them destroy you very close friendship with a good mate.

I had a very close Aboriginal friend at work in the Railway Workshops. So close that we could sense each other. I spent time as a Forward Scout in Vietnam. After a time we all developed a sense of each other wants while on patrol. It was a sort of mind thing where no words were needed to send a message. Arthur & I had the same thing in the workshop. He was the Crane Slings man at one end of the shed & I was at the other end. If I need him or he need me, all we had to do was think of each other & we knew that the other wanted us & what was wanted. Arthur is a full blood, born at a little spring just East of Hughenden that flows down to the Murray Rv. His Tribal birthing place. He took me there. We would often cajole each other as well but were told to stop. I had a go at him once because he didn't know how to peel a Coconut. As he said, He's from Hughenden, "they don't have Coconuts in Hughenden." It's a North Queensland thing.

When I got married I invited him & he didn’t come. He said it was a “Whitie” affair & he didn’t feel comfortable going. I was devastated, but I accepted his explanation.

Don’t let those people looking for an excuse to “knock a whitie” colour your friendship with your very close friend. That would be a very sad thing.

Bazz: Never heard the term before !

I believe it was a term (word, "Jigga boo" that came about in America in the 1920's. It had to do with an African American (Negro) dance, or the how they danced. It was an African American word. The forerunner to the jive, also an African American word.

It was not originally a derogatory word but was taken up by Americans as a word for Negro, even African Americans. Fa God sake get some history into ya.

Jayb: Fa God sake get some history into ya.

That wasn't aimed at you personally Bazz, sorry. It's just I find history fascinating & can help in explaining a lot of thing we all take for granted which maybe different in reality.

Dear individual. my post was simply recounting an incident that happened to me, & one that was relevant to the Adam Goode's incident and discussion here. How you come to the conclusion that I'm making huge generalisation about white people is beyond me. I think people like yourself just naturally react in a defensive way when racism is being discussed in a rational way because such calm and rational thought based on trying to evoke the humanity in us all is not something racists like to engage with. Which is sad, you can learn lots from being an anti-racist.

Jansey, as you see I almost committed the same mistake with Bazz. (my post above) Don't let those who would exploit differences & unintentional mistakes of no malaise lead you astray.

We have a few potential terrorists on here that would employ those methods to intentionally divide people. Fortunately, we know who they are.

Jayb I'm glad you enjoy history, may you do so for many years to come. I for one have had more than enough American history through my TV to last me many lifetimes.

I had never heard of the term either, & wish I had not now.

As a classic car enthusiast I frequent a couple of sites with members from all around the world. We find it often easier to understand people for whom English is a second or third language than those in the UK, & especially in the US. We most definitely are separated by our common language.

I would be much happier if indigenous Oz people would stop using American digs & insults, as if they had some meaning here.

If I want to insult someone I will come up with something peculiarly Ozzie. I will not have to borrow something that should have no meaning here.

I was horrified some years back when I heard a New Guinea manager berating his staff, & calling them rock apes. When I realized it was not just his dozen or so local employees he was berating, but half a dozen Europeans as well, I was no longer so embarrassed, I simply thought he was a pig. I then realized my thinking of him that way, made me no better than him. I had to leave before I burst out laughing.

Jayb,

Explain "....potential terrorists on here...."?

If you're saying what I think you're saying about people with whom you have contrary views...I think you had better reexamine your terminology.

I hope you can disabuse me of that notion, and tell me I've misunderstood.

Dear Hasbeen,

The American influence is still very strong in
this country. American movies/television -
are a big influence, especially on young people.
And their expressions form a large part of the
vocabulary used on a daily basis.

Jiggaboo, along with other disparaging words like
nigga, coon, spook, boy, and so, were terms that
were very popular insults directed towards African
Americans. "You ain't nothin' but a jigaboo, boy.
Now shine them shoes!"

It's a bit of a concern to me that the young girl
in question chose to name her dog "jigaboo."
Why? Where did that come from? I would definitely
have explained the history of the word to her - and
told her how offensive it once was. Her choice if
she still kept the name. Perhaps her parents thought
it funny and suggested the name to her. Who knows.
But I would set the record straight.
I wonder if the dog was black?

cont'd ...

I just re-read the opening post.
Apparently the dog was black.

You can't tell me that's merely a co-incidence.
Some-one knew what they were doing.

Dear Lexi,

Just a note, you may well be confusing the owner of the dog with the young girl who was ejected from the football.

I'm not sure Jansey mentioned the dog owner's age at all.

Have I missed some thing,was the dogs owner/namer not too black?

Dear csteele,

Read Jansey's opening post on this discussion.
The owner of the black dog is the girl (age unimportant).
She chose to name the dog. And Jansey has every right to
explain to her the history of the name. The fact that the
girl was offended by what he said and hasn't spoken to him
since, speaks volumes. She was offended at his pointing out
the disparaging history of the name - and she gets offended.
But he's not allowed to? Come-on. Something's not right
here. I would think that she doesn't value the friendship
all that much if she allows this to influence her. Jansey
was merely explaining things to her. Why was that unacceptable
when her using the name wasn't. I'd tell her (politely of
course) to go jump either that or buy a white pig and name
it after her.

NO
! I was wrong but 60 years ago I had a black dog, my firs with the full name.
Not the threads subject one I have never heard used or even heard.
Do we ignore the truth? in an effort to jump to a conclusion can we blind our selves to the fact these folk use the real word in talking about one an other?

I do get a bit sick of some of the garbage that goes on, with some people looking for something to bitch about.

About 30 years ago, in Townsville there was a pile of rubbish by a black group. They wanted the name of a rock between Magnetic & Palm islands changed.

It's name White rock. So called because it was a sea bird roost, & was guess what. Yes it was white. It is this precious bull dust from some aboriginal groups that does much harm to the genuine cause.

Well actually hasbeen, most of the geography of this nation had place names before colonial incursion. What happened to these perfectly good names? many of which described both environmental and story places. Townsville was named after Robert Towns, a slave trader, which is perhaps well suited to your perspectives on life and universe.

Jansey told us that the girl told him that "Jigaboo"
today was a "sense of empowerment."
Yes. It always was about "empowerment."
For the "Master" or "slave owner," not for the slave.
That's something that Jansey should tell his friend.
Providing she stops being "offended" long enought to
speak to him again.

hasbeen - I do get a bit sick of some of the garbage that goes on, with some people looking for something to bitch about.

Its clear thats been the case here. I thought the player was supposed to be a big strong (some would say (erroneously) 'heroic' male). as things transpired, he now looks like a namby-pamby mummys boy. Whats the world coming to when people who like to portray a public image of uber-masculine take to crying piteously like a new-born baby ??

As for the nonsense about changing word usage, virtually everyone in this country has some ancestral events way back in the mists of time that could conceivably construe discrimination. There were certainly some very interesting happenings in the days of my ancient ancestors (for the peanut gallery, there were **NO** convicts) but why should I give a rats about stuff than happened hundreds of years back. When its all said and done, the other side probably deserved their fate :)

Just to get the blood pressure of our do-gooder friends racing, I have for many years in a particular area used a certain indigenous 'title' that upsets the politically correct lunatic fringe no end. Funnily enough, I have the full approval of the relevant people to use the term and in fact its a source of considerable merriment to them. Don't even think about aggro, the elders have a hard time not splitting their sides when they encounter the usage. Point of this ramble is that a lot of the terms which offend do-gooders are of no consequence whatever to those with a direct connection.

poirot: If you're saying what I think you're saying about people with whom you have contrary views...I think you had better re-examine your terminology.

Wow, poirot, you must have a guilty conscience or something. I mentioned no names, are you admitting that you maybe a potential terrorist but you don't want anyone to know. If it was me, I wouldn't jump in so quickly, that seems to say something. Doesn't it?

It wasn't about people with contrary views either. I have differing views to lots of other people on here without being nasty. Unlike some people. Some of those nasty people have exhibited views that could be construed as the views of potential terrorists. Are you one of those? I don’t know.

Remember the word Jigaboo & Jive were words invented by African Americans to describe themselves in the first instant. I have explained that before, but it seems to have been ignored by some people for some reason.

PC people do like to play up the “Black Card” at every opportunity they can. PC people do like to take advantage of “whitie,” & cry, “poor me, now gimme some more moolah.” These PC people see hate in everyone & everything. They spend their entire lives trying to be offended by everything & everyone. It’s a type of Mental Illness & they can’t help it, unfortunately.

Yes "JIGABOO" is offensive.

individual>> My answer is No ! Jigga Boo is a term that is used to indicate a useless non-thinker<<

Since when Indi?
Jigaboo has always been a derogatory name for blacks, perhaps one of the connotations is brain dead, but that is part of the slur…brain dead, lazy, useless, less of a person than the one calling them jigaboo. It is all inferred by the sledge jigaboo.

For no reason other than suspicion, I doubt our mate Jansey is a black fella, but then again one sixteenth gets you into the club here…..there are not as many black fellas as there are claimants.

Have any here seen the blue eyes/brown eyes social experiment? It proves that it does not take much to make a white feel marginalized.

I'm still astounded by the rationalisations and pseudo logic people use here [not to condemn racism], but to justify their beliefs that they have a god given right to perpetuate it, or condone it, declare its authenticity - no matter what. And these same people believe they are fair minded, upstanding citizens. The mind boggles!

When I read through comments here its clear that it has become commonplace for an Australian brand of whiteness to pervade and regulate discussions surrounding race and racism. This Whiteness is represented as invisible, as the unseen or the unmarked, as a non-colour, the absent presence or hidden referent, against which all other colours and ethnicities are measured as forms of social and cultural deviance. But of this Australian whiteness is only invisible for those who inhabit it. For those who don’t, it is hard not to see whiteness; in fact it become quite ubiquitous and stark.

Rainier,
We obviously have vastly different experiences because I have met a lot more black racists than white ones.

Individual,

It's not really a pissing contest, you know :) But you have a point.

On the one hand, we have to face the realities of Australia, that the majority population, 97 % or so, are not Indigenous, especially those with power and authority, so racist comments from somebody who is perceived as part of that majority (or a majority of the majority) are going to be felt more deeply than the jibes of a self-perceived maligned minority.

But on the other hand (what am I, an economist?!) over the past forty years, the people who I have heard use words like 'wog' and the many derogatory terms which different groups of Aboriginal people might use for other groups/'tribes'/clans, have tended to be Aboriginal. Of course, i have led a fairly sheltered life, so what would I know ?

I do recall back in the eighties, when an Aboriginal kindergarten here in Adelaide was approached to admit a Vietnamese child, the Aboriginal parents were furious- no 'goonties', they demanded. And so it was.

As far as I could tell, the response by Aboriginal people of my acquaintance to the anti-democratic coup in Fiji in 1987 was universally to support the Fijians against the Indian tenant farmers who had voted in a mixed government. And no, Indians weren't the majority population at the time and have since diminished to about a third of the population.

And ask an Aboriginal academic about coming 'out of Africa' and be unpleasantly surprised by the response.

So perhaps when people have power, no matter who they may be, they just possibly may tend to misuse it. Nobody has any monopoly on ignorance.

Best wishes,

Joe

Individual, perhaps you just choose to pay attention to racism coming from black people and ignore the toxic racism from whites?
For me Racism = prejudice + power.
I may have on occasion had a prejudice, but no the power.
If you think racism is only about name calling, you know nothing about racism at all.

When white people complain about reverse racism, they are not complaining about losing their RIGHTS. What they are complaining about is losing their PRIVILEGE.

Individual>> Rainier,
We obviously have vastly different experiences because I have met a lot more black racists than white ones<<

Indi, I grew up with aboriginal families, back then our shared poverty bound us socially.
There was always an undercurrent of “white dogs” in their sentiments, brought about by “colonial genocide” and TOTAL disenfranchisement from the new Anglo Australia.

But that was fifty years ago, the parents of my mates at the time had grandfathers killed by the colonists, they were bottom of the social bird cage and they didn’t even have the right to vote. No voice in my father’s place is how one dad put it all through my formative years.

I heard the political grievances of the first Australians at their kitchen tables. These people have at the heart of their genes an honest and open disposition, a gentleness that Caucasian societies lost long ago; I still see it in the kids. Yet their societies were brutalized. Did that give them the moral right to harbour absolute resentment….it absolutely did.

Shoot forward fifty years. Last year I was driving to Sydney from Brizzy. I stopped at a small town takeaway to have lunch, sitting at a table I watched three separate groups of first Aussie descendants come in, order, wait, pay and leave. They all had attitudes that ranged from surly to downright contemptuous towards the staff and other patrons.

When I took the plate back, I asked “what’s their problem.” All three ladies behind the counter said “they hate us”.
It seems that the local land council was quite influential in the area and the local descendants treated all whites like contemptible squatters. As I drove back to Sydney I thought of the families I grew up with, I had never witnessed that degree of open hostility and contempt for whites from them.

Yet these last two generations of descendants have had positive discrimination and an opportunity to move forward…but they didn’t. They have decided to live off the spilt blood of their ancestors.

I exempt all outback communities from this observation.

Joe>> As far as I could tell, the response by Aboriginal people of my acquaintance to the anti-democratic coup in Fiji in 1987 was universally to support the Fijians against the Indian tenant farmers who had voted in a mixed government. And no, Indians weren't the majority population at the time and have since diminished to about a third of the population.<<

Well thank Rabuka for that.
If I can draw a comparison.

In Australia we have an invasion of Indian Minor birds. They are more opportunistic than the local birds, smarter than the local birds; they took over the most lucrative feeding ranges, took the prime nesting sites and bred like Minor birds.

Joe that is what was happening to Fiji buddy, no wonder the first Aussies supported them.

Hi SoG,

Well, no actually. Indian sugar workers in Fiji have never owned the land, only leased it from Fijians. They were a bare majority of the population in 1970 or so, at Independence, but their proportion was slowly declining even then, and especially after the racist coup of 1987 - now they make up less than 40 % of Fiji's population. They don't own land, on the whole. Fijians are akin to their feudal masters. I long for the day when Fiji can become a democracy.

My point was simply that nobody is somehow angelic, above other human beings, nobody, but that everybody is capable of idiotic viewpoints, cruel and racist jibes and gutless attacks on people who they think are less powerful than they are. And it's all wrong.

And I'm a little uneasy - forgive me - with comparing human beings to birds, but if it floats your boat ....

Joe

Yes ok, and no offence intended from what I am about to say, but I'm growing tired of whitefellas who lived with blackfella stories, they all seem to become repetitive after a while, same melodramatic scenarios, following by a big dollop of moralising where blackfellas often get flogged up again. There are others in these forums who love to trot out their favourite blackfella stories over and over again as if they were telling it for the very first time. It’s like "scratch any white Australian and you'll unearth yet another'Abo story' - just add water and mix. What I've observed about these stories is that they are often more mythical than real. It’s been my experience that many white Australians don't actually know Aboriginal people, but they do know the stories passed down through their families, (my grandfather knew one, my Aunt I sat next to one in a bus once, 'there were a few of them at school but they weren't real one's - not like in the outback') or the stories shared through other white people. So here is my very own whitefella story, just to balance up the ledger here a bit. I recently attended my high school reunion and was surprised to learn that I was only one of a few who went on to university study (in my very late 20's). The majority of my school mates stayed in the small town we all grew up in and took up trade or blue collar work. Most of my old mates were pleased for me, some very surprised, but there was a few who automatically assumed I must have got some kind of ATSIC grant, free and untested enrolment into university, a free ride! These people did not want to hear my story about how I went back to night school, got my TE score for entry, enrolled and actually did quite well - did some post graduate studies and ended up being a lecturer in my chosen field for many years. >>

Joe>> They were a bare majority of the population in 1970 or so<<

They may have been a bare minimum Joe, but Rabuka usurped an Indian dominated Labour Government, so the few jobs they had made up for the disproportionate representation.
Joe the Minor bird is more than relevant.

Rainier…let me tell you an old old aboriginal story, it goes like this:

There's an old Australian stockman lying, dying. He gets himself up
onto one elbow and 'e turns to his mates,
who are all gathered around and 'e says:

Let me abos go loose, Lew
Let me abos go loose
They're of no further use, Lew
So let me abos go loose
Altogether now!

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/rolf_harris/

I'm not entirely sure of the words uttered by this 13 year old girl that offended the footballer chap ? Obviously something racial and distressing judging by his reaction ?

I'm just wondering if he's not being a little too precious about it all, when you come to think of it ? He's obviously a well known player, quite famous, often lauded for his playing prowess. The girl is apparently 13 ?

I would have thought he'd be sufficiently 'big' enough to simple laugh at the girl, and treat her like the boofhead she apparently is ? Somehow, if the matter ultimately went before a court, I couldn't imagine it going very far. So the 'offended' perhaps should be 'big' enough to just let the remarks slip through to the keeper. Sure, she the 'offender' is stupid, but at 13 years we were all pretty stupid, one way or the other.

All the years I spent as a copper, I believe I'd write a book of the number of different abusive names I've been called over the years...including a number of choice expletives and names from the mouths of people who should know better, and who are part of our learned and 'admired' legal fraternity, something about a woman's womb and an Indian's arm pit??

sonofgloin, that you cite a song from a paedophile tells me exactly what and who you are,

Rainier you turn out to be the very type who bring a great deal of dislike on your mob. You should keep your arrogance a bit better in check old chap.

I have refrained from mentioning previously the vast increase of so called aboriginals, since it became advantageous to be one. There are it appears, a lot of folk with a trace of aboriginal blood, who have suddenly acknowledged it, now it is profitable.

You seem to have done quite well in white mans society, & through your own effort. You have every right to be proud, regardless of what blood runs through your veins, but I reckon you would be a lot happier if you got rid of that chip you have on your shoulder, what ever colour it may be.

I won't bore you with my best mate in school, you'd probably think I was lying, with your attitude, or my other great mate, who flew Mustangs in Korea, but then his grand father was a Solomon Island Kanaka, no aboriginal blood there.

Some of us are totally colour blind, but can get to dislike aborigines, because of attitudes like yours, & some footballers.

o sung wu, "I'm not entirely sure of the words uttered by this 13 year old girl that offended the footballer chap?"

One word, a bit of an anti-climax. See here:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/girl-13-was-rude-but-shes-not-the-bully/comments-fni0ffxg-1226650913020

For me Racism = prejudice + power.
Rainier,
Hole in one. I sadly have to agree with you there as I experience that dreadful phenomenon every day. You see I'm in a minority in the area I live in where indigenous have higher authority than any other & I can assure you that you've never been more right in saying anything.

SOG!no you are unfairly charged as a supporter of a pedophile and as a racist.
At that time in history,I was there no one thought the song offensive!
And no one knew ,remember no conviction yet, charges against that man would be made.

Here is the reason this thread offended me from its 1st post
In explanation I feel dirty and ashamed about the way Aboriginals have been left out of this country,s mainstream.
I with every bone in my body have pushed for reforms, while even after the end of my work life continued to serve these folk.
BUT just as the charges against sonofgloin are manufactored and BASELESS, so to is this threads claim.
That does far more damage than good!
Once a 15 year old girl put a poster SHE HAD DRAWN up, showing a lynching of a first Nation Australian, *then found it*.
Took the elders to it,saw it published on the front page of the local paper.
Then bragged about doing it at school!
More harm than good comes from fighting phantoms!

Rainer, in the words of Shakespere, "me doth think thou protest too much." Rainer, YOU are a racist.

G'day there ONTHEBEACH...

Many thanks for enlightening me, apropos the word or words used by this 13 years old female offender. Given the profile that racism has received over the years, there's really no other course available to those authorities who have carriage to deal with this serious matter ?

She should be conveyed by a horse drawn cart to a public square, whereupon she should be placed in an approved public 'stock' and therein submit herself to public humiliation. She should remain so fettered, until she fully admits to her crime of wilfully disparaging the good fame and character of the entire primate family !

God help us ! This country is slowly dissolving beneath our feet. Through surging political corruption, organised crime, ethnic and religious revolt ? And what do we all worry about ? What's spread across the front pages of most of our tabloids ? Some stupid inane remark uttered by an impertinent young 13 years old girl, for goodness sake !

We sure have our priorities right eh ?

This footballer bloke should just let it go, and move on. Or perhaps there's something more to all this ruckus, another agenda maybe ? If not, there's far more important things in this life to worry about than this damn nonsense !

jayB insightful, and maybe true.
We all, every one of us, should look for the middle path to a better future for the First Australians.
Some will want to use my body parts for this, but racism, on both sides, note that, stands in front of improvement.
Yes racism always and from any source is evil.
But it is not only majority's using it.
Some use it for personal gain.
Some simply know no better
BOTH sides have work to do, work we must not fail to get done.
Bit concerned about my Dogs, Sky is black and white, is the name OK?
Lost Blue at Christmas.
Got Bella as a gift hope Bella is not a racist name?
She was named after me, so while she is my best mate should I be offended? nah! only when she bights my toe to get me away from the PC.

o sung wu - Or perhaps there's something more to all this ruckus, another agenda maybe ? If not, there's far more important things in this life to worry about than this damn nonsense !

Ahh so. If you recall a bit of high school history, about 2000 odd years ago there was a roman empire, and the politicians or whatever they called themselves were about as bent as their present day counterparts in Australia. One of their number dreamed up a system to divert public attention from the monumental stuffups caused by political ineptitude, namely the roman games which ultimately led to the olympic games. Obviously the current crop of bloodsucking parasites can't invent something that already in existence, so they use a number of other distractions, one being political correctness, another being homosexual affairs, yet another contrived racial conflict, and so on. The parasites have already realized the sheeple are the most apathetic of their kind on planet earth, consequently inventiveness isn't critical. Anything that sends the stupid sheeple wandering up a blind alley is fine, all the distraction needs to do is to take the mind (if indeed sheeple have a mind) off the disasters resulting from political ineptitude.

Well the last dozen or so posts pretty well sums it up I would have thought.

Sonofgolin, you, despite knowing there are two indigenous folk on this thread, threw “Let me abos go loose, Lew” directly in the face of one of them.

For Christ's sake what mean-spirited, ugly, arrogant part of you let you think that would be okay? That is just plain ignorant, reprobate behaviour one would have hoped we had gotten past.

As for the rest of you not a peep in protest.

Actually Hasbeen's response was a kind of 'Don't you start getting uppity on us boy'.

Not that I think Rainer's retort was all that appropriate but then again I'm not sure how I would have behaved in that situation if I were part of a racial minority.

But then we get the insipid claim from Jayb; “YOU are a racist.”

Oh my Lord give me a break. Open your eyes and engage your brains and decency.

Despite living in a rural area I must be blessed because there are not too many in this neck of the woods would be acting the way you lot have just done.

Grow up!

Dear o sung wu,

There was no way that Adam Goodes was able to know that the lass who directed that remark at him was only 13. He heard the voice and pointed her out to an official who then acted. Once Goodes learned her age he was quick to say she shouldn't face any sanction and instead invited her to contact him so he could explain why such remarks were hurtful. The lass did telephone him and apologised.

In my opinion he handled the aftermath really well.

Spot-on, C. Steele, thank you.

Cheers,

joe

csteele

'For Christ's sake what mean-spirited, ugly, arrogant part of you let you think that would be okay? '

just demonstrating your hyprocrisy heh!

Just lucky he wasn't called a Gorilla, because that is another nick for the Lions. Or a crow? Or a cat or a dog? Or any of the many animal names men use for their sporting teams. Maybe this child should have been using the crude, blue lingo used both on and off the field in football stadiums.

Honestly, what female doesn't see footballers as knuckle-dragging, insensitive, low-brow apes? The women's movement has been makin similar assessments and worse of footballers and men generally in national media for years.

The public humiliation, detention and interrogation (2 hours!) of a 13 year old minor was a Kangaroo Court in action. By what right was that done and without the approval and presence of parents and carer, and without independent, informed, professional advice?

The child's rights were definitely abused, but the jury is definitely out on whether the word she used, employed in the environment it was, could be construed as race vilification. Honestly, what about all of the C words and other beauties (sic) used at the game but was similarly culled out for public humiliation?

What about The Footy Show where The Chief is referred to as an ape and no-one has ever complained?

Well, for once I agree with csteel.

However we do have Rainier playing the victim & playing the incident up for all it's worth.

Believe it or not Rainier, most of us, especially the oldies, do have stories to tell. We do have good Aboriginal & Islander mates. Most Australians are not racist. The few that are racist is because of the likes of Pseudo victims who play the race card all the time, as you have been in this forum. Especially if they can gain some form of notoriety out of it. They won’t fix the problem because they’ll be out of a lucrative job if they do.

I knew a few people in ASTIC & a few people, who run Aboriginal Organizations, believe me they are the Aboriginal peoples worst enemy. Ever wonder what happens to all the money that is given to Aboriginal people $5.5 billion last year. Any improvement in Aboriginal lives. No?

I wonder if the Aboriginal CEO's are ripping the system off. A definite "YES" do I hear. Anybody in North Queensland will give you the names of at least two. The worst of the worst two “ladies” for the want of a better word. Both, of whom I went to school with, in the Burdekin. This is why some Australians are racist. They are sick of paying for no perceivably improvement. Are you one of these CEO's? I'd hazard a guess & say yes.

As far as racism is concerned gentlemen
I came across this from an old newspaper
archive. It's from Letters to the Editor
in 1968:

"Australians do not hate Aborigines (except
in a few isolated places), but wish them well..."

"Australians are decent people with the right
instincts and they wish everybody well;
but if all is not well, it is none of their
business and they will not lose too much sleep over it."

Cheers.

As if the national preoccupation with footbrawl & thugby wasn't enough, it appears we've discovered another totally pointless time-wasting pursuit. Now we have media attention devoted to prima-donna mummys boys throwing tantrums in preference to items of real significance. One could be forgiven for thinking the life and times of our elected representatives & the forthcoming federal election would take precedence over sporting trivia.

My dog's 6 yrs old now and when I first bought him was trying to think of a not too common name, we happened to have a coffee tin with a pic of an African ( i presume) sunset and the brand was Jambo, am I racist? , I never actually connect it with anything other than my dog which is, black'n'brindle

Belly>> SOG! no you are unfairly charged as a supporter of a pedophile and as a racist.<<
Thanks my china.

Rainier if I offended you I do apologize unreservedly. I doesn’t matter how I empathize with the first Aussies, I can never actually feel their displacement because I am Anglo….Celt actually….same thing really in this discussion.

As I watched the face of Australia change over the past 50 years, primarily due to migration, I often thought of the first Australians and how they were not only displaced, but disenfranchised from their culture and religion. But that is now just a page in time nestled amongst the other atrocities that regularly appear in man’s history.

What I am meaning is that the first Aussies history is not unique, excepting the fact that they were a Stone Age people thrown into modernity, so they were particularly fragile and vulnerable, those people have gone, we killed them off and bred them out. Their varying degrees of descendants over the past 30 years have quite rightly enjoyed positive discrimination and ongoing government financial support, but it was rorted.

When the support was administered by whites, they stole from it. When the support was administered by the blacks, they stole from it….how do the REAL people ever win? I am not a racist Rainier my respected cobber , but if I criticize some first Aussies descendants, you can bet some black person has seen the duplicity of their actions first.

'Evening to you CSTEELE...

True, perhaps Adam Goode wasn't aware of this lasses age. However, I contend he should've simply let this imprudent remark, albeit apparently hurtful, simply 'roll off him' as he entered the chute.

By all accounts he's a very good Aussie Rules player, and is often lauded as such. He's also recognised personally, as being, both a 'good bloke' and endowed with modest, controlled habits when he's out and about with his team mates, unlike some other players of this, and other codes.

Therefore, surely a man with his obvious personal qualities, and social maturity, totally ignore this injudicious remark, and continue on to his dressing room ?

I've got to again say, the number of times my colleagues and I, have had to endure:- insults and all manner of disparaging remarks, foul language and yes, racist and chauvinistic abuse - both in and out of uniform - I reckon I could author a thousand page Lexicon of words of 'vilification', and still not advance further than the letter 'A' ?

But you know what ? Very soon you quickly realise it simply doesn't matter. Quite often you'll hear a word or remark that will actually make you smile, even laugh. And should your mirth be observed by the individual from who's mouth it originally came - they'll often appear to be ready to 'blow a valve' with sheer unmitigated rage ! That will often prompt you and your colleagues to laugh even more !

Csteele>> For Christ's sake what mean-spirited, ugly, arrogant part of you let you think that would be okay? That is just plain ignorant, reprobate behaviour one would have hoped we had gotten past.<<

Cs, as always sledgehammer direct.
Consider this Cs, the lyric was put in because I see no difference between first Aussie descendants and those of us who came later. Given that, if it is not insulting to me then it is not insulting to them. It is a piece of colloquial history, many first Aussies were stockmen, some worked for stockmen, some worked for themselves. How is that inflammatory unless you’re a protagonist pushing an agenda?

Present day descendants are as far removed from the time portrayed in that lyric as I am to the troubles in Ireland early last century.

Cs>> As for the rest of you not a peep in protest.<<

Nah your right, it’s just you sport. Are you a lawyer Cs? All they do is escalate, just like your energetic good self, to be sure, squared.

Saussie,

From memory, I think that 'Jambo' may be Swahili for 'hello', at least with tourists. I don't think it is supposed to be offensive in any way. Wasn't it the title of a film in the seventies ?

Cheers,

Joe

Dear sonofgolin,

For what it is worth I respect the fact you responded the way you did to Rainer.

In light of it I'm prepared to park 'mean-spirited, ugly, arrogant' but ignorant on this issue probably should stand.

And for the record I did not label you a racist.

That is because I'm assuming you were not aware that Rolf Harris has repeatedly apologised for the lyrics of the song. It was written in 1957 and when it was released in 1960 Harris had made the decision never to use the 'Abo' lines when he sang it in public. The song was actually banned in Singapore because they regarded it so offensive. Here it hit number 1.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/rolf-says-sorry-for-abo-line/story-e6frg6nf-1111112640142

You wrote;

“Consider this Cs, the lyric was put in because I see no difference between first Aussie descendants and those of us who came later. Given that, if it is not insulting to me then it is not insulting to them.”

I invite you to look at the lyrics of the entire song. The stockman was seeing to his possessions. The whole notion that they should go free meant they couldn't without him giving his permission. They were indentured to him, a form of slavery, and were listed along with the other animals.

Of course it is inflammatory and I struggled to understand why you didn't think it would be hurtful.

Dear o sung wu,

I started to prepare a decent reply to you but it is late and I have a stupidly early start ahead of me tomorrow. Please bear with me.

let it simply 'roll off him'
o sung wu,
I fail to believe that he was "hurt" by that remark at all. I believe he saw it as a golden opportunity to add momentum to the presently slowed-down discrimination bandwagon.

individual - I fail to believe that he was "hurt" by that remark at all. I believe he saw it as a golden opportunity to add momentum to the presently slowed-down discrimination bandwagon.

funny you should say that, I was just thinking exactly the same :)

Yo, guys....

I'm sure all of the people here labelling Goode a cry-baby would enjoy going about your business (whatever that may be) doing your best and getting on with it, accompanied by chorus of "ape" and other related epithets.

It must be such fun.

It has now been shown that the entire stadium was screaming Politically Incorrect taunts & Goode picks on a little girl.

Then again he plays AFL & is Victorian. Says it all, doesn't it. ;-)

&, cs, if it was me saying what Rainier said about Aboriginal people then you would be SCREAMING racist at me. By his rants against white folk, Rainier IS a racist. You go girl.

Great, Jayb.....people here are criticising Goode for bringing insulting racist jibes to the attention of the media - and now you wield the "they were all doing it" as some sort of mitigating factor.

Perhaps if we start highlighting this crap, people might find a less offensive way to express their enthusiasm.

strangley enough evoluntionist are unable to explain how calling someone an ape is racist. It is part of their fantasy.

runner,

Are you saying that a crowd of people shouting "ape" to a footballer going about his business of providing skill, entertainment and dedication for the public's benefit, is somehow acceptable...because "most" people accept evolutionary theory?

poirot: and now you wield the "they were all doing it" as some sort of mitigating factor.

I didn't not suggest it was a mitigating factor & you know it. You little word twister you. ;-) You are really great at pushing s#!t uphill, aren't you.

I did suggest that he was an AFL playing, Victorian girl. I'm a Queenslander. :-p

With all the people in the Stadium shouting taunts of all descriptions, as they do at any footy match. He, picks on a little girl, who is just going along with the excitement of the game, as was everybody who was there. I believe "Ape" would have been one of the least offensive taunts he'd heard that day.

Come on Poirot, you have a game designed to be played by gentlemen, now being played by a bunch of mostly thugs. The only reason they don't half kill the opposition is they get penalized particularly for off the ball thumping from behind, & you want to attack a kid who calls one of them an ape.

Modern football, of all codes is now played as something approaching a gladiatorial fight, designed to raise the blood pressure of the fans, & bring in more money. A display of high skill is followed an attempt to put the skillful in hospital, & you worry about a little name calling.

I'm only surprised that it is so mild.

"It has now been shown that the entire stadium was screaming Politically incorrect taunts& Goode picks on a little girl."

My apologies, Jayb.

Could you enlighten me as to why you posted the above, if it wasn't meant to mitigate the "little girl's" actions. and I note that you state "Goode picks on a little girl".

So now he's not only a cry-baby, but also a bully?

What I'd love is for the likes of you to walk around for a while in an indigenous skin - and experience the thrill of being called an "ape", amongst other things.

I'm sure you'd shrug it off, even if it came from young teenagers echoing the bigoted garbage they've been fed from their mentors.

Do you recommend we allow this sort of stuff at junior levels, after all, indigenous kids should learn that it's their lot - even if the whole stadium is taunting politically incorrect diatribe, they shouldn't bat an eyelid.

You blokes are unbelievable!

And another thing.

If any of those arguing in defence of racially targeted abuse as just being part of "the way things are" had an ounce of the graciousness that Goodes displayed in trying to understand this girl's actions, it would be a fine thing.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-25/goodes-gutted-but-places-no-blame/4712772

However, it's a certain mindset.....keeps happening.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-29/eddie-mcguire-apologises-for-king-kong-comment-regarding-adam-g/4720152

poirot: So now he's not only a cry-baby, but also a bully?

Yep!

This thread just has to be one of the most pointless wastes of time ever. Surely there must be matters of more importance to debate than the doings of some stupid juvenile & a prima-donna footbrawler who was in all probability 'set up' by bone-headed do-gooders ?? is it any wonder the bloodsucking parasites can get away with what they do when half the country is haggling over mindless crap that doesn't matter one iota to the state of the nation.

Ha!...Jayb, I totally expected that.

The white man contorting his argument by excusing belligerent racism, so that the victim is not only the sook, but also the aggressor.

Stunning, stuff from OLO's regulars.

praxidice,

SO who appointed you the arbiter of what's worth talking about?

Frankly, your own diatribes on the famous "blood sucking parasites" are wearing a bit thin and hackneyed.

Step it up a bit...show us how brilliant you really are.

poirot: The white man contorting his argument by excusing belligerent racism, so that the victim is not only the sook, but also the aggressor.

Ha! Poirot. Your soooo easy. ;-) I love you darling. You really ring my bell. How does it go. Bvngggggg! Heee heee.

Jayb,

If I'm "soooo easy" - why are you the one who's reduced to pulling out the sexist tactic and calling me "darling" (Loudmouth used to try that tactic with "sweetie" when he'd run out of ammo).

Do you often refer to all the blokes on here as "darling" as well?

It must be difficult for you when you run out of argument with them.

Poirot

'Are you saying that a crowd of people shouting "ape" to a footballer going about his business of providing skill, entertainment and dedication for the public's benefit, is somehow acceptable...because "most" people accept evolutionary theory?

no its not acceptable however the evolutionary fantasy leads to a logical conclusion that some are less evolved than others. Or have they revised their textbooks again. Generally evolutionist are very slow to admit their mistakes.

Poirot>>If I'm "soooo easy" - why are you the one who's reduced to pulling out the sexist tactic and calling me "darling" (Loudmouth used to try that tactic with "sweetie" when he'd run out of ammo).<<

P, now really, is that a tactic sugar?

poirot: If I'm "soooo easy"

It is when you react like a Goode, Goode. ;-)

SOG I admire your retreat .
But let us all be honest.
The Crimson song came out in 1957!
We had no idea it was so bad until we got decades past its release.
The right to vote, shame fully not given to these folk came years after.
One northern NSW town voted strongly against it!
Are we to include music hall black faced performers like Al Jolson too?
How do we confront the rag doll we once called a now racist name,are girls who owned them racist?
What about that boot polish factory I helped demolish? N**&& Boy?
At the negotiation table,after committing to deal with each other in an honest way.
We put rule one in place * lets leave the past sins, of both sides, and work together *
That path works , constant harping about nothing or bad events hardens both sides against change.
I remain convinced the thread is nit picking.

Jansey, "Was my reaction to the dog's name justified?"

First, 'wow' on only just joining and two posts up immediately. With your clever storytelling your racist GF just HAD to be a middle class white woman, right? You are here to spruik your clever manipulative form of activism, by a clever story aimed at stereotyping whites and manufacturing outrage.

As for 'Jigaboo', what Australian would know. No-one outside of activists who are deeply into US black activism of a creepy sort would have ever seen the word. It is niche US black rapper weirdo. Alien to Aussies and most Americans too. Google:

<A jiggaboo is person that reinforces the many black stereotypes such as...
Mainly listens to rap music (i.e. 2-Pac)
Eats chicken all the time (i.e. KFC)
Uses common black phrases or words (i.e "What it do?" and "folks")
Wears name brand clothes (i.e. Rocawear or Ecko)
Wears doo-rags
Lazy and stupid
Smokes alot of weed>

and,

< A male black (negro with dark skin) that makes a fool of himself by exclusively chasing after white women.
A male black that dates only white women as a status symbol.
A male black that considers white women as superior to black women.
A nigga that divorces his black wife to date a white woman.
Every time Becky walks past him, Jamal drools and starts tap dancing while grabbing his penis and yelling "I is a jiggaboo and I wants ta fux you"
Jiggaboo Terrence would give Becky his last piece of fried chicken if she asked for it.
Jiggaboo Darryl would slap the p*ss out of his mama if Becky told him to.

Rappers and NBA players are jiggaboos.

Blacky said that dating white ladies is like driving a brand new Mercedes, but dating black bitches is like taking the number 2 bus. Blacky is such a jiggaboo>

So come back Jansey from that other virtual rapper Jigaboo universe where fantasy stories are concocted to win street cred, because you have some explaining to do.

Good afternoon to you POIROT...

You should walk around for awhile in some venues, wearing a police uniform and see the amount of taunts and abuse you receive, more often behind your back ? :-)

Seriously, I'll readily concede, taunts of a kind that are directed at your ethnic origin, or your skin colour, may amount to an appreciable more emotional 'hurt', than perhaps abuse designed to offend your vocational choice ? Then if we were to extrapolate upon Race Abuse ? There are other taunts and words of extreme cruelty ! In fact we humans can be bloody awful creatures sometimes, most times !

I briefly mentioned some time back, a girl's suicide. She'd been constantly teased, taunted and abused about her excessive weight ? 'Bumper Stickers' bearing - 'NO FAT CHICKS' were placed in her bag, amongst her things at work, and in evening college ? One can only imagine how lousy her life was, living under those appalling conditions ?

Back to Mr Goode's situation, in fact all of us who've ever been so targeted. Shouldn't we as mature adults, consign such boorish behaviour of an ignorant few, to the garbage bin, and just move on ?

Or is it a case where there are other more sinister 'things' afoot here, as my friend INDIVIDUAL has asked ? Not only involving the two protagonists, but some in the media, even politicians ?

Remember, it takes two hands to clap.

o sung wu

great post

Hi Poirot ;)

So you've been thinking about me, sweetie ?

And you haven't been far from my mind either :)

Meanwhile, back to topic: for the past few weeks I've been working on typing up (it's what I do these days) extracts from the minutes of meetings of a body that existed here in SA from 1918 until 1939, called the Advisory Council of Aborigines. It never had a single Aboriginal person on it, although an application was made in about 1934. And knocked back.

Was that racist ? We would think so these days, I'm sure, but before we jump on the members and sink the boot in a few times, I would suggest that they were us then, and we are them now. Attitudes evolve under the force of circumstances. Ten, twenty, fifty years ago, I would have slagged them all as a bunch of KKK-type racists, because i knew so much more back then.

Of course they should have had some Aboriginal members, there were strong people around back then, Mark Wilson, my wonderful grandfather-in-law Wiltshire Sumner, David Unaipon.

We know - we can know, more or less - what happened in history. People living it didn't, they were going through it, and for them they were grappling with issues, often for the first time. A bit like that silly girl. I hope she learns to become a better person because of it.

Cheers :)

Joe

I suppose you could call me a Swans fan, as i watch them play, on TV, each weekend. Not real keen but find it entertaining as it can change quickly and I appreciate the skill and fitness of the players. I know most of the Swans by sight and Adam Goodes is one of the best and he does not get easily put off his game by unseen fouls against him. Last Friday he had a blinder of a game.

When i first saw the incident I thought he was right to report it. But later, when it was revealed the mildness of the taunt, I thought he overreacted. For a player of his age and experience he would have heard far worse than that. To my mind the taunt from the girl was rude but I do not consider it racist. The actions of the secutity and police were over the top. Goodes pointed her out and a repremand would have been sufficient, as she was exposed. Now I feel sorry for her. I expect she was making a smart aleck remark in front of her sisters.

I have heard far worse on and off the field and to be called the same as an animal is no big deal. There was film also of Eddie Maguire going to the Swans dressing room after and apoligising to Goodes.

The whole thing was blown out of all proportion and with Maguires gaffe on radio this morning the whole thing is now a farse.

Shame a girl but allow an official off for a similar unthinking remark highlights the stupidity.

Incidently I had never heard of jigga boo or porch monkey and certainly do not consider being called an ape racist. I do not now admire Adam Goodes quite so much.

Could anyone have ever imagined that any Aussie crowd would not act to prevent a minor being subjected to such rough treatment, public humiliation and being frog-marched off for two hours interrogation alone and an admission of 'guilt' obtained? Criminals have rights, but not a 13 year old minor.

What the hell is wrong with people that they permit that to happen and later, upon reading of the silliness of the allegation of racism, they are not up in arms demanding that authorities redress the wrongs committed against this child and her parents?

Shame, Australia, shame.

Csteele, thanks for taking me off the “most wanted” list.

Belly>> SOG I admire your retreat .<<
I admire your turn of phrase china.

>>Are we to include music hall black faced performers like Al Jolson too?<<
Belly I just do not see that as inflammatory. Thespians have for thousands of years dressed in the garb of other nations taking on the persona of that other nation to act out a story. In fact the first “black face” was donned by light skinned actors in the portrayal of biblical characters such as Solomon or the Egyptians.

>>What about that boot polish factory I helped demolish? N**&& Boy?<<
That term comes from the Latin “niger”, black of colour. The Europeans used it as a general descriptive of black. The Americans turned it into a sledge mid way through the 19th century. Yeah it had to go.

>>I remain convinced the thread is nit picking.<<
Where is Jansey

SOG: Where is Jansey?

I think I must have hurt his feelings. Either that or I hit the nail on the head.

Dear onthebeach,

Australia has much to be ashamed of
you're right on that count. Aborigines
even today have a life expectancy ten
years less then the rest of us.
And the NT still has the highest numbers
of Aboriginal deaths-in-custody.

Shame-Australia-Shame, indeed.

Lexi,

You could at least quote me correctly, rather than seek to mislead any reader who does not have the time to check the correctness of your quotes. This is what I wrote,

<Could anyone have ever imagined that any Aussie crowd would not act to prevent a minor being subjected to such rough treatment, public humiliation and being frog-marched off for two hours interrogation alone and an admission of 'guilt' obtained? Criminals have rights, but not a 13 year old minor.

What the hell is wrong with people that they permit that to happen and later, upon reading of the silliness of the allegation of racism, they are not up in arms demanding that authorities redress the wrongs committed against this child and her parents?

Shame, Australia, shame"

[Posted by onthebeach, Wednesday, 29 May 2013 5:20:40 PM]

Lexi: Aborigines even today have a life expectancy ten
years less then the rest of us.

Not for Lexi, as it is just a statement by her, that happens to be correct. But I would like everyone to have a think deeply about my next paragraph.

Is that solely down to the white man fault or is it because they; drink way pass excess, chose to live in unhygienic squalor of their own making, destroy the houses provided for them, Move out of the house permanently if someone dies in it. Pi$$ & $#!t, fight & fornicate everywhere they live, in full view of everyone, rape their children, sniff glue & petrol, Spend their money on Goonies (Goonies are cardboard wine casks)or (take their advise from their Spiritual Advisor, Pasta Plagon) instead of food. I have personally witnessed all of the above on an ongoing basis for many years. I lived in North Queensland as opposed to Victoria where the supposed civilized tame ones live.

I guess the Crying Crowd will say it all white mans fault regardless. We forced them to live like that. or, is it, as THEY say it's their Ancestral Heritage. Not!

I have made my own Think Tank List for Australia. Some of the paragraphs;

Training on expected behaviour standards & the Australian way of life, Australian Culture & hygiene for all immigrants (especially immigrants from the Middle East.)

Training for Aboriginals on remote communities in the expected standard of cleanliness, hygiene & expected maintenance of their homes. Three strikes & you’re out after training.

Compulsory Training for those people in Australian communities that trash Government & Rental Housing. Three strikes & you’re out after training.

There are 7 pages in all covering many & varied subjects, this is just 3 paragraphs.

Lexi my sweet, that is a silly post.

I had a great friend, intelligent, well educated, affluent, & a good member of his community. He was everything we admire in a man.

However he pickled his liver, & died younger than he should, because he could not resist the lure of Bundaberg rum, mixed with Coke.

You know no one blamed me & my fellow citizens because of his foolishness. Everyone recognized it was his own stupidity, or addictive personality, take your pick, that did him in.

If many aboriginals chose to sniff glue/petrol or drink grog or metho in a big way, I & my fellow citizens have no more responsibility for their early demise than we do for my friends. Certainly much more public money & effort has been spent trying to help them. A rather thankless task.

In fact I personally object to anyone blaming me or the general population of Oz, for any stupid behavior of any group or race. I personally think it is time for all do gooders to take a step back, & allow aboriginals to mature at their own rate.

After all their behavior is not that much different to that of Europeans a couple of hundred years ago, as they matured into modern society from serfdom. Millions of them drank themselves into early graves. The aboriginals are starting from a lower base, & may take a little while yet, but many of them aren't doing that badly, all considered. I think they might actually get there a bit more quickly than we did.

On deaths in custody we all know that neither white or black have a higher percentage there. That whole pantomime of black deaths in custody was just a sob fest for bleeding hearts, & a gravy train for the legal profession, & all a rather disgusting waste of time & money. It was probably one of the most racist things in our history.

Jayb,a bit harsh.
You are the product of thousands of generations of minds that evolved somewhere in or around Europe, every generation moving forward in social concepts and technological endeavors. With every generation your families mind evolved.

The minds of our first Aussies are the product of thousands of generations of Stone Age culture; nothing ever moved forward, the culture and technology stayed the same for 60,000 years. Do they have the mind for our amazing technological world and the expectations of the wider society?

We know they do not have the mind to consume alcohol, but they are not alone given alcohol has decimated all aboriginal societies around the globe.

The first Aussies that fare worse are the lesser genetically diluted folks. They have no concept of care for houses or chattels; they expect no retribution because their minds just do not think that way.

Comparatively the gene diluted descendants do have an understanding of personal ownership and a taste for retribution so urban descendants prosper in comparison to the outback mobs.

Jayb there is a whole slice of first Aussies out there who need all the help we can give them, and there is a whole slice of watered down descendants who are doing just fine with the support we give, you work it out buddy.

The brainwashed & the racists have one thing in common. When you turn the mirror towards them they go stumm.

Hasbeen,

Indigenous people make up 28 % of people in custody.

22 % of deaths in custody are Indigenous, but Indigenous people make up only 2.8 % of the Australian population. So, the logic goes, only 2.8 % of deaths in custody should be of Indigenous people, and no more.

And if only 1 % of people in custody were Indigenous, what % of deaths in custody should be Indigenous, and no more ? 2.8 % !

And if, like in the NT, Indigenous people make up 80 % of people in custody, what % of deaths in custody should be Indigenous, and no more ? 2.8 % !

If there were no Indigenous people in custody, what proportion of deaths in custody should be Indigenous, and no more ? 2.8 % !

If everybody in custody were Indigenous, what % of deaths in custody should be indigenous, and no more ? 2.8 % !

Says it all, really.

I see everything twice !

Joe

I've followed this thread with dismay but very little surprise. The terms used towards Adam Goodes, first from a child who had no idea of the real implications of her remark but certainly knew that it was meant as a negative, and had to have learnt that somewhere, then from Eddy McGuire who certainly knew and indeed has spoken out against racism, show just how deeply entrenched in our collective and personal subconscious lies the concept that Aboriginal people are lesser humans, even among people who are believe they are not racist or try hard not to be. Some of the comments in this discussion are similar; the worst are those from people who say ' some of my best friends are...' or 'I grew up with ...' as though that's a licence to say whatever they like.

The labelling of Aborigines as 'ape-like' goes back a long way: 'Monkey' was a common name given to Aboriginal individuals by early Europeans who couldn't be bothered with learning how to pronounce using their own personal names, along with a lot of other demeaning terms. And it's not just a thing of the past, as the Goodes story shows. I've come across it myself: an example - about 10 years ago I was looking after a photo exhbition which included some pictures of Aborigines. A white man in his 40s, well dressed and well spoken pointed to a picture of Aboriginal children: 'Look at their monkey hands' (they looked like normal human hands). When I challenged him he was adamant: their hands looked like monkeys, and this was because they were more primitive than Europeans.

It is essential to speak up. Good for you Jansey. Good on Adam Goodes.

And re the posts on Aboriginal drinking and dysfunctional settlements - catch up on the replay of 'Head First' , on ABC 2 earlier tonight.

Congrats are in order the thread has been a good one.
MAY I WITH A LITTLE AID FROM EVER PRESENT TRUTH BE RUDE?
I am appalled and always will be, by Americans of African descent, [we all are by the way] using true filth!
Saying some one enemy or friend, has had sex with his mother.
or Is a female dog.
And how can our culture be insulting when talking about KFC?
America branded us racist over an add.
Now sneaking in here, to again lay my past words out for inspection.
I fishing at Evan Head Australia's best beach fishing spot.
The only white but with true mates.
Heard and continue to, hear my mates call each other filthy and racist words, that I never would.
If I did? it would be racist, why is it not if they do?

Heard and continue to, hear my mates call each other filthy and racist words, that I never would.
If I did? it would be racist, why is it not if they do?
Belly,
I know exactly where you're coming from. The situation is such that when an opportunity arises to bleat racism the opportunity is exploited. It somehow makes a right out of two wrongs. It's what has been drummed into the indigenous from the day they are born by do-gooder academics & white Aborigines.
The indigenous would be a decent lot if only they were left alone instead of manipulated by academics & bureaucrats. You know those social experts who know everything.

"Indigenous people make up 28 % of people in custody.

22 % of deaths in custody are Indigenous, but Indigenous people make up only 2.8 % of the Australian population. So, the logic goes, only 2.8 % of deaths in custody should be of Indigenous people, and no more. "

You do realize this 'mathematics' for want of a suitable word, is a nonsense.

28% of people in custody are aboriginal, so aboriginals should make up 28% of the total number of deaths in custody if the deaths are distributed independent of race.

So if they only make up 22% of the deaths in custody, they are actually less likely than non-indigenous people to die in custody,
once they are there, though much more likely to be in custody in the first place.

So we should be doing more to find out and prevent non-aboriginal deaths in custody, or work out why aboriginals fare so well in custody, and try to use that information to better understand how we could perhaps prevent non-aboriginal deaths in custody.

Logic is a funny thing isn't it. So elusive.

Well, yes, Monsieur, that was my point :)

An article in The Australian last week by Anthony Dillon covered this, and pointed out, for those who wished to take any notice, that suicides and other violent deaths OUTSIDE OF custody were far, far higher amongst Indigenous people - up to fifty times higher, and especially in remote hole-in-the-wall settlements.

The Deaths in Custody Royal Commission presided over a scam, and a cover-up of what was happening outside custody. And yes, the question is not so much to do with deaths in custody as incarceration rates, and that in turn has to do with the rate of criminal activity: how to bring those rates down is the issue.

But that gets us into questions of Indigenous behavior, conduct, attitudes to the rest of society, where the ball is so much in their court. Easier to blame whites somehow for deaths in custody and other red herrings.

Cheers,

Joe

ok I read the rest of the post now...

I also read this...

"The women's movement has been makin similar assessments and worse of footballers and men generally in national media for years. "

Too true. But, just like sexism (what's now called misogyny) it only works one way, and the feminists would take it as read that the black men would not be included in their 'neanderthal' references.

It's really hard being a leftie, as there are so many contradictions. There is a heirarchy in there somewhere about who is the most repressed, and then they have to work out what minorities a person belongs to and all sorts of permutations have to take place to determine the top victim. The king victim in any situation takes a lot of analysis.

So we have a black man against a young woman. Now race is trumping gender at the moment, but what if it turns out she's gay, or has some disability, or been raped. It's a minefield.

But in the end the rules seem to be that if you are a historically repressed group people may not use references that may evoke symbolic acceptance of past wrongs.

Even, as Belly said, those wrongs and even the symbols are from a totally different country and culture. Fried chicken has no relevance here, but we somehow must be sensitive to portraying West Indian cricketers eating KFC.

Would it have been as offensive if she'd bought a white dog called it Jigga Boo?

No.Is it bad that I like this new word, it has a ring too it. Brings a smile to my face for some reason. I must be racist.

o sung wu,

Nothing sinister.

It's all very simple.

This is the 21 st century. We have indigenous people participating and excelling on the field.

Ane we have people sitting on the sidelines bellowing that they are apes, etc.

And to top it off, we appear to host a coterie of "Australians" who regard that as just fine and dandy - and that anyone who who chooses to single out a perpetrator is a sook and a bully.

I'll ask you all again.

Would you recommend this type of belligerent and racist name-calling at the junior level?

I'm assuming your answers would be "NO".

I wonder why your answers would be in the negative if you think it's fine to have kids at AFL and other senior matches exposed to and indoctrinated into this sort of behaviour by the example of their elders either practicing it or excusing it.

Does anyone else think this Eddie Maguire thing is like Basil Fawlty and the Germans.

Oh Poirot,

Why is Ape a derogatory comment? Why are Apes considered lesser?

Feminists have long bemoaned men saying to each other 'you throw like a girl' as terribly offensive to women.

It's the apes that really should be offended.

Similarly how many times have feminists referred to men as neanderthals. Say if Goodes said something sexist, would critiquing sexism in such racist terms be ok?

Oh why cant we all get along!

Oh sorry for that ...Houellie.

Amazingly, I've just seen the error of my ways.

Of course it's fair and correct to refer to individual indigenous sportsmen as "Apes".

Whaaaaaaaat must I have been thinking?

Let's hope the young indigenous tykes are up for a bit of "harmless" racial insult....we'd better teach em young that this is what they should expect - and if they do experience it, they should shut up and keep it to themselves.

I reckon you could easily make the case that people from certain races DO look a lot more like apes than others.

Those more hirsute with more solid builds and defined muscles do look more ape-like, and the darker skin-tones, larger lips and other facial features, man I think objectively it's undeniable.

Like Asian people looking more alike. Why is that racist? Anglos have much more variation in height, facial features, hair colour, eye colour, hairiness, hair texture. You just cant deny there is less variation in appearance in asian people.

Just because something was used in the past to opine a lesser intelligence or some such thing doesn't take away the objective reality.

I think it is indisputable that Goodes, with his hairy beard and stature does look a little bit monkey like.

Is it actually racist to make an objective, undeniable aesthetic comparison? It may be insensitive, or ignorant of history, but it's not racist per se.

I'm probably aboriginal enough to get some government benefits, but I actually have fair hair and green eyes. If I was called an ape, that would be something else. I suppose I am quite long and lanky.

My brother used to call me Benelong when we were kids, and I didn't really care. He had white skin and got sunburn.

Maybe I should have educated myself more about my ancestor's plight so I could be offended.

I've always been proud to tell anyone who will listen about my aboriginal ancestry, I reckon it's cool.

I don't know how you can even see an ape as lesser to a man anyway? Who knows how smart apes really are, and an ape could beat the crap out of you, and isn't physical strength, to an athlete no less, something to boast about?

Ape's are cool. They can be pretty sexist though, I think they need to be reconstructed. Very un-pc all this alpha male stuff they have going on. Still, it works pretty well for them, and being a cultural relativist I don't feel I should criticize.

Do times change all that much?

I remember Philip Adams telling people about
his childhood and the fact that his family
lived in, "the most remote, ethnocentric,
inward-looking and changeless society on Earth.
No, not Lhasa in Tibet, but East Kew in Victoria."

He said, "our family name was Smith, and my playmates
had names like John Peter and David. So when foreign
kids began appearing in the playground at East Kew
State, we stopped chanting, "Catholic dogs stink
like frogs," over the fence at the Micks next door and
turned on the enemies among us, yelling, "Go back
to your own country, you reffos'" in their frightened
faces."

Adams explained that, "At home, the atrocity stories
about the Japanese and Germans once again endorsed the
ideal of homogeneity... And somewhere in the back of
everybody's mind, symbolised by the lonely Chow,
was the threat of the Teeming Millions of Asia,
otherwise known as the Yellow Hordes, or the
Yellow Peril. Thank God our crenellated coastline was
surrounded by such a dirty, great moat."

As someone else remarked:

"One day our descendants will think it incredible that
we paid so much attention to things like the amount of
melanin in our skin and the shape of our eyes or our
gender or our beliefs instead of the unique identities
of each of us as complex human beings..."

Hmmm, Aboriginals in prisons. Why are they there? Did someone just say, "You'll do." & throw them in prison. I don't think so. If they are in prison, then they committed a crime.

If anyone commits a crime & they are caught they go to prison. Well nowadays. No. The good & fair Magistrate will say, "Tut, tut, you've been naughty. Now go away & don't be naughty again."

Now if you're Aboriginal that will happen about 10 or 20 times before the Magistrate will give a Custodial Sentence. Yet still the Aboriginal population in prison is a higher percentage. These Aboriginal don't come from the settlements like Kalumburu, Gove, Bamaga or Lockhart. They come from Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane & Sydney, etc. Townies. Aboriginals that wouldn't know what a kangaroo was in real life. Domesticated (for the want of a better word) for 100 years but still lay claim to all the benefits of Cultural Settlement Aboriginals. They are the ones in prison. They are the ones that are let off when they are caught by the police because it is Politically Incorrect to arrest too many of them. As told to me by a good policeman friend. (Orders from the Police Minister.)

I personally had my house robbed by 3 Townsville Aboriginal,2 girls & a boy. (twice, same bunch.) The police caught them. They were responsible for robberies going back for years. They were very well known to police but they were never ever charged. It was Politically Incorrect & one was an Aboriginal Councillors daughter. Did we get our stuff back? No! My advice from the police. "Just claim it on your insurance."

If the police charged every Aboriginal that committed a crime & got caught. Start building Prisons at a rapid rate. The percentage in prison would climb through the roof. Domesticated townies not bushies.

As for fraud. Send the school kids taxi to get the bread, paper & a carton of XXX. The Government pays for it.

I'm for bringing in Aboriginal Law. A good spearing never hurt anyone. Watch the crime rate drop.

Dear Jayb.,

I wonder why the percentage is so high of crimes
committed by our Indigenous people, (as you claim)?
Or is "crime" - a code word for anti - Aboriginal?

I'll have to
check into that and make sure that what you're
saying is correct. How do you know which areas they
come from?
Give us some evidence.

Look forward to your next post.

"Would it have been as offensive if she'd bought a white dog called it Jigga Boo?"

No... but it would have been a trifecta of racist, sexist and ageist offense if such a dog was called Honey Boo Boo.

Lexi: I wonder why the percentage is so high of crimes
committed by our Indigenous people, (as you claim)?

So do I, Lexi, So do I. Could it be that the Christian missionaries took away their self worth & stole their land by stealth. I believe so. The system of behaviour they had worked for them in their native state. Once that was removed they didn't know where to go. Moved into towns, away from their elders, having to live in a new Law system they didn't understand created a lot of trouble in the 70's.

I remember it in Ayr where they moved Aboriginal peoples from various Tribal groups in to town & gave them houses & free everything. The Islanders that lived in Ayr were upset because they had a very good reputation as hard workers, even owning Cane Farms. They got nothing. Night after night there were fights on every street corner between one Aboriginal Tribe & another & the Islanders. The Aboriginals had no concept of work ethics or even how to work. They would turn up for a couple of days then go work about for a week then come back like nothing had happened. They ended up being unemployable even by the Islanders. The Government stepped in & helped out with more free stuff.

Lexi: or is "crime" - a code word for anti - Aboriginal?

You should stop looking for, or seeing, the bad in everything. I am trying be neutral & rationalize the "Why" things happen, on both sides.

No, "Crime" is definitely not a code word for anti-Aboriginal. If you weren't there & closely , not involved, enveloped? in the situation you wouldn't know. That applies to mostly to white people in the Cities.

Dear Jayb.,

I think that I may have confused you with
"Jay of Melbourne", who uses "code words"
for anti-white. And I had assumed you were
he. Thus the reference to "code words" in
my previous post. I'm glad that you cleared
that up.

At least we now have something in common.
I try to see things not only from both sides
of the coin, but around the edges as well.

As the historian Henry Reynolds tells us,
"Many things have changed since the 1960s.
Much has been achieved. Tolerance and understanding
have broadened out... But the
racist past still weighs heavily on the present and
might yet destroy any hope of reconciliation in this
generation. Black armband history is often distressing,
but it does enable us to know and understand the
incubus which burden us all."

At least we now see young Indigenous people being far
less resigned and submissive than their parents'
generation. They know no deference. They are self-confident
assured and politically aware, and won't be pushed around or
patronised or insulted by anyone, even 13 year olds.

Surely that can't be a bad thing.

Lexi: They know no difference. They are self-confident assured and politically aware, and won't be pushed around or patronised or insulted by anyone, even 13 year olds.

And on the other side of the coin & around the edge, they know when to play the race card to maximum advantage for the slightest Freudian slip & for the maximum gain, egged on the Politically Correct Crowd, who only see the nastiness in everybody.

It’s part of the reason why the police won’t act on a lot of complaints. They are afraid of being seen as racist. From the Minister. The young people know that & as you say, “They are self-confident assured and politically aware, and won't be pushed around or patronised or insulted by anyone.” So they actually get away with a lot more than we’ll ever hear being acted on, because they’ll be racist if they do.

If you were white & got caught by the police doing the same thing. Straight to jail, do not pass Go. Is that racist or discriminatory?

This is all an extremely hard question made even more impossible by the Politically Correct crowd.

By the way, I hear somewhere that Edie Maguire has Aboriginal blood from way back. Correct me if I'm wrong. Was it "Who do you think you are." program or "This is your Life." dunno.

H yes to faulty towers.
Eddy however has a foot in his mouth 24/7, useful to fill the space his brain should be.
I by the way never heard Ape used to describe other than a few knuckle dragging bosses [white]
Show me, a dog lover, one single dog owner worth the air they breath.
Who would want to insult his/her best mate.
Who would tell me, if they intended being racist/disliked a group, would want that dog/name at their heels ready to show its loyalty 24/7.

Houellebecq & Belly,

Sadly I must inform you that the "Don't Mention the War" segment of Fawlty Towers first screened in 1975 and shown many times since has very recently suffered politically correct censorship by the BBC. Apparently the eternally very, very, easily upset were offended by a comment by Major Gowen (that had nothing to so with Germans).

There are those who want all shows, books and electronic sources of information culled and even destroyed to accord with their views. The concerning thing is that the censorship is always done in secret and unless someone who cares spots it quickly the records are soon lost. It isn't just censorship against alleged 'racist' material.

That is what political correctness is all about isn't it? Such censorship has been the rule not the exception in Australia's State schools where boys' adventure books and other material have been quietly removed and sent to the tip.

Fortunately I have an uncensored copy of the DVDs of the Fawlty Towers series. We also have in our little library books by some of the greatest writers of children's stories that are no longer available in State School libraries.

Dear Jayb.,

Eddie McGuire is not of Aboriginal ancestry.
Perhaps you're getting things confused with
McGuire's "King Kong" remarks, for which
he's apologised to Adam Goodes, claiming it
was just a "slip of the tongue."

Although Eddie has had "slips of the tongue"
in the past:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/43930.html

Dear onthebeach,

Librarians are not in the business of censoring books.
Their responsibility is not to deny, but to add, enrich,
stimulate and amplify the reading of the young.

Educators and librarians do have a responsibility to
select children's reading materials. When teachers and
librarians sift through all the potential books they
might order they do employ certain criteria, a certain
process of selection. Based on literary quality,
children's needs, and professional judgement, to obtain
the best, most appropriate books.

If you have a problem with their selection in your particular
area - you can always go and see the staff and express your
concerns. They will be glad to explain things to you.

Librarians know from experience that censorship doesn't work
as books and other material can be obtained from other
sources. Frequently, the controversy increases the interest,
with a wider audience for censored material.

Educators know from experience that children should have a whole
culture, not just the "plums" and they learn the art of comparison
and subconsciously acquire critical standards. Children will
not read - what doesn't appeal to them.

However, do ask for explanations to what you feel has been
wrongly censored. Because educators and librarians must be
prepared to respond to people's objections and be sensitive
to community complaints.

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written."
(Oscar Wilde. Picture of Dorian Grey. (1891), Preface).

Lexi: Eddie McGuire is not of Aboriginal ancestry.

Sorry you are right. I was just asking. I remember now it was another Game show host, Tony Barber. Well they do all look the same. ;-)

Perhaps you're getting things confused with McGuire's "King Kong" remarks, for which he's apologised to Adam Goodes, claiming it was just a "slip of the tongue."

You are looking for the bad in people all the time again.

I've been there & done that. Haven't we all at some time or other. You know what you were saying in your head but when it reached your mouth it was entirely different. My wife does it all the time & we all pay out on her. The stories I could tell you would make me the best comedian in Australia. Believe me. But then again I can't talk too loud either. There is not one of us can. Edie is just like my wife. She just can't help it, much to our family & neighbourhood delight. ;-)

Looks as though the guilt industry is running out of funding so the focus is gradually turning towards a victim industry. I wonder if there's now funding for feigning indignation acting lessons.
It'd be interesting to know at what stage of planning the successor of that is by now. Perhaps the white Aborigines will seek compensation for loss of complexion because if they're too light they can't bleat racism anymore.

Lexi,

You asked for an example and an easy one would be Gary Paulsen's Hatchet series, all copies of which were removed from a State primary school for 'violence', I found. Yet it been on recommended student reading lists elsewhere in the world. There are examples of classic adventure stories for boys that have been removed because they might be 'violent' or somehow offend someone sensitive.

The sinister, far reaching and intended effect of political correctness is to cause people to self censor, lest offence be taken. For State schools principals, many of whom were educated in the heyday of radical feminism in Australia, there needs to be little encouragement to censor and for obvious reasons.

One can only imagine what the flow-on PC effects of the recent 'ape' comment might be. Particularly considering that a head honcho of the Human Rights Commission while reflecting on the Eddie McGuire fluff has observed that racism can occur in a comedy context. Time was when comedy surfaced and defused social issues, an example being the bigoted Major in Fawlty Towers. Now comedy is the target of political correctness.

Does anyone herein think this particular topic has gone it's full course ? Call me insensitive, or whatever, I would have thought that Mr Goode's sensitivities have perhaps been sufficiently soothed and mollified !

o sung wu,

True. Maybe the footballer might like to play football too.

However there is a lot of sensitivity about these days. Problem is that the government might change and the many thousands who make their living out of the victim industry might have to go and get real jobs one day.

The gravy train has gathered a lot of passengers since the days of the Whitlam government and they are worried.

Hi there ONTHEBEACH...
You've never spoken a truer word ol' son. What gets me, our country has many large, critical issues that we must embrace. Our burgeoning debt; illegal boat people, the health system, the education system, our 'run down' Defence Resources ! I've no idea whether the coalition are up to the job, come September ? Notwithstanding all the muck Mr Abbott has thrown at him, I think he'll probably make a pretty good fist of it, nevertheless ? I guess we'll just have to wait and see ?

has anyone blamed Abbott for it yet?

>>Such censorship has been the rule not the exception in Australia's State schools where boys' adventure books and other material have been quietly removed and sent to the tip.<<

I doubt they went to the tip. Librarians always try to sell their books when they're done with them. I think they probably donate them op-shops if they can't sell them. This is because a librarian knows that a book is a terrible thing to waste.

But yes they have been removed: the kids that want to read - if they still exist - don't want to read about Biggles and his chums. That stuff was well out of date when I was a kid. Even The Famous Five and The Chronicles of Narnia were starting to show their age although I remain an avid fan of the Narnia books to this day. Enid Blyton books not so much. Daft old communist biddy.

Kids these days want to read Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. There's only so much room on a shelf so Boy's Own Adventure must make its way to the second-hand bookshop.

Cheers,

Tony

No, I wasn't referring to pap like Blyton, Biggles and Boys Own Adventure.

Fathers need to involve themselves in State schools and not just as the hands and feet for yard clean-ups.

However I will leave it at that and not divert the thread.

Dear o sung wu,

Been a hell of a couple of days, up before dawn and only just now getting the chance to throw some words together as promised.

I will let you know I am sickened, saddened and angry with many of those who have responded in the interim, but I'm too bloody knackered to get stuck in tonight.

Instead you get the pleasant version so I am going to put the effort in to try and explain where I am coming from and my take on the Adam Goodes incident. My hope is that it might add a different perspective for you.

I love my footy and have been a long time supporter of the Cats, As a youngster in my late teens and early twenties I had the pleasure of watching the great Gary Ablett cut up sides with aplomb. I suffered through the bitter disappointment of lost Grand Finals but have stuck with them.

As a shallow and callow youth in those days anti-aboriginal jokes were a matter of course for my mates and I. Themes included lack of hygiene, deaths in custody, alcoholism, promiscuity, lack of intelligence etc, all was fair game.

It was a match against North Melbourne that turned me around. Now I had been to many matches where the racial taunts were continuous from the crowd, leaving me at best a little discomforted, such was its proliferation. Why the discomfort? Well this was not a bunch of mates telling 'Abo' jokes between themselves, this was directed at a human being in front of me. Yet I could distance myself from it as it was others doing the sledging. But on this particular day against the Roos the wit among my friends was in fine form. He had the whole bay we were standing in roaring with laughter.

cont...

cont...

Then one of the two Krakour brothers came and stood directly in front of us on the boundary line and the friend let rip telling him among other things to not to forget collecting his flagon on his way back to the mission and getting the rest of the bay to look under the seats because we just had to find the poor blokes missing tail. To my eternal shame not only did I not tell him to can it but I joined in like all the rest. It got more and more vicious and the whole bay started chanting at the player when suddenly he looked up at us, only for a moment, but the look of utter anger, powerlessness, and hurt has never left me.

I knew what had happened was badly wrong yet I never expressed that feeling to my mates at the time. At that age we all tended to egg each other on to do and say more and more outrageous things. If I had challenged them on it the replies would have been along the lines it was just sledging, designed to put a player off his game, not real racism, just exploiting his weak spot. In my heart I knew it was much more than that. It took me a few seasons before I started going to live matches again but the abuse from the stands seemed even worse, perhaps because I wasn't tuning it out or accepting it like before. The better the indigenous player the more he copped it and Nicky Winmar was one of the best so the tirade from the stands was particularly vicious when we played the Saints. I just got jack of it in the end and though still a supporter gave up going to matches.

Cont...

cont...

Then came the famous day when Winmar was playing Collingwood, a team whose supporters were deemed to be the most abusive in the league by a long shot. After cleaning them up on the field Winmar turned to face the abuse, lifted his shirt and pointed to his skin in a gesture of defiance. The story caused questions to be asked about racism in football. The then Collingwood captain Shaw tried to claim on-field racism was just 'part of the game' and the club president stated that Aboriginals would be respected as “long as they conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field ... As long as they conduct themselves like human beings, they will be all right. That's the key”.

To their credit the AFL and clubs moved past those attitudes and reacted by bring in anti-racial vilification rules between players. The clubs also did a lot of work internally toward educating their players. Winmar spoke of a steep drop off in racial abuse after the incident.

Later the AFL also brought in an indigenous round designed to highlight the role aboriginal players had played in the league, often against odds and pressures not faced by the rest of the playing group. Last week was the 20 year anniversary of Winmar's actions.

“Raising his guernsey and standing strong in his culture, 20 years ago Nicky Winmar gave us an unforgettable symbol of determination and pride. Today the AFL Indigenous Round is a celebration of our country's Indigenous culture and players that have shaped Australia's Game. A game that unites us all, players and fans, standing strong and proud for the past, present and future generations.”
http://www.afl.com.au/indigenousround

For Adam Goodes captaining a side who was playing against Collingwood, in such a special anniversary round for indigenous players, would have had a deep significance for him. A significance we others who are not part of a that group probably can't appreciate. He had every right to feel gutted by what had happened.

Cont...

cont...

As for me that day when I was part of the racial vilification of an indigenous player really sat heavily on my shoulders. A number of years later my sister partnered with an aboriginal fellow and long conversations with him, his extended family and friends not only served to open my eyes to the racism these guys faced on an almost daily basis, some of it subtle but quite a bit of it overt and hostile, but also to increase me feelings of having participated in something disgusting and wrong.

When Kevin Rudd was elected and chose as the first order of business to apologise to the Stolen Generation people were saying they personally had nothing to apologise for as they were not part of the generation who removed so many children from their families. Yet I had a real sense of him speaking and apologising on my behalf and for all Australians who had told racist jokes in the past, for all the screamed abuse from the sidelines, for all the times we didn't stand up and say enough is enough and for all the thoughtless, ignorant, hurtful actions and words that we had directed at indigenous people for so many years all the while thinking this was such a fair nation.

His speech empowered other people to take action against this blight in our culture. I have been to the footy recently where people around racial abuser in the crowd have told him to can it and have seen he is ejected if he doesn't get the message. There are a lot more supporters who are prepared to speak out and let offenders know that form of abuse is no longer acceptable.

I wish there had been someone at the match that day who had nipped our racism in the bud. In fact I really wish it had been me but I know I was too much of a coward. I have never been directly involved in so deeply hurting someone with my actions and I hope I never will be again.

Cont...

cont...

In a state like Victoria which is the true home of Aussie Rules football the game runs as a deep tribal lifeblood through the community. Its influence is powerful and palpable. Its stories are epic and virtually religious. The response toward the events of the week are perhaps different here than they are in your part of the world because we have been walking a redemptive path since Nicky Winmar raised his guernsey, one where we better recognise and acknowledge the sins of the past and are striving for a better future for the game and ourselves.

Eddie McGuire is acutely aware of this, he hasn't strove to blame the victim like so many on this thread, he is trying to right what he wronged. He knows how pivotal and influential his position is as President of the Collingwood Football Club as it was he who brought in the zero tolerance for racism within the club. For him to have taken a belligerent stance like many here would have set the effort back many years. I have real respect for the way he is handling himself now. He was right when he wrote;

“But the way that the football community has reacted over the past 20 years has done more to set the tone in our community than any other campaign. Where once the treatment of our indigenous players was a stain on our game, now it is a badge of honour that some 12 per cent of the playing population is indigenous and, as a result, we are drawing more "minority" nationalities to our wonderful indigenous game. Nicky Winmar is a national hero for his act of defiance. Ironically, it helped save the Collingwood Football Club.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/act-of-defiance-kicks-off-a-new-era-for-the-game-of-football/story-fni0ffsx-1226648723588

Well mate that's my take. It is a Victorian perspective I know but I thought it need to be shared so you are welcome to make of it what you will. Big day tomorrow so I will have to wait till the weekend for the kid gloves to come off.

Jansey,
After all that has been said here I think you inadvertently asked the wrong question in the first place. Had you asked "was my friend insensitive" or "was my friend a moron" or "am I too sensitive" or "did I subconsciously detect another loophole to make a well-flogged point" you would have opened a more balanced debate & make yourself look more like a balanced human being. As it turned out (in hindsight of course) the debate started more problems than it solved & made you look like someone seeking any opportunity to bleat your cause. In my opinion you AND your friend need a dose of sense.

OTB my mind on hearing the old faulty towers thing went in another direction.
The wonderful Basil Faulty doing his very high stepping Goose walk, finger under his nose while trying to convince his guests he was not talking about the war, a wonderful and laughing memory.
Hey! not trying to defend Eddy, not possible, but the thread,airing important thoughts, was not about that.
While a long one its author has long gone, taken refugee under his/her bed?
In a country that insults , even considering telling a bloke his mum and dad never wed a complement!
How are we to wade in to feeble thoughts like the threads waste of indignation proposes?
Joe loudmouth you put true racism forward and I respect every post and thought, will stand by you always.
But lets not ever forget, maybe I am wrong!
*But in total truth I think claims like this thread made harm more than any thing else*
Well past time we, all of us, looked at the work ahead, for both sides, in lifting these folk up, not putting them down.
Any comments about the reports Northern Territory easing grog law has greatly harmed many?

csteee.

Thanks for your posts.

One thing for sure, is that your recollections of sitting in the stands mindlessly hurling racist abuse, has crystallized and clarified the issue for me.

A few here have labbelled Goodes a sook and a bully.

The reality is ,of course, that the sooks and the bullies are those who sit anonymously on the benches at the games launching their abuse.

Not only are they bullies, but they're also craven chicken-hearts who only find their obnoxious voice when they're heavily padded and protected by a coterie of like-minded abusive aggressors

Standing up to them is bravery.

Dear Jayb.,

Ah, if I'm "looking for the bad in people," as you state
in my reference to Eddie McGuire's "King Kong," comment.
Then you infer that it was "bad." I was actually
merely responding to your question about his ancestry -
and mentioned that perhaps you were confusing Mr McGuire's
comment, with his ancestry. I wasn't looking for anything
"bad." You're the one who seems rather taken with "bad"
things.

Dear onthebeach,

I'd be curious as to what reasons the librarian would give
you for having those particular series of books removed.
Perhaps it was something as simple as making shelf-space
for new books (if it's a small library) by getting rid of
books that don't circulate or haven't for years. That's only
one suggestion. You're making all sorts of PC assumptions.
The reasons may be quite understandable. All you have to do
is ask.

A good post CS.

Fortunately most of us in North Queensland never experience that sort of vilification. Our Aboriginal Rugby players were heroes. Even going as far as prison sentences being suspended for training & weekend games with the support of the northern communities.

The Lamptons were all great players. The old man was the fastest winger anywhere. The Lamptons lived in a Gunya on my Grandfathers property in Ayr in the 40's & 50's & were of mixed Aboriginal & Indian decent. A very large family.

The Tallises, I went to school Bernie, the father of Gordon, or maybe his or uncle or grandfather? (so long ago)They all played Football in Ayr before moving to Townsville.

Vern & Frank Daisy are still legends in North Queensland. And always in trouble with the Law. They went to the State School in Ayr & used to beat me up regularly when we were growing up. They moved on from playing in Ayr to Townsville, then back to Mt. Isa, where they came from Mt. Isa originally as children. Their Tribe staged the only successful armed revolt against Australian troops. It was negotiated to a successful conclusion. They were going to make a movie of the incident once. I don't know what ever happened to that idea.

The Sailors also originally came from Ayr, although I didn't have much to do with that family as I had left home before they played. But I do know of their unmatched reputation for playing Rugby League.

All these players were Heroes in North Queensland, & many more.

I remain convinced that Goodes overreacted to a mild offensive remark.

However the last couple of days has seen the media talk of nothing else but Maguire.

What about the treatment of the girl? it was well out of proportion and there should be some recognition that it was. The media and all concerned have convienently forgotten about her.

She made an unthinking remark, and for that she has been publicly humiliated and questioned by police. Quite unreasonable when a repremand and request for an apology would have been sufficient.

Maguire on the other hand is a seasoned radio performer and presumably an adult. His words made a farce of the whole episode and, in my opinion, there should be public recognition that the girl was treated badly.

But those involved will not have the guts to admitt that, they just forget about her.

Dear Poirot,

I've just received an article by Zoe Krupka.
I'll cut and paste a bit from it because I
think she raises some interesting points.

Adapting just a little...

"Eddie McGuire's apology is not an apology or a
defense - but a plea that he didn't mean to offend,
"I don't want to be rude, and hurt people that's
not what nice people do. So I'm apologising for
my rudeness. Sorry if I offended you."

The way Zoe interprets it - McGuire wants to skip
the shame involved in facing his own racism and
instead retreat to the safer territory of "good
intentions." But his reference to "King Kong,"
(the same as the 13 year old's "ape" reference)
isn't "impolite." It's plain and simple racist.

As Krupka states, "it calls up a whole history of
exploitation, stereotyping, and marginalisation of
black people.

We can find a running theme on this discussion here,
of the burden of s0-called "political correctness."
Most of the negative comments can be as Krupka
sums up distilled into one line, "You're maing me
feel bad and I don't want to so shut up with your rules
already."

Krupka tells us that:

"It is the ultimate crazy-making reversal many of us feel
tempted to perform when we're asked to feel some healthy
shame. We send the blame back to the person who pointed out
our bad behaviour and tell them they are being cruel and
unusual."

"We focus on the idea that there are rules that they're
unfair to us - and we skirt around the issue that what we've
done has caused harm. "It's not a big deal man. I didn't
mean it."

It's mistaking racism for larrikinism or a simple lack of
courtesy. And this is hurting the cause of any real change.

Goodes didn't "overreact" to anthing.

It was "not" a "mildly" offensive remark.

It was grossly offensive vilification.

Do you suggest that Goodes should have trotted along the fence until he homed in on someone a little more appropriate to be held up as a prime example of that which takes place on a weekly basis in our fair and egalitarian society?

I state again that Goodes, and others before him, are exceptionally brave to call out "Australians" on this utter garbage.

Judging from most of the comments here, the "cowardly custard" practice of hiding amongst "yer own" while delivering abuse to minorities is alive and well and thriving in modern Australia.

Poirot, "Standing up to them is bravery"

So now it is the Cross of Valour for pointing the finger at a 13 yr old girl, a minor at the footy with her nan?

Now Eddie McGuire is 'gutted' as well, tears welling up in his eyes, all choked up.

A small country girl, clueless and probably has never read a newspaper in her life, much less consulted the ABC's Drum daily for her political opinions like some here, chose the wrong round of footy to call a footballer an ape. But women and especially feminists have labelled footballers apes for years and girls follow their lead. But this time a trip wire was sprung and a wisp of a girl has lost her childhood innocence and rights as the blood sacrifice in a much larger political game that she could not possibly comprehend at her tender age.

Another word that has become loaded with political significance it never possessed before and a giant leap made towards more PC self-censorship of the media. Even comedy has been threatened.

A footballer saw hurt in a word and most would sympathise. But that doesn't justify an over-reaction by making a monster of a child as the media has obligingly done. "Racism had a face - and it was a 13 year old girl"! Say what?!

Now Eddie is a victim as well. It is all HER fault, you know. (sic)

Another thing, Banjo.

Read Goodes' words here.....

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-25/goodes-gutted-but-places-no-blame/4712772

"I don't put any blame on her."

He didn't vilify the girl. He tried to understand that she did not understand the implications of what she was saying or the pain that such abuse inflicted.

His point was that she was the product of a society that indulges in this crap and passes the mindset onto following generations.

She was the personification of an attitude that pervades Australian popular culture - the lowest common denominator - the basest of human characteristics - the fear and vilification of "the other".

And we strut around pretending we're the products of an advanced society.....

Poirot,

OK, so whose finger thrust accusingly at the minor to single her out from the crowd for public censure?

Who declared, "Racism had a face - and it was a 13 year old girl"?

onthebeach,

You still don't get it, do you

The "monster" isn't the child.

It's the mindset of a huge number of Australians.

And don't hold up the picture of the "uneducated" girl who didn't know any better.

She knew better. Five year-olds know that if they are called names it hurts - and if they call people names, it is to psychologically hurt them.

A thirteen year-old knows that only too well. A thirteen year-old knows that it is unacceptable to single a person out and abuse them because of their race or colour.

The issue here was that this girl and all her vilifying cohorts at the game, assumed that it was perfectly okay to hurl racial abuse because they were at the game - all together - anonymous in their belligerence and abuse.

The sky is the limit under those circumstances.

I'm thinking this young girl was delivered a favour - a road block on the downward track of mindlessly racially abusing someone because "you can".

McGuire, I'm afraid didn't have his mind in gear. It wasn't a "slip of the tongue" as it went on for quite while and included repartee. Slips of the tongue are usually confined to one or two words.

.............

Thanks Lexi....

Poirot,

No, you don't get it.

A minor is a minor, regardless of what you believe and say.

Minors have protection in Australia. But not this one apparently. Least ways not this one as long as she can serve as the blood sacrifice for a political purpose.

You make it very obvious that you believe that the end justifies the means. Your misconstrued priorities, upside down ethics and endless rationalisation are no different from the stereotypical Catholic bishop who balances the 'greater good' of the church against the rights of a child. There is no balancing. There is no bargaining children's rights and childhoods away. No deal can be struck. There is no excuse whatsoever for trampling over the rights of a child

This child has rights and those rights must come first every time, period. There is no excuse for what took place that day and yes, emphatically, I do regard the warping of the rights of that child as a far greater wrong than the silly word that was used. There is no comparison between an adult's perceived emotional hurt and trading off a child's inalienable legal right to protection as a child. That is non-negotiable and the Australian population has already expressed that view on previous occasions.

It was a shameful day for Australians that any child could be treated that way and in front of a crowd and the media.

Similarly, as I have argued many times before in other threads, the rights of indigenous children must come first, not the cultural imperatives of multicultural political correctness and indigenous power politics. All children without exception must have similar expectations of equal rights and equal access to the full protection of Australian law.

ontheeach,

What a load of absolute codswallop!

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

I agree with Goodes to the extent that because of the example of the people around her, this girl assumed it was all right to toss away any reticence about singling out another human being for abuse - unrelated to his prowess on the field. She assumed that because everyone else did it, that she should do it too.

The monster is not the girl - Goodes recognised that. It's the pervasive attitude of a craven and vacuous mindset, who apparently think it's just dandy to call a footballer an "ape"...and that any targeted sportsman should have the decency to know his place and not bring attention to the practice through highlighting a perpetrator.

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

I mean really....

Do you think the teachers would stand by and say to themselves "Oh well obviously, we have to take into account that they are 'children". We must not hurt their delicate sensibilities - and if they wish to hurl racial abuse at those performing for them, then because they are children we'll just let them fire away."

Of course not. If that behaviour was demonstrated at a school sports day then the perpetrators would be single out and disciplined.

But it's not likely to happen at a school sports day, is it?

I wonder why?

"As Krupka states, "it calls up a whole history of
exploitation, stereotyping, and marginalisation of
black people."

For some. It calls that up for black people, possibly only older ones, but it's not ipso facto the intent of the person making the reference.

How are we to ever move on from anything in this world, when every reference to Jews, Hitler, Black people, Women doing tasks aligned with traditional gender roles (ie Abbot and the Ironing), any of these sore points about past mistakes if we keep alive with such strong indignation symbols and themes of injustices that are outdated and irrelevant to people born well after the fact?

How far do we have to go back? Will the Jew Card ever expire for a start?

"We can find a running theme on this discussion here,
of the burden of s0-called "political correctness."
Most of the negative comments can be as Krupka
sums up distilled into one line, "You're [sic]maing me
feel bad and I don't want to so shut up with your rules
already.""

Quite the contrary. It's the offended, that has projected their own grudges onto the simple aesthetic comparison with apes, and internally loaded it with "whole history of exploitation, stereotyping, and marginalisation of
black people.", without any regard at all whether that was the intention. I feel this, so you must not use such a comparison.

That's why I maintain, the issue is about manners and sensitivity, sure, but not about racism necessarily. Goodes has basically made the call of "You're making me feel bad and I don't want to so shut up", due to internalizing a rigid position as a victim, with no concession to anyone who would DARE be flippant and ignorant of history, even at 13, and labeled them a racist. I don't believe he has rights to assign motive like that.

Here we go again ...

As Zoe Krupka points out so beautifully:

"The objectives of so called political correctness have
been hijacked in the last 15 years by the minstrels of
"politeness." Somehow racism has been turned to an
"Accident" that we apologise for rather than an issue
of power and privilege that requires righting and
restitution."

"That is part of how we routinely avoid shame. We substitute
acting right for living well. We try to bypass the hard bits
of the learning and we go for a "veneer" of understanding."

"This is because real learning is hard. It hurts.
If you've ever learned anything of value then you've felt
some shame along the way. You've probably hit stuff learning
to drive or fallen over skateboarding or embarrassed
yourself learning to have sex."

And if you're white, you've benefited from racism. If you've
had your consciousness raised in any way, you'll know that
shame is not an optional ingredient in the process.

As Zoe tells us, "We may know we're not supposed to say,
boong, dago, wog, nigga, bitch,
faggot, but we've forgotten why. This leaves us free to apologise
for "accidentally" offending someone rather than for being
racist, sexist, homophobic or discriminatory."

"We can just say "sorry" if we hurt anyone's feelings, really,
sincerely we are, we had no intention and then change
absolutely nothing in our lives or in our understanding
of other people."

It seems that "politeness" is the last refuge for those of
us too scared to be asked the hard questions.

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.

Houellie,

"...she may have been attempting to defend him as an oafish man."

Yes, I'm sure that was it.

I'm must say that it's been an education reading the myriad excuses for this particular example of racist abuse.

I think I'd have to award best prize for the most contorted rhetoric as that which bestows the onus on Goodes as the aggressor because he stood up for himself amidst the racist chants from the anonymous cowards.

Good afternoon to you CSTEELE...

Thank you for your most comprehensive explanation as to your personal position on this question of '...Is it raciest...'? Firstly, you mentioned rising very early each morning ? I hope it's only work related, and NOT that you're unwell ?

Admissions of your earlier participation in verbal racism, and thereafter, you painful moral dilemma occasioned by those iniquitous activities, I can both acknowledge, and understand.

Furthermore, I can also understand that you'd suffered greatly, of a guilt you felt, because of your unreasonable behaviour in the company of others. To such a point there was a righteous, even an ethical awakening, and as a consequence you experienced a complete moral transformation, a total reversal, against all forms of racist thinking and behaviour.

CSTEELE - old man, that particular statement, took some considerable mettle even personal fortitude, for you to make here, on this a public forum.

Do I agree with the thrust of your argument, or position as you've carefully enunciated herein ? In principle, yes I do, in fact I can't see for the life of me how such a position could be criticised.

However, you know as well as I, there are many within that particular community that bring much of the criticism levelled against them upon themselves. By their public behaviour, and many other forms of 'behaviours' that are far too numerous to enumerate herein. Still back to the topic.

I do appreciate what you've said, absolutely. Do I still maintain that Mr Goode 'should have' ignored the taunt from the girl, yes I do, but I do also appreciate that he may well have suffered a distinct 'hurt', and for that, I'm very very sorry.

Look mate you're right, no argument ! Maybe it's a case of, '...sticks n' stones may break my bones...' ? There again CSTEELE, I'm NOT in the boots of Mr Adam GOODE, am I ? Perhaps it really was the straw that broke the Camel's back eh ?

While the thread is about quite a different thing, we are getting, in my view close to the needless inference the thread was about.
Yes the girl never should have said it.
Goode how ever would have been better telling her publicly so, and left it there, she is a child.
That day, that game, same one, an adult used far more offensive words, why not climb over the benches and confront him?
Thugby league as the aerial ping pong followers call the worlds best football, as is the case for EVERY GAME, brings out the worst in many.
Ape would be flattery in relation to things I was called in 14 years of playing the game.
Cool calm collected face to face worked then it will now.
But do not put this bloke or the girl down, far worse takes place in any drinking place in the world.
Eddy? the bloke is a fool.

"I'm must say that it's been an education reading the myriad excuses for this particular example of racist abuse."

Well there need be no excuse for the behavior, that's irrelevant to me, I've said at the least it's ignorant, insensitive, whatever, it's the assigning of motive that I have an issue with. Nobody really knows that girls feelings about black people. She probably doesn't have different feelings to black people than white people. How really do you think you're in a position to make such a personal analysis on someone you don't know because she used 1 word?

I'm sick of this theme of people blindly assigning motive based on their own sensitivities or political ideology.

To some Jews, any criticism of Israel is antisemitic.
To most feminists, any individual act of violence, sexism, watching any porn, whatever is misogyny.
To a hammer everything is a nail.

Maybe so in this case, my argument is not NECESSARILY so.

People can say things against Israels right to exist and not actually hate Jews.

People can do umpteen things to a particular woman, and make sexist stereotypes without actually hating all women.

People can depict a West Indian cricketer enjoying some fried chicken without being racist.

People can call someone a monkey without actually being racist.

It's all just lazy labeling 100% in line with the calling someone an ape.

Why is it worse to call a black man a monkey than a white one? Tell me Poirot. Prove to me that a black man is by definition different to me, and needs to continue to be defined as different in how the world addresses him. What ends does this serve?

Is every black man born, every Jew, every woman, every viking descendant in the next 500 years to be tip-toed around based on something that happened 100 years ago?

Where does it end? Why isn't Witch as offensive? Why isn't Bastard?

poirot: grooming his fellow players for parasites.

Aah, City folk. You've never had lunch with a lot of snotty, runny nosed Aboriginal kids grooming each other for nits, have you? :-)

Houellebeq: calling a man an ape is not necessarily racist.

Would it be sexist then? No? No, men have power so what ever they say & do is "ist" something. Well according to feminists anyway.

The strangest things with Feminists. They hate men so much they do their best to look & dress like men. Boiler suits & hairy legs & armpits, etc. Why is that?

I have just realized that most of this racist stuff comes from the so called "Civilized" South East of Australia. Victoria & Sydney mostly & people that play AFL a lot. Why is that?

Oh Goody, an academic has decided to be the Judge on what is racist.

8. Is it racist to talk about skin colour but not in a way that's necessarily derogatory, for example, 'His skin is so black you can barely see him in the dark'.
Statements like this may not be racist, if you were making a statement that you knew to be true. Skin colour is a hot area thought. Again, context from the perspective of the person about whom you are speaking is important. Something to consider, for example, is that skin colour has been used in Australia to try and make out that lighter skinned Aboriginal people are somehow less Aboriginal than those with darker colour.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/is-it-racist-to--your-racism-questions-answered-20130531-2ngcy.html#ixzz2UqhXO5wx

So, he agrees with me on the monkey thing. I think Goodes looks a bit like a monkey, certainly more like a monkey than Kevin Hardwick who used to play for Balmain, who looked more like a Viking. So if you genuinely believe Goodes looks a bit like a monkey, it's not racist.

But he does contradict himself, basically the whole article he says anyone who is offended gets to decide. I can choose identify with my aboriginal background, and decide anyone who comments that I have such a dark tan is racist. He says if Eddie feels he identifies with any black heritage, Goodes calling Him and ape would also be racist. he doesn't mention sexist anywhere, so all feminists are off the hook. Though, indirectly, they are really a bunch of hateful racists, because there are many black athletes.

racist: a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others.

On the basis of any joke, or off hand remark about my tan, I can legitimately label that person as someone who believes that one race is superior to others.

Amazing that I get to make such a call with so little evidence, and label someone like that. Cool!

Csteele>> To my eternal shame not only did I not tell him to can it but I joined in like all the rest. It got more and more vicious and the whole bay started chanting at the player when suddenly he looked up at us, only for a moment, but the look of utter anger, powerlessness, and hurt has never left me.

I knew what had happened was badly wrong yet I never expressed that feeling to my mates at the time. At that age we all tended to egg each other on to do and say more and more outrageous things.<<

Not all of us Cs, we were not all followers.

OH! You big ape! As a white person it is certainly not the first time I have heard that comment. It usually means some big oaf of a man who may or may not be acting stupidly or using brawn instead of brains.

Big black whiskers on a man, black or white, could certainly result in a bloke being called a big ape or a gorilla. I think the term is more sexist if anything, than racist. It also means a man is acting like a bully or being overbearing which is
probably what the girl meant in this case in defending her team.

The brainless reaction to a harmless comment is the shocking element in this big to-do over nothing.

Perhaps the following two links will give a better
perspective of the issue:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/adam-goodes-sets-an-example-for-all-20130530-2nehc.html

And: -

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/zero-tolerance-means-you-too-mr-mcguire-20130530-2nf47.html

One of the rugby players in Queensland was called Wendell,
and one of the fans I was sitting next to at a game
sang out, "Wendell's a girls name!" when Wendell was standing
down our end waiting for a goal to be kicked.

Wendell, looked nothing like a girl being a very solidly built
bloke.
He could have reacted as though they were calling him gay but he
understood that they were just heckling him.

It is just the fans way of letting off steam at the opposing team
and trying to rattle them out of playing their best.

Their is no case to be made for ape being a racist remark, when it is a term used quite widely in white society and has been for at least
50years in my memory and it is used towards all men not just Aboriginals.

CHERFUL is right.

Wanda: "..I've worn dresses with higher IQs. I've known sheep that could outwit you, but you think you're an intellectual don't you, ape?

Otto: "Apes don't read philosophy"

Wanda: "Yes, they do, Otto, they just don't understand it .."

From A Fish Called Wanda (@ 4:00, but why miss the rest? LOL )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YKbYLb5GVc

Then what about all those Silverbacks posing as security guards & bouncers & yes, footballers in particular.
With the mentality that makes people watch football they're no better than the apes playing.

My sentiments Indy. Football was created so intelligent, nice people could get out on the streets at least one day a week without being assaulted & offended by some drunk, drugged up, boof headed, knuckle dragging football thug. ;-) That's why I don't watch football at all anymore.

Are The Simpsons racist?

http://bartsblackboard.com/files/2010/01/the_simpsons.10x19.mom_and_pop_art.jpg

Cheers,

Tony

H! very well said, cut a great hole in the curtain of bitterness and Bile.
This country, like every one, has true racism.
All true racism is evil.
But this nit picking thread is not targeting that.
And damaging those who are victims of racism.
I truly believe in naming things as racist, that clearly are not, we continue to let true racism live.
Think with me, this thread, at first about a stupid thing, is so very weak on substance.
It lets people say, and they do, strike me! any thing we say is called racist why bother to change?

I truly believe in naming things as racist, that clearly are not, we continue to let true racism live.
Belly,
As you well know I have stated many times that the real racists are the ones who incessantly bleat victim. Just imagine if every whitey started complaining every time we hear one of those racist rants on radio & Tv. we'd have no time to do anything else.
In my opinion those who so selfishly & constantly search for loopholes to play victim are causing many innocent & decent real indigenous who are in fact the majority, a lot of pain.

Oh yeah, individual.

If I had the time this morning (which I don't) it would be fascinating to list all the excuses on this thread for the fact that there's an endemic mentality at places like "the footy" to racially abuse players on the field...undertaken from cowardly bravado amidst the relative anonymity of the crowd.

Here's what happened in the wake of Winmar taking a similar stand.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/gallery-e6frea6u-1111119566987?page=9

Good old Sam Newman decided that it was appropriate to wear blackface because Winmar chose not to appear on McGuire's "Footy Show".

Just imagine what he would have dressed up as if Nicky Winmar had worn a beard......

Are we racist?

John Oliver says Australians are the most "comfortably
racist" people he's ever met. But of course he's wrong.

Eddie Mcguire has admitted his remark was racist.
But of course, he's wrong as well.

And look at our country's history...
Hordes of the "Yellow Peril," gave way to the
"White Australia Policy." But that was then,
this is now and why would anyone want to bring it up -
right?

The Cronulla Riots - the Lebs were to blame for that
in Sydney, of course. After all we grew here, they flew
here... And talking of Lebs - they're to blame for all
of Sydney's problems - of course.

Nah, we're not racists at all - no way!

Lets all link hands and keep offering each other
a partisan belligerence and continue being conceptually
and ethically impaired. After all why should we change
anything in our lives or even try to understand other
people. We want everyone to be exactly the same as us.
I can call anyone I want any name I want - I've been
doing it for years, as have my parents - nothing wrong
with that. And anyone who objects to it or calls me
a racist is un-Australian. So there.

It looks like that little girl may have been right after all.

Ape-like feet 'found in study of museum visitors'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22728014#

Indy: In my opinion those who so selfishly & constantly search for loopholes to play victim are causing many innocent & decent real indigenous who are in fact the majority, a lot of pain.

I agree.

Now, Say I have terrible neighbours. They play head banging music loud all day, don't work, a dozen unruly kids that are never supervised. The guys got a rats tail & beard & wears black filthy clothes & is either drunk or on something. The woman is always in trakie dakies that have long seen better days, is a fat sloppy pig with a loud foul mouth & screams at the kids all day. The yard & house is full of crap & unkempt, broken panels & windows. Police are around every second day.

You know the type I'm talking about; in fact YOU may be the type I'm talking about (Alice’s Restaurant.) The Wal-Mart type, as seen on uTube.

Now if I say they're apes, am I racist? Oh, Sorry, did I forget to mention, they're white. Or, would I only be racist if they were Aboriginal? It's a dilemma, eh.

Lexi: The Cronulla Riots - the Lebs were to blame for that
in Sydney, of course.

Eh, they were.

If you were the girls that were accosted, sworn at, pushed & poked, called sluts, just for being at the beach in a bikini & no one came to help you. What would you say? It's OK because they're Lebs (Muslims.) Of course, you would be a racist if you complained, eh. After all, they're are, a minority.

Or, would I only be racist if they were Aboriginal?
Jayb,
Yes, in the eyes of Lexi, Poirot, Paul 1405 et al. In peoples' views unimpeded by rose or pink tinted glasses you wouldn't be.
I fully accept that there are pretty bad racists among the non-indigenous however, a little looking into will show you that per capita they have the edge on us. It may not be comfortable to hear for some but hey, those sort of people would deny that water is wet if it could linked to racism.

White people of middle class backgrounds are privileged in our society. We have not experienced racism in our country or have had to live through a history of prejudice. Indigenous people were not allowed to vote until the 1960s and are still not recongnised in the Constitution.

When a white middle class person commits a crime it is never considered a crime of their class/colour/ethnicity but a crime of the invididual. When an Indigenous person, a black person or a Muslim (input minority group) commits a crime it is often treated as a collective trait of all those in the group.

I am not saying all Australians are racist but I think Australians are more racist than they think they are, but not as racist as some. However it is not a competition and I think we tend to think of racism in this context, including myself. It is not about being less racist than another country or group but about doing better. There may be on occasion some oversensitivity over racism but when there is no longer any racism that will no doubt cease. All things take time and on a positive note things have improved on 30 or 50 years ago and no doubt will continue to improve.

When you call a white person an ape it is not the same as calling a black person an ape, where there is a history of prejudice, slavery, genocide, stolen generations. And where the experiences of Indigenous Australians or African Americans (such as in the USA) is one of being treated as less than human and akin to an animal. That is why 'ape' is not appropriate. There is a difference.

The poster is well within his rights to take offence at the naming of the dog in this context.

pelican: When you call a white person an ape it is not the same as calling a black person an ape,

BullS#!t. That's discrimination.

And where the experiences of Indigenous Australians or African Americans (such as in the USA) is one of being treated as less than human and akin to an animal.

That's America & the Churches view. It doesn't apply to everybody in Australia. Mostly just to white folk in the South Eastern Corner of our Country.

That is why 'ape' is not appropriate. There is a difference.

You're saying that if someone calls me an Ape, Migaloo, Gubba or anything else, because I'm Middle Class white, it's not offensive.

BullS#!t! That's discrimination & I'm offended. Oh, I can't be, can I? That's right. I'm white.

There is a lot of two faced, whited scepulchre & picking & choosing going on with this post.

Hi Pelican,

I didn't realise that white people are explicitly recognised in our Constitution :)

Yes, you're right, and given that the 1967 Referendum occurred 46 years ago, when one had to be 21 to vote, a person has to be 67 now to have participated in that limited form of 'recognition'. And around that age to remember how life was back in the bad days.

Since then, the land rights movement, the Mabo decision, the Native Title Act and various well-publicised cases have gone some way to bring about recognition.

The Aboriginal Flag is officially recognised, I believe, in the Commonwealth Flags Act, as is the Torres Strait islanders' Flag.

Aboriginal art is prominently displayed in government buildings, and on some Qantas planes. It is immediately recognisable to overseas visitors as a gesture of recognition of the Aboriginal foundations of Australia.

The various enactments of Reconciliation, from Hands, to walks across bridges, to the compulsory teaching of Indigenous studies, by whatever name, in many educational institutions, may be seen as forms of recognition.

Mr Keating's Redfern Speech and Mr Rudd's 'Sorry' speech could perhaps be seen as other forms of recognition.

The uncritical acceptance of the notion of a stolen generation, without evidence, could also be seen as some form of - perhaps warped - recognition of a garbled perception of history.

But if all of that is not enough, then let's have yet more symbolic acts of recognition.

And move on to a world in which all people are free to act, and interact, as fellow humans, to actualise their many potentials, free of the burdens of history.

Joe

Lexi, "I can call anyone I want any name I want - I've been
doing it for years"

Well yes you do and earlier in this thread after worrying about the colour of the dog in the long-lost Jansey's creative storytelling and upon being satictied that it was black, you recommended naming a white pig after a white girl to insult her.

Lexi, "..buy a white pig and name it after her."

Some might deduce that you regard whites as pigs, but you have a right to offend. Or used to have that right anyway.

Ahh, yes, the right to offend.

Lots of "rights" available to us.

Like the right to be a craven lemming sitting anonymously in a crowd demonstrating to the next generation the art of becoming a racist, potty-mouthed poltroon.

Not much to be proud of.....

Dear onthebeach,

Being white myself how could I possibly
think that whites are pigs (although ...
some possibly can be regarded as such -
even you have to agree - oink, oink).

Seriously though, I apologise for that remark,
if I've hurt anyone's feeling, really, sincerely,
I had no intention to offend. Just like the thirteen
year old or Mr Mcguire - I was merely being funny.
You know - making a joke of it. A "slip of the tongue."
I'm sure you understand. It was all done in fun.

pelican, "White people of middle class backgrounds are privileged in our society"

The narrative that white middle class are the whipping boys -truly wicked and at fault for all that is wrong- comes through in other posts in this thread. So it is indeed Marxism that feminism is rooted in, or at least the Chardonnay Marxism of the comfortably well off political 'Progressives'? I guess the feminism comes in when the 'men' is added. LOL

I suggest that it is because of your Marxism that you couldn't care a hoot about using a child minor as the blood sacrifice for the Kangaroo Court of political correctness to get a narrative of racism into the headlines.

All of your mealy mouthed talk of protecting 'rights' is unmasked as a cover for your Chardonnay Marxist ideology and idealism in reengineering society to suit your image of what it should be.

You care naught that a child minor is grist for your mill. In fact you grab her as a victim with glee. That betrays the lack of principle and unaccountability of the 'Progressives'. Shameful. What if you were that child?

Lexi, "even you have to agree - oink, oink"

Your words in reply betray your underlying prejudice.

That is why I believe that freedom of speech must always be protected. Otherwise opinions such as yours are never surfaced and never get to be questionned and rebutted.

Dear onthebeach,

I know. I know. Yours is the only opinion
that matters. After all you are the arbiter
of "truth." The rest of us don't count.
You're the one who can make all sorts of
references and label people - as you see fit
and you do it
with such style and present a complete
package. Most impressive.
Actually - gobsmacking, would be more appropriate.
Send the blame back to the person who dares to
point out unacceptable behaviour and tell them they are
being unfair, et cetera. We get it. After all
playing the victim is allowed. For you.

cont'd ...

BTW: Can you still be a Marxist if you drive a
ferrari?

And actually Chardonnay is not as popular as
you think. But there you go. It's your
fantasy after all,
I'll leave you to it.

onthebeach,

I put it to you that you couldn't give a toss about the "poor girl" involved.

That your concern for her welfare (which will be much better served for having been made aware of her folly) is merely a convenient diversion so that you can excuse, or even champion, the base and cowardly behaviour of a certain cohort of "Australians".

Poirot, "(which will be much better served for having been made aware of her folly)"

Again the sting in the tail to further victimise the girl, a child minor.

You just cannot resist can you? Haughty contempt for the legal rights and protection of children. Disgusting.

Hi Jayb and Loudmouth

I don't think anyone should be called an ape, white or black, but we are talking in terms of a racist context. In fact wouldn't we all like to love and live with one another as respectful neighbours side by side.

White people have not lived with the stimga of being percieved as on the same level as animals ie not human like white folk. In 100 years time hopefully we won't need to have conversations like this.

onthebeach
I am not a Marxist and I see you are still using any post to bring out your anti-feminist dogma. What the two have to do with racism I am not sure.

You seem to imply that one cannot argue against racist language while simultaneously caring for our youth. How do you come to that conclusion? I care very much about the 13 year old girl and I was really impressed with Goodes' dignified handling of the matter being careful to note her youth and lack of knowledge. I hold no ill will towards this child at all and do not blame her for her comments. I have read that the girl did not know the term was racist (for the reasons given above).

This post is about terminology and what it means to be racist. I think there can be over-reaction to racism at times just as there can be about womens' issues but I am speaking in context of the post about why language is important.

I am not trying to be a do-gooder, chardonnay drinker, Marxist or any other term you may choose to throw. If you don't have a cogent argument and prefer to reduce yourself to stereotypical labels by all means do, but if you have a cogent argument please I would prefer to deal with those than distracting personal attacks.

It really gets lame after a while and only diminishes any good arguments you may have to offer.

If only some of you do-gooders could understand what you're defending.

individual
Please define do-gooder and explain what is being defended.

I should add that I don't believe in restrictions in freedom of speech. It is not that I believe racists should be given open slather only that it is the lesser of two evils where governments dictate language or dress code or anything else that is in the 'personal' domain.

The best approach is education and in discussions like this forum. Freedom of speech is great, it allows us to see people for who they really are and we can make our own judgements from there.

There are some instances where I do feel the discrimination banner comes out too quickly without regard to intent or rational thought about what actually happened. But in the context of naming the dog, if Jigga Boo has the same meaning as the 'n' word then I fully understand why it might be offensive. Why cause offence to someone, isn't it just to change the dog's name.

Pelican.

I am not interested in your rationalisations and back-pedalling. What about the care and protection of child minors? Disgraceful!

onthebeach

Your words betray you as nothing more than a troll and I am not taking your bait. No coherent argument just ad hominem attacks. Nothing to see here.

Pelican,

So now I am a 'troll' for having the temerity to disagree with you?

For standing apart from the baying, bullying, PC mob amd insisting that a child minor should have been accorded the usual legal rights, consideration and care that is the birthright of every Australian child?

The treatment of that girl, a child minor, was wrong and nothing makes it right. She has been deliberately, coldly and ruthlessly used and abused. Shame.

onthebeach,

What a load of bunkum.

If she'd been yelling the same abuse at a school sports event, should she have been accorded leeway because of her age?

Would she instead have been made an example of, and removed from the venue - and probably disciplined by school authorities?

If yelling racial abuse by minors is not acceptable at a school event, why should it be acceptable at a general sporting event?

pelican: In fact wouldn't we all like to love and live with one another as respectful neighbours side by side.

Funny you should say that. I've got Aboriginals down the road a little & we always pick him up when he's walking into or out of town. He's very old. Indians a few houses down, Catholic. Some Bogans a little way off, don't have much to do with them. Some very, very rich people over the road. A 7day Adv lady visits all the time, Plays cards with the missus. A Zimbabwean & a Kiwi 3 houses up. An Environmental Scientist. (He dislikes Greenies) We all get along great. It's a great neighbourhood. We have a street Xmas party every year & take turns hosting. The general rule in our neighbourhood is, "tu casa, mia casa." Don't be surprised if you come home & the washing been taken of the line & folded if it rains. Anybody wants a hand it's given no matter what. It's a continual pay it forward of which none of us will ever catch up on.

pelican: There are some instances where I do feel the discrimination banner comes out too quickly without regard to intent or rational thought about what actually happened.

Agreed.

Dear Pelly and Poirot,

Some posters are essentially entertainers.
They're in it not for any kind of a discussion
because they don't even read what's actually being
posted by those they disagree with. They're in it for
their own entertainment. Troll is an apt description.

They are posters who stimulate prejudice,
selfishness, and meanness, the way a comedian works for
laughs or a tragedian plays for tears. Theirs is a
certain style form and in their mind - successful.
They offer their audience partisan belligerence.

Best on the whole to ignore and not engage.

Please define do-gooder and explain what is being defended.
pelican,
If you don't know what a do-gooder is then you are one, hence your inability to figure out what is being defended. Good people who help others & care for the future of this nation have no trouble understanding.

Dear individual,

"Good people who help others and care for the future
of this nation."

Wow. Who'd have guessed you're an ALP supporter.

Congrats!

Pelican,

.....hence your inability to work out individual's "do-gooder" gobbledygook.

(Which is a good thing:)

"Good people who help others & care for the future of this nation have no trouble understanding."

So in other words do-gooders. Glad to hear you are one of those.

Lexi
Yes I suspect some people are hear just to bait. They certainly don't actually read what is on the screen which is evidence in some of the responses.

Poirot
Haven't been on OLO for a while but I am trying to remember the unspoken rules. Correct me if I am wrong.

If you disagree with the ultra-right wingers you are Marxist, feminist who doesn't care about children and who drinks chardonnay (or is it lattes). Or something like that. It gets a bit confusing.

I think I've sussed out the newer trolls on the block. That is the beauty of free speech you can choose to speak and discuss but you can also choose to disengage with the radicals. Free speech also includes the right to silence.

Poirot,

You remain unrepentant, trying to brazen it out.

I dealt with your irrelevant school example pages back as well you know, see here,
Friday, 31 May 2013 2:09:33 PM
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5804&page=29

Myself and others have dealt with the use of the word 'ape'. However that is only relevant to the present discussion of the rights and treatment of the child minor insofar as it underlines deliberate misinterpretation of the child's use of the word to set up her victimisation and the use of the child as a patsy for politics.

No way that I will ever be party to warping the rights of a child and stand by without comment where there is such shabby treatment of a child and abuse of her rights, AND those of her nan and her parents.

Dear Pelly,

Not so sure about the "silence" right.
More often than not - you then get accused
of turning tail and running, of having
"unfounded facts," no legitimate arguments,
et cetera. Then there's
also the old chestnut of being a "feminazi"
belonging to the "sisterhood," a "socialist leftie."
Neo-Marxist is the latest label, and so on.
How can one be a feminazi and a neo-Marxist?
Or a socialist, fascist?

The mind boggles. But, as someone said,
It's cool!

C. Steele, Lexi, Pelican, Poirot,

I have to admit the case of this girl is right on the edge for me - if an adult had said what she said, then I think, yes, he should be charged with vilification or breaching some human rights act. If the act had been done in private, with few witnesses, even by an adult, then maybe it just slips into legality. But he should still get taken outside for a 'talking to'.

Just by the way, if you shaved a gorilla or a chimp, they would come out white, so I've been told. Orang utans are, as we know, red-haired. I think I read somewhere that anatomically, Africans are less ape-like than Europeans, less Neanderthal I suppose. And Africans did not develop their dark pigmentation, sufficient melanin or whatever, until only a few thousand years ago. We are all far more closely related than we may look.

Not that closeness has been much of a deterrent to hostility; observe the Serbian-Bosnian-Croatian conflicts, or, of course the Sunni-Shi'a fratricide in Syria, where at one time, inter-marriage was very common. Well, like it was in Bosnia. People can be stupid b@stards.

Cheers,

Joe :)

The particularly sad thing about your attitude, onthebeach, is that your effort to invalidate the actual offence, and instead pass blame over to the targeted person, you fail to address even in the slightest, the people and the mindsets responsible for this type of behaviour.

The fact that this is common behaviour at sports events obviously means nothing to you.

If anyone owes this girl an apology, it's those who have groomed and encouraged her to behave like this...and it's people who bend over backwards to contort the issue and pass blame from the person going out of their way to inflict pain and to offend, to the person offended, who should be apologising to this girl.

What was Goodes supposed to do (apart from shut his mouth and accept that racial abuse is his deserved lot)? Was he supposed to run up to the girl and ascertain her age before pointing out her degrading abuse?

Goodes merely pointed out the problem - he didn't cause it.

That responsibility rests with the general public and it's rank standards.

Dear o sung wu,

Thank you for your considered reply. The early starts are work related. I am back indoors next week so out of the worst of it.

I think as far as Adam Goodes is concerned I feel he acted in keeping with the legacy of Nicky Winmar's action 20 years ago. That action was to say 'I'm not going to cop this any more without responding and challenging what is being directed at me'.

If we take the argument that some of the less empathetic are peddling here then Winmar also should have copped it sweet and got on with it 20 years ago. He didn't and strong changes were made as a result.

I certainly don't know what was going on in Adam Goodes' mind on that day but you can see from the video footage the “Ape!” word was screamed directly at him from around two meters away as he passed near the fence. He was already pointing for the steward before he had a good look at the person who had abused him. You can also see from the footage the Collingwood supporter leaning forward to deliver the slur. I think he felt something so obvious and upfront just had to have a response, especially given the occasion, and that ignoring it was just not an option. If he had known it was a 13 year old girl and also knowing what the media was going to subject her to, might he have acted differently if given time to think about it? Quite probably. From all accounts he is one of the gentlemen playing the game. People to be slamming him for what he did is an out and out case of blaming the victim.

The question I have often asked myself is where would I be if the player myself and the section of the crowd I was in were abusing had not looked up the way he did on that day all those years ago.

Cont..

Cont..

Perhaps the very firm belief in the Australian notion of a 'Fair go' would have seen me arrive at the same position against racism as I hold now. In fact I think anyone who truly understands and respects what that notion means must ultimately reject racism in all its forms. It is just some of us are further along that road than others. I was given a crash course which prompted me to work harder at addressing attitudes of ignorance, indifference and racism within myself.

Chip Le Grand writing in the Australian spoke of similar setting at an MCG cricket match he was watching as a 15 year old;

“That day at the MCG, Australia's batsmen didn't know what to do with Small, other than providing catching practice off his out-swingers. Yet between overs, when he returned to the fine-leg fence, the mob had no doubt. First someone threw a banana. Then other fruit was hurled. As the insults and baboon noises continued, Small remained stoic. It was 1986 and I was 15. I've never forgotten the way he stood there, eyes fixed on the pitch, ears no doubt burning, refusing to acknowledge the racist taunts at this back.”

This is a particularly powerful experience when one is in their formative years as we both were. My challenge nowadays is to recognise that the majority of people have not had that type of visceral exposure to racism thus expecting all to be as sensitive to it as I would hope is often unrealistic. That was the prime reason for my multi post response to you. I wanted to make it clear I'm certainly not holier-than-anyone but I know racism when I see it and like Goodes think it should be called out when it happens. The ability to recognise racism and the harm it brings is an essential part of combating it, and any Australian who believes we should continually strive to be a fair nation would want to see the back of it.

Wow. Who'd have guessed you're an ALP supporter.

Lexi,
Labor saying they intend to do good things in three years time is being incompetent do-gooders. To actually achieve some good outcomes is not a Labor thing, on the contrary.

If only I could charge a Dollar each time I & others are trying in vain to un-indoctrinate Lexi, Poirot & pelican.
Just imagine if those three girls were to be asked to accept responsibility, they'd probably scream for counselling in two minutes flat. It escapes me that some people are so devoid of imagination that they require every gist explained in full.

There's a new series starting on Nat Geo on Foxtel Or Austar called...

Wait for it.

Ape Man. Da Dar!

Mostly I've been avoiding the racism threads. Not an issue I've been close enough too to feel like I understand the issues well.

As for kids being a protected species when they act abusively, that I've seen enough of to be a little more certain of and I really think they are better served by being pulled up on behaviour young than having it left until they are adult and face adult consequences.

I've also been around enough kids to put paid to any belief in childhood innocence. They may not always understand the harm they do but many kids are willing to be very brutal in inflicting harm on others. Have a read up on bullying and kids that have been driven to suicide by bullies. That can all start a lot earlier than 13.

On the broader topic, there is a boundary between some friendly stirring between friends and intent to hurt. Not sure where using a name for a dog fit's and I wasn't there for the discussion between the dog owner and Jansey to know how that played out.

Not a name I'd have chosen but I have named some chooks after prominent federal politicians. Bit hard on the two of the chooks who are actually quite lovely (although utterly unproductive) and about right for the other (brutal thing it is). There is a story to the names.

R0bert

to Lexi
I'd be willing to bet that in the history of the AFL there have been
men called gorillas or apes before, from the screaming crowd and they wouldn't have been Aboriginal, only white.

The only difference being that the hairy, white, male would
understand that it was directed at the fact that he looked
like a gorilla,(as a lot of hairy, brawny, men tend to do)and not
carry on the way this fellow did as though it was a racial
taunt. This bloke's black beard, does make him look like an ape
as it would do most males that have a big black beard. You can't
deny that it does.

I wouldn't hesitate to say, "stop acting like a big Gorilla" to any white man that I thought was using all brawn and no brain" it is a common English colloquialism.

At the football, where I have heard the crowd call players all sorts
of things and sing out things in a sing-song voice the whole game
about some players looks or unfortunate mistakes,it is par for the
course.

It's obvious that this girl meant "stop acting like an ape" in
the sense that she resented his winning style of aggression towards her team.

She would have used the same attack on a white or Greek or
whatever race who had a big black beard and dark hair that
made him look more like a gorilla. because that's what she saw in her
vision, a hairy man looking like a gorilla attacking her team I
doubt she rationalized it in her head, oh I am going to call him
a Gorilla and insult him because he is an Aboriginal.

Poirot, "..your effort to invalidate the actual offence"

You sidestep once again. I am criticisng you for your dimissiveness of the child's rights and callous unconcern about her treatment; the MCG administration for its lack of training and policies for children and hamfisted management; and those who have made a meal out of the child and sensationalised it. You know those are the targets of my criticism and not Adam Goodes. But you duck by trying to make Goodes responsible for what you and others do to make your own mileage out of it.

Players on the field are hyped up. As Goode demonstrated, likely to interpret incidents and react according to their own perception and their own life experience. He took offence to what he heard and interpreted through his own mental filters and pointed. Others say he was close enough to the girl to notice her age and maybe he should have done differently. But he is a professional footballer and his prowess is in ball skills, not personal interaction and diplomacy.

On the other hand, one should be able to expect that others who are responsible for managing the ground and reporting on it or even commenting on it later in forums, such as you do Poirot, should have cooler heads and act reasonably, taking into account the very obvious considerations, the most evident being the age of the alleged offender.

OTB: [poirot] You sidestep once again.

You get used to that from poirot. He's been taking lessons from his Middle Eastern mates, you know.

OTB: As Goode demonstrated, likely to interpret incidents and react according to their own perception and their own life experience. He took offence to what he heard and interpreted through his own mental filters and pointed.

He does have a point. & A man without a point, has no point at all. "He has a point there." "The Point."

I agree with CHEARFULL. She also, has a good point there.

Okay, onthebeach,

Let's exercise cool headedness.

Let's go even a step further, rewind the whole sorry episode, and for a moment pretend that it hasn't happened - yet.

Here's the revised scenario.

Goodes notices that someone is belligerently calling him an "ape' from the stalls. He decides, against his better judgement, to pocket the insult, and accept that it's just one more challenge for an indigenous player, tough luck and all that. The young girl isn't pulled up, she isn't reprimanded by the footballer or the people in her vicinity...she goes on yelling her racist abuse...

She yells it for many years more, and eventually takes her own kids to the footy. Those kids decide to emulate their mum and her cohorts, as years later do their kids.....etc, etc, etc

So all's well that ends well, eh, onthebeach?

Is that a cool enough head for you?

The intensity and longevity of this topic illustrates to us all, the question of Racism in this country is still alive and flourishing, with neither side prepared to concede an inch.

In fact, if this small, insignificant nation of ours prevails for another couple of century's or so, entrenched Racism will still reign supreme, despite much of the optimism as espoused by Leibniz's doctrine ?

However, for this tired, muddle headed old man, as the yanks say 'I'm done', my thoughts and opinions are now totally spent. So I'll bid you all, a good night, both literally and figuratively.

Pelican,

Sorry I missed your earlier post to me (amidst the blizzard on offer from our friends)

It's good to see you back here.

Re: your point:

"If you disagree with the ultra-right wingers you are Marxist, feminist who doesn't care about children and who drinks chardonnay(or is it lattes). Or something like that. It gets a bit confusing."

Yes....how perceptive of you - and an excellent summing up, I might add.

The only thing you left out is that you might also be friends with Muslims (which of course might cramp your style with the chardonnay - but what the hell:)

Dear individual,

Do you really expect anyone of us to take your
comments seriously about your trying to
have an influence on Poirot, myself, and anyone else
who happens to have a different opinion to yourself?

You, who can merely come up with one-liners and
who seems to have an obsessive fear of academics
or anyone else with any kind of tertiary qualification.
In order to be taken seriously or to be able to
influence anybody - you'd have to say something
intelligent.

And that hasn't happened thus far.

However do keep trying.

To the thread's original point... "A very close non-Aboriginal friend recently bought a black dog and called it Jigga Boo."

The naming of the dog may not have been racist. The refusal to rename the dog was arguably so.

Without question though, she did not act as a close-friend would.

merely come up with one-liners
Lexi,
for normal people with some sense one liners are usually sufficient to get it. You lot require explanations which would exceed the 350 word OLO limit.

Lexi: [Indy] who seems to have an obsessive fear of academics or anyone else with any kind of tertiary qualification.

I guess I qualify for that team too, Lexi & gladly so. I really don't know any Sociologist who has demonstrated an ounce of brain in 50 odd years. They get all their learning from a book written buy some academic who, read a book, & so on & so on down through the ages.

The only experience they have had is in dealing only with the type of problem they deal with & usually had that type of problem themselves to start with. The only people they socialize with are people who have that same problem. Therefore the entire world revolves around "their" particular social problem. They never look outside their small, small world & see that the rest of the world just isn't like that at all.

I have had some experience in observing this type of behaviour by Sociologists, most of whom have exhibited some form of mental disorder. Primarily women for some reason.

I see the same type of behaviour occurring in this thread.

I met a charismatic preacher once. One of the Wave your arms shouting “Jesus” type. He told me that anyone that didn’t belong to his brand of Baptist Ministry & continually shout Jesus name was a; Thief, Alcoholic, Wife bashers, Druggie, fornicator, murderer & sinner of the very worst order, & that was everybody. I found out later that he had been the NSW Police Pastor for 40 years & recently retired. His beat (parish) for 40 years, Kings Cross. Go figure. I have seen a similar story from all the Academic Sociologists I have ever met & I’ve known a few.

Academic Sociologists are mostly full of S#!t. Strangely they seem to be mostly Greenies & advocates of Political Correctness. Therefore, definitely full of S#!t.

an obsessive fear of academics
or anyone else with any kind of tertiary qualification.
Lexi,
Sorry to make you run out of intelligent replies. You have obviously never had to prove your competence and/or worth in a practical essential service industry. I have & let me tell you that 95% percent of our difficulties at work stem from incompetent academic degree flashing engineers who can't figure out how mechanics & hydraulics work in reality. Then we have our degree flashing top bureaucrats who have the audacity to call themselves managers or CEO's.
That my dear girl is not a fear of anyone educated, it is a pain that is getting worse as the degrees these people accumulate. Their Uni indoctrinated ego will not let them concede that ordinary trades people happen to know how things work. It literally is a combination of education beyond comprehension & unwavering ego, just like those ex Lawyers in the Labor Party. That my girl is my gripes not a fear of educated people who happen to be vastly outnumbered since the big Goaf put the incompetent on the pedestal.

Dear Jayb and individual,

A higher credential
means higher earnings, simply because of the
value the job markets place on it.

If you look up the prestige rankings of various
occupations you'll notice that the most prestigious
jobs tend to be those that are known not only to
yield the highest incomes but also require the
longest education.

Studies have found that the most important factor
affecting whether a child achieved a higher status
than their parents was the amount of education that the
child attained. A high level of education is considered
a scarce and valued resource, for which people compete
vigorously. The remarkable expansion of
education in recent decades has less to do with the
demands of the economy than with competition for power,
wealth, and prestige. In their view, the pressure for ever
increasing credentials comes from two main sources: the
professions, which insist on high membership qualifications
as a means of protecting their own interests, and the
consumers of education, who want credentials to enhance their
career opportunities.

Of course there will be people who do not perform well in
their professions. We all know that the skills required to
get an A grade in a college or university course on
anatomy or education philosophy are not the same as the skills
needed to deal with a medical emergency or an unruly junior high
school class.

Most people pick up the necessary skills on the job, not in the
classroom, and the characteristics that make for a successful
career (such as initiative, leadership, drive, negotiating ability,
willingness to take risks, and persuasiveness) are not even
taught in the schools.

Our education system is regularly criticised for various failings;
currently they are being charged with allowing academic
standards to decline. There are several reasons for this
decline, and reform efforts are now focused on curricula
and teachers.

A high level of education is considered
a scarce and valued resource, for which people compete
vigorously.
Lexi,
That is something I'd support fully if it were ever implemented with the view of educating in order to exploit & build upon natural intelligence but it isn't so. It has become a case of who's parents can afford to buy more cartons of Cornflakes in order to get more degrees.
The daily encountered incompetence of the bearers of such degrees is nothing short of scary.
The handful of deserving bearers of Uni degrees must be just so disheartened at that.

Lexi: higher credential means higher earnings, simply because of the
value the job markets place on it.

Doesn't equate to having brains.

Credentials are just a scrap of paper. 90% of what they learnt at Uni. is useless in the real Workplace. They are getting paid under false pretences. Just look at the number of big Business's that go broke, run by these High earners. & that's considered to be successful. Have a look at the top tier of the Public Service.

Indy: The daily encountered incompetence of the bearers of such degrees is nothing short of scary. The handful of deserving bearers of Uni degrees must be just so disheartened at that.

You are not wrong. Just look at the boat ramp they put in at Buderim. $4.7 million?

RObert, "As for kids being a protected species when they act abusively"

No-one is suggesting that there shouldn't be reasonable boundaries and guidance.

However there is a chasm of difference between that and the shabby official and media treatment of this child minor.

She was subjected to the glare of TV cameras, even though media comemtators and producers must have realised her age, immediately detached from her carer, her nan, and forcibly marched off by accompanying male security staff for two hours interrogation (by police as well it seems) -all of whom would have realised her age- without representation or being given any rights that could be expected by a common criminal. Whereupon an admission of guilt by virtue of an apology was extracted from her and enthusiastically publicised, despite her statement that she tendered first off and couldn't be shaken on later by her interrogators, that she did not understand or mean the grievous insult she was accused of - she simply did not comprehend the alternative hidden racial meaning that the 34 yr old indigenous professional footballer read into the word 'ape'.

Maybe she should have aped the AFL crowd around her, yelling the officially sanctioned blue language, such as the "C" word, instead.

At minimum it should be accepted that:

- MCG and AFL administrators apparently do not have proper policy, procedures and training in place to manage the safety and behaviour of child and youth minors at their sporting venue/s; and

- self-regulation by the media is fine as long as leaders are prepared to step up and criticise unfair and slanted reporting, despite the big money in footy and advertising.

For volunteer work I held a 'blue card' for years.
http://www.ccypcg.qld.gov.au/bluecard/index.html

I couldn't even do garden maintenance under supervision where there are children without that blue card. Somehow I doubt that the security staff engaged by the MCG and AFL are required to have the same and training to handle children and youth. That is just one example of deficient policy and practices that should be critically examined following the sorry handling of this 'incident'.

Here's a link that may be of interest:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/adam-goodes-sets-an-example-for-all-20130530-2nehc.html

She telephoned the Swans star and apologised for her actions.
Lexi,
Yeah right as she would have had his phone number. She would have been so intimidated by those who were by that time crapping themselves that she had no choice but take the phone handed to her & say what she was pressured to say.

Here's another link that informs:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4715404.html

Dear Jayb,

Most students today choose major subjects that
they think will best serve them in the job
market.

Ideally, a college education should offer not only
the prospects of a pleasant and rewarding career,
but also the opportunity to grow and be challenged in
ways that cannot be measured in dollars and cents.

That Age editor's opinion rings your chimes, eh Lexi?

The Kangaroo Court and the shark feeding frenzy continue unabated for the child minor. She is definitely at fault regardless. She was due for 'outing', the rough justice of her treatment and then some. (sic)

But Eddie is part of the circus. One of their own. He is a good bloke. Blameless, and 'gutted' as well.

The media whipped it up into a mythical Greek tragedy: a hero and his little mate are mortally wounded and 'gutted' (much worse than very upset). A small girl did it. The classical tragedy, down to the underage girl.

The girl is reponsible, no doubt.

A pile of sticks for the ritual burning. So cleansing to burn a girl. Although re-education has been suggested too.

The cameras should have moved instantly once it was realised a child was involved. A female security officer with a blue card and training in handling children should have been despatched to have a wee chat with the child's nan, who was her carer, and the girl. No fuss, no media sensationalism and no shark-like feeding frenzy. But alas for the media, no story to beat for days. A bigger audience than AFL football would go begging. Think of the advertisers.

That would never have suited the authoritarian Left either, who demand blood sacrifices on the altar of political correctness. But but it would have complied with the intent of the laws affecting minors and government's and the community's expectations for the handling of child minors.

It is apparent that the administrations of the MCG and AFL are simply not up to the mark in their policy and training and cannot ensure the safety and behaviour management of children, youth and young people at their sporting venues. There is a story in that too, but it might take a bit of investigation. Oh, and it might just upset some advertisers who have a stake in footy and gambling too.

Dear individual,

True character is revealed in the choice a human
being makes under pressure - the greater the
pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer
the choice to the person's essential nature.

The fact remains the young girl did apologise.
Don't demean her for it. She did the right thing.

Dear onthebeach,

Actually I'll have to think about what and who
"rings my chimes." A month in Italy. Season
tickets to the Opera. Fresh flowers delivered
at work. Fine white bed linen. A book I've been
dying to read and, perhaps the greatest luxury
of all, the time to read it. Or a morning in the
Louis Feraud Boutique in Toorak, with someone
else's credit card.

But, I do appreciate that's not what you really
want to talk about. I fully understand your point
of view regarding the young girl. You've expressed
your opinion on this thread quite clearly.
I simply don't happen to agree with your point of view.
If that angers some people, well that is, as we used
to say, stiff cheddar.
All should be heard.
Reasonably.

Cheers.

"stop acting like an ape"
"or he was a huge man who looked like a bloody gorilla"

These terms are English colloquialisms used in
English literature Books, plays etc. to describe
any kind of brawny or bearded man or a man acting aggressively
or in an overbearing way.

Why should we change our English language just because
some one chooses to think it's offensive.

I thought you academics were right up there in understanding
literature and literary colloquialisms.

"Any silly fool can learn anything, but wisdom comes from
observation."

onthebeach,

If the MCG and the AFL neglect to implement proper protocol regarding minors, then it's something they should fix. After all, they are hosting children weekly at fixtures and should be clear in their directives.

I've said it before, that the people who let this girl down are the one's who taught her to hurl abuse at players. If that was compounded by the actions of officials, she's been doubly wronged.

It doesn't negate the odious proposition that seems to be emanating from you and individual that standing up to racial abuse (or abuse of any kind) is somehow wrong if it dents the sensibilities of those called out on their actions.

Why are you blabbing on about McGuire crying. This guy is an experienced media personality. He should have known better than to run off at the mouth on such a sensitive subject. His brain was apparently tip-toeing through the tulips or on some such lark when he made these comments. And with the history of Sam Newman's blackface episode on McGuire's show after Winmar's similar stand, what can we judge about the "real" attitudes in football regarding indigenous players?

Nary a word on the base morality of those regularly firing abuse at indigenous players - and yet you stage your own classical tragedy on the questionable antics of MCG and AFL official procedure.

It's attitudes like some of those seen on this thread, that have encouraged that girl to behave as she did. She's the one who paid for it, but the responsibility should rest with an abusive public and its inherent complacency on such issues.

Don't demean her for it.
Lexi,
Seeing that you missed it, I didn't demean her. I'm demeaning the cowardly crawlers bowing to the guilt industry & not helping bettering the sad situation we've gotten into because of idiotic PC & cowardly do-gooders.
As I said so many times, leave people to themselves & all will sort itself out. Stopping people from defending themselves is what brought all this on since Goaf.
I understand some indigenous language & I hear what they call others, it makes calling a footballer an ape sound like a compliment.

individual,

Are you saying that because you hear some indigenous people being abusive that we should allow racial abuse to run rife at sporting events?

Okay...but we're going to teach our son to respect every one as much as possible, regardless of race...if that's all right with you.

Poirot

why are you trying to change the culture of Australian
football, the crowd has always taken sides and
heckled opposition players. For as many decades as
I can remember.

Nobody was terribly offended by it before.
Obviously you don't have much grasp of
English culture. Are you even English or
have you come here from somewhere else and are trying
to change something if it doesn't suit you.

Or are you one of these academics that thinks they are so
much more educated and less "bigoted" than everybody else
and yet seem to have a limited knowledge of English and the
way it has been used for centuries. If you did you might
know that the girl's comment had nothing to do with racism
and everything to do with black beards and men acting aggressively.

So sorry...Cherrul.

Who am I to question indigenous players being targeted with demeaning racial abuse?

After all, it's good old Aussie culture at stake here.

How do you know that "Nobody was terribly offended before"?

Perhaps they were terribly offended - but it takes a lot of guts to stand up to instituionalised racism, especially when you're liable to be labelled a sook and a bully - and have every one saying "Nobody was terribly offended before....this is the way English has been used for centuries." (as if that's a good indication that it wasn't racist)

"Black beards and men behaving aggressively" - pull the other one.

Take home message for Mr Goodes:

"This is Aussie culture mate, you're indigenous and that's your lot."

The mind boggles.

Poirot,
11 out of 10 for twisting an argument around simply so as to not having to concede being a do-gooder.

Well obviously as a result of the last few posts I can see an AFL Football game is going to be a quite affair from now on.

No Cheering allowed, especially aloud, someone may be offended. Oh well maybe, a tut, tut, or an, I say, chip , chip, golly good show, eh what ol' chap. PC enough for you do gooder crowd, or is that too outrageous for you all.

individual and Jayb,

Just so you know. I tend to switch off the minute someone uses the terms "do-gooder" or "un-Australian".

That sort of vacuous bilge is usually employed by people who have no ethical argument and are only relying on hackneyed slogans.

Well done, boys - it's nice to see you conforming to standard.

So what you are saying is that you are a Politically Correct, do-gooder, Muslim Terrorist loving, un Australian, Greenie. Well that's fair enough. But we already knew. That's why you are so much fun. Aah, we luv ya. You're always good for a laugh. Thank you.

Most amusing.

"..you are a Politically Correct, do-gooder, Muslim Terrorist loving, un-Australian, Greenie..."

And your only claim to fame, Jayb, is being an unremarkable garden variety bigot.

Not even an interesting one.

Oh well......

And here I was thinking the religious morons are going to be the sanes' challenge of this millennium. I concede publicly, I was wrong it's the Poirots, the Lexis & the Paul 1405's who are.

piorot: That sort of vacuous bilge is usually employed by people who have no ethical argument and are only relying on hackneyed slogans.

poirot: And your only claim to fame, Jayb, is being an unremarkable garden variety bigot. Not even an interesting one. Oh well......

Touche.

Dear Poirot,

Don't you get it - we went on the assumption that
we're dealing with intelligent humsn beings here.
We were wrong. I now realise that the reason they
don't find the term "ape" offensive is actually
quite simple. They're probably the first in their
families born without a tail. That explains a great deal.
;-)

poirot & Lexi. Am I correct in assuming that, what you are asserting to is that if a person is not, "a Politically Correct, do-gooder, Muslim Terrorist loving, un Australian, Greenie," then they are "Apes." Is that true?

Talking of "tails." I've still got mine. ;-0

I have the feeling that you pair want to outlaw the time honoured art of sledging from any sporting event in the future in the spirit of a; Politically Correct, do-gooder, Muslim Terrorist loving, un Australian, Greenie, World.

As I said before, I can see all sport is going to be a quite affair from now on. No Cheering allowed, especially talking aloud, someone may be offended.

Everybody attending a sporting event from now on will be required to sit quietly, lest we offend the Political Correct, do-gooder, Muslim Terrorist loving, un Australian, Greenie and that may cause them to cry. Having a good time in now outlawed.

What bl00dy Planet do you people live on?

Dear jayb.,

If sitting quietly is going to bother you all that
much, well you can always return true to
form:

"Aba daba daba daba daba daba dab,"
- in your usual fashion.

Or -

"Baba daba daba daba daba daba dab."
;-)

"What bl00dy Planet do you people live on?"

The one apparently, Jayb, where you still have a tail... I bet it is a small one.

But haven't you solved the potential problems without realising it, if we amend your comment slightly?

"As I said before, I can see all sport is going to be a quite affair from now on. No Cheering allowed, especially talking aloud, someone may be offended."

They don't have to be quiet. Only allow cheering (as loud as you want). In fact make it compulsory. No-one can be offended.

Then only jeering need be disallowed and no-one can be offended.

Well done, Jayb. What a clever little monkey.

How many footballers and how many typewriters do you think it would take to reproduce a script of Hamlet?

Cheers,

Tony

On ya Lexi.

I swing through the trees, hang by my knee's, in my BVD's. Singin', "Aba daba daba daba daba daba dab," on a Monkey Honey Moon."
- in my usual fashion.

Apologies to Ray Price & Debbie Reynolds.

Tony Lavis, "How many footballers and how many typewriters do you think it would take to reproduce a script of Hamlet?"

That is very funny and so true.

I played all football codes except AFL and two for a university and
one for a club, reserve grade. The difference between playing for a club as opposed to schools and university was profound. Along with a few friends who were also scouted for clubs, we were astonished to find that in the adult club competition the players are into pain, inflicting it themselves and enjoying it when hurt themselves.

So there is no quibbling from me about the oft-heard 'ape' and 'knuckles dragging on the ground' comments from women.

Besides, professional footballers the world over take pride in the animal names they give themselves along with their clubs. The three times Premiers, Brisban Lions and some supporters have a sense of history and pride in the Gorilla tag from Fitzroy. It is surely not intended, or is it?, but the modern 'paddle pop' lion that graces the Lion's guernsey is very ape-like.

Anyway, there are dogs, cats, sharks and a whole menangerie of animals take to the field every weekend.

Women jocks do like gem stones, and more insects than animals when they get to snorting their testosterone, with Walleroos, Stingers (insects?) and Redbacks (black widows? maybe not!). There is a Cockatoo football and netball club, the barrackers on both sides have some leeway there (and Lexi could get herself into a tizz again about the colour).

It is impossible to imagine that any girl child minor would be doing anything but aping thousands of women -especially feminists- and getting into the spirit of things when she uses 'ape' at a football game. Send the feminists off to re-education camps for sensitivity raising on the racist terms such as ape and pig that they cast like confetti to marginalise men and now it appears, indigenous men.

Poirot: <How do you know that "Nobody was terribly offended before"?
perhaps they were terribly offended - but it takes a lot of guts to stand up to institutionalized racism,>

What I said was that the AfL Players had copped heaps of heckling
by the crowds over the years, the white Players just as much
if not more than any other players have had taunts and all sorts
of teasing about their hair or looks or embarrassing mistakes.

So this Aboriginal Player is teased about his looks and he can't
take it. Says more about his sensitivity than it does about
the girl intending any racist slur.