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.