Blues hurt by ‘low life’ comments
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Racially charged comments about the Blues Super Rugby team’s poor form show there is an element of racism in New Zealand society, says Blues chief executive Andy Dalton.
The Blues’ slow start to the season – with just one win in six games – has brought on a number of comments on social media sites blaming the high number of Maori and Pacific Island players and coaches in the team.
Coach Pat Lam broke down in front of the media on Wednesday as he talked about the impact of the racial abuse on his parents.
“They sacrificed themselves for us to come here and have a good life, so it hurts my parents,” he said.
Dalton told Radio New Zealand on Thursday morning some of the comments the team have received have been “absolutely low life”.
He says the Blues welcome feedback on their performance through social media, but some of it has gone “far beyond the realms of reasonable”.
“It’s not racism within Auckland rugby – I think it’s an element of our society,” Dalton said.
“It’s a very ugly part of our society and I think we’ve all got a responsibility to shut that stuff down.”
Dalton says there is zero tolerance towards racism in the Blues organisation and he hopes this is the same for any New Zealand business.
Lam says he accepts criticism of the team’s performance, particularly from people prepared to put their names to comments, but the racial comments are unacceptable.
“It’s the faceless people, and that’s social media and so forth and talkback, when people say things that are pretty offensive, making out that it’s because I’m an Islander – that’s just offensive.”
Lam coached the Blues to the Super Rugby playoffs last year.
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April 12th 2012 @ 6:48pm
chuck said | April 12th 2012 @ 6:48pm | Report comment
Pat has been a school teacher like Graham Henry so its not a communication problem some off those players need a good kick up the backside and be responsable in helping Kevie because its starting take toll on him as well racial abuse is unacceptable in any form so to the red necks & the faceless foe grow up rugby can not tolarate your garbage and the New Zealand public wont stand for it.
KIA KAHA Pat !!
April 12th 2012 @ 9:28pm
Sylvester said | April 12th 2012 @ 9:28pm | Report comment
Have a large number of Maori/Polynesian players didn’t seem to hinder the Blues when they won their three Super titles, or the Kiwis when they won 3N and RLWC. Warriors two grand finals, Junior Warriors defending champs, etc etc.
April 12th 2012 @ 9:45pm
p.Tah said | April 12th 2012 @ 9:45pm | Report comment
Or Samoa or Tonga when they beat the Wallabies…
April 12th 2012 @ 11:45pm
Lorry said | April 12th 2012 @ 11:45pm | Report comment
Onor and others,
It IS racist saying there are ‘too many cuzzie bros in the team’
In this specific case, it’s probably not the words that offend, but the implication….
If someone was to blame poor South Sydney Rabbitohs performances on there being ‘too many blackfellas’ in the team, would you not consider this racist?
Just because NZ has pretty good race relations (considerably better than Aust, for example…), doesn’t mean there isn’t any racism!
April 13th 2012 @ 12:38am
AndyS said | April 13th 2012 @ 12:38am | Report comment
No time for attacks on Pat Lam or anyone but, just playing devils advocate, how is it any different from my nephew’s club being told that their first team doesn’t have enough islanders to be competitive?
April 13th 2012 @ 9:35am
Lorry said | April 13th 2012 @ 9:35am | Report comment
AndyS,
you want to know the difference?
The comment about your nephew’s club is simply relating what the speaker sees as a physical fact – that fact that (if it’s teenagers we’re talking about), a team with islanders is going to be bigger than a team without. It’s probably wrong anyway, but it’s not racist.
The comments about Pat Lam and his team imply that Maoris and Islanders do not have the grey matter to win games; that they need a few more whites around them to provide the brains.
This is obviously racist.
Remember, you have to look at who is saying what to whom, and what is being implied…
April 13th 2012 @ 10:21am
AndyS said | April 13th 2012 @ 10:21am | Report comment
So saying someone is physically inferior because of their race is not racist, but mentally inferior is? It is always a grey area, because it involves imputing a motivation – maybe (but probably not) some of the comments were intended to imply that the big lads at the Blues relied too heavily on their natural gifts and didn’t do the hard yards to become the best they could be. But the dictionary definition is “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races”. There is a great deal of ‘positive’ racism that is implicitly (and even explicitly) accepted in society today, but every coin has two sides.
April 13th 2012 @ 10:33am
Lorry said | April 13th 2012 @ 10:33am | Report comment
‘Physically inferior’ wasn’t what the coach was saying. He simply meant that they were physically smaller. The Japanese rugby team would probably lose by alot more if they didn’t have a few non-Japanese in the team.
In the case of what people have said about Pat Lam and his team, it has to be taken in the context of historical racism towards Maoris and Islanders in NZ….
About ‘positive racism’, it’s like Aboriginal players in Aussie Rules, people say they have ‘magic’ skills and don’t train hard, or don’t need to train hard. This, I think, is what you are referring to as ‘positive racism’, but it seems to me to be just racist mystical mumbo-jumbo, and Aboriginal players such as Adam Goodes have said as much….
But, before someone labels me ‘politically correct’, it’s not only whites who are racist, obviously! I read somewhere that Ali called Joe Frazier a ‘gorilla’. This is racist too, even though both are african-americans…
Also, my adult South American english students are really racist towards asian students, and a Turkish student refused to sit next to a Pakistani student the other day, so there you go!
April 13th 2012 @ 1:42pm
AndyS said | April 13th 2012 @ 1:42pm | Report comment
True that – I once had a highly educated asian engineer tell me that only white people can be racist. But isn’t smaller a synonym for inferior in that context?
Interesting one on Ali calling Frazier a gorilla. You could make a very good case for that being a physical comparison for a big man with a reach that exceeded his height, especially when any racist overtone would equally apply to the person making the comment. Similar to a comment I heard suggested during the Symonds row – when a bloke with dreads who paints his mouth white is called a monkey, anyone interpreting it as racist might be better served by examining the connections and generalisations being made in their heads. Unless the statement is that all people of that race share that characteristic, it is abuse rather than racism. Calling someone a c*** is not racist, but saying that is a racial characteristic or attaching it to a colour is. It would be racist to say that all white people are racist.
April 14th 2012 @ 11:02am
Photon said | April 14th 2012 @ 11:02am | Report comment
http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/05/30/are-the-crusaders-selective-about-recruiting-islanders/
April 18th 2012 @ 6:29am
Photon said | April 18th 2012 @ 6:29am | Report comment
http://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/our-experts/6760632/Chiefs-proving-the-Blues-race-theory-wrong