I just struck me. What if the little girl had called out, "Ya big Woffter" or "Go away, Ya gay."

Would there have been the same Hoo Haa?, Probably not, after all it is AFL. ;-)

pelican, " Goodes had no idea that the comment came from a little girl until he called them out on it"

Here is the photo and he appears to be practically on top of her. He ran past, then returned to point.

http://tinyurl.com/pointing-finger-at-girl

Didn't he say he thought she was 14 years old?
<I turned around and when I saw it was a young girl and I thought she was 14, that was my initial thought, I was just like “really?”>

http://theconversation.com/the-afls-indigenous-round-and-the-innocent-face-of-racism-14659

pelican, "Goodes has behaved in a very dignified way and has sought to protect the girl from any negative attention"

You say that this 34 year old elite professional footballer with 300 games for the Swans did not know what would happen when he pointed the adolescent minor out to security?

BTW, who was responsible for the newsworthy 'face of racism' comment?

The 'Conversation' article I posted above is an example of the sort unfair trashing of this adolescent minor, while all of the time pretending that is not what they are about. A "racist taunt", say again, how?!

The letter under The Conversation article say it all,

<A 13-year-old-yelled something stupid at a football match.

She was then detained and questioned by police for two hours, without her parents present (http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/afl/teenage-girl-apologises-for-racist-insult-in-letter-to-adam-goodes/story-e6frepfx-1226650580225).

Collingwood's decided to arrange 'racism counselling services' for her, her friends, and family.

Now articles like this accuse her of 'marring' the 'chance for contribution of Indigenous footballers to the game to be recognised and celebrated'. She serves as a 'reminder that there is still a long way to go to remove racism from Australian society'.

Is this treatment of the teenager appropriate? Is this an effective way to fight racism?>

Dear onthebeach,

You are perfectly entitled to make your point about how the girl was treated after the event. People can differ on that and so be it.

However your persistant and denigrating targeting of Adam Goodes I think does you little credit and ultimately reveals your true focus thus giving real weight to Poirot's point that “Apparently, if there's one thing they like less than a jumped-up feminist, it's a jumped-up indigenous sportsman”.

Here is what the video clip that you provided a link to shows.

The slur was uttered just after Goodes had passed the girl.

He turned away from her and directly eyeballed the ground security staff member while pointing out the direction from which the remark was made. It was only after a few seconds did he look directly at her.

But that is not the point I am wanting to explore.

What I have been curious about is the language you have used through out this thread. It had irked me for a while. Initially I had just taken it as hyperbole but it has really only now dawned on me what the tone of your posts were quite possibly drawing on (whether sub-consciously or deliberately I'm not sure) the notion of the 'black brute'. The clincher for me was this phrase in your last post;

“Here is the photo and he appears to be practically on top of her.”

This is from Wikipedia;

“Substantiating the idea of black brutes was the idea of black men’s sexual powers. In the South, racist whites sanctified white women to the point that they were regarded as a cornerstone around which any racist act could be justified as long as it was protecting the innocence and purity of their women. They hated the idea of white women falling prey to a black man’s advances, and they even believed that white women would be unable to resist the sexual prowess of a black man.”

Cont...

Cont...

Your phrase “he appears to be practically on top of her.” is of course perfectly innocuous by its self but your contributions have been infused with many emotive phrases, all seeming to scratch at the scab which is supposedly the white man's fear of the innocent white woman/virgin/child being ravished/debased/defiled “warped” by the 'black brute'.

Here are just a few examples.

“deliberately, coldly and ruthlessly used and abused.”

“victimise the girl, a child minor.”

“Disgusting.”

“a child minor is grist for your mill.”

”grab her as a victim with glee.”

“You just cannot resist can you?”

“But her treatment at the hands of those responsible was downright shabby and disgusting.”

“warping of this child's rights”

“warp the rights of a child minor and treat her the way this child was”

What is more than a little damning in my opinion was the fact that you used the term 'blood sacrifice' at least four times eg;

“using a child minor as the blood sacrifice” and “blood sacrifices on the altar”

which of course conjures up age old images of pure 'white' virgins meeting their fate at the hands of 'dark' evil.

While most of the phrases were not directed at Goodes per se I think to most people the language you have employed has been far more excessive than what was required for the point you were making. I submit that there is a personal, probably subliminal, fear of the 'black brute' within you and this fear has influenced your responses here.

Then again perhaps it is all completely innocent. Still one would have thought a discussion of subliminal racism is worthy of discussion here.

Don't you?

Dear csteele,

You've raised some excellent and valid points.

Virginia Trioli in her column raises something similar.

She tells us that, "Collingwood player Harry O'Brien
last week ...in the aftermath of the Eddie McGuire furore,
...spoke of the "casual racism" that was at the heart
of Australian society. The easy gags and epithets and
put-downs that trip so lightly and unthinkingly from
our tongues; from those of us who would be horrifed to be
considered racist."

As Trioli remarks, "O'Brien's point was that it was deeply
saddening to him, that when many people look at him they
don't see a man but a black man and that an insult about
that is often not very far away."

"It is casual. Whether it is indirectly or historically,
we experience it because it's almost like our racial
discrimination has been hidden under larrikinism,"
O'Brien said. And he is absolutely right.

If you can't cop it, and you can't take a joke, you're
humourless and politically correct. If you complain about
it and ask that it stop, you're guilty of perpetuating
the "new racism," whatever that is.

But as Trioli says, "it takes the person who walks around
in that skin to tell us what life is like from their
perspective and they are not making it up and they are not
being oversensitive when, like Harry O'Brien, Adam Goodes,
Linda Burney, they tell us they live with discrimination
every day."

It took the sight of a 13 year-old girl guilessly flinging
the insult around to wake many up to this. And as Trioli
says, "She didn't understand what she had said - and that
should horrify us."

Trioli points out that, "Australian racism is rarely
vicious or spiteful or dangerous; we just aren't that
angry a people. Instead, it is casual, and joking and
light-hearted. And for those who ache to be seen as every
bit a member of Australian society as everybody else, it is
not funny - it is an unending sorrow."

I suspect there is more to this, considerably more ...

Do we really accept a child, not knowing that "ape" was racist, be held up as the ugly face of racism in this country, even at an unconscious level. She is no Van Tongeren, - a truly legitimate candidate.

Unlike Goodes, who appears to have been the only fair-minded and rational person in all of this, the officials and ensuing circus was extraordinary.

The question begs, why did the officials run with this, milk it, at this specific time, and with a child. It is particularly puzzling when racism is endemic in football culture. Some might even say it is "part of the game."

Why no anti-racist stand before? There would have been many, many opportunities.

Some years ago, I had a Magarey medalist living in an adjoining flat. His mates often rocked up, got noisily drunk and urinated, very loudly, in the common nature strip at the back of the flats. I did not take notice what race they were. But I did remark that all that was missing was the fur.

Football is a religion to many, the players gods. If officials were sincere about racism, then football with its legions of devoted, great unwashed, would be an excellent vehicle to demonstrate that racism is an anathema and not tolerated, even in banter.