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The history of football has been littered with players and other AFL identities behaving badly off the field.
Wayne Carey, Ben Cousins, Brendan Fevola and Ricky Nixon are just some of the high profile football identities who have found themselves in varying degrees of hot water over the past decade or so.
Despite the media coverage and the outrage of the morally superior social media users, most people tend to just roll their eyes and mutter something along the lines of ‘bloody footballers’ and continue on with their daily business.
While football takes a hit, especially with non-followers, life goes on and the reputation of Australian society is barely touched.
We all know that for every Carey, Cousins and Fevola there are dozens and dozens of footballers who ply their trade each week and live their lives quietly and with dignity.
The real tragedy occurs when an Aboriginal footballer strays from the straight and narrow.
When Liam Jurrah, fresh from being found not guilty to serious assault charges in Alice Springs last week, found himself in custody over Easter due to new allegations, the under breath mutterings of many football fans and interested observers was not ‘bloody footballers’, but ‘bloody Aborigines.’
It may not have been said as explicitly as that (although in some cases I’m sure it was), but it was there in the undertone of many a conversation held about Jurrah since news of him being involved in this further incident surfaced last week.
As a way of explanation, one of my own mates told me that, “it is the way they live”.
“They” being Aboriginal people.
Wayne Carey acts up and footballers suffer a bad wrap. Liam Jurrah misbehaves and the whole Aboriginal community gets slandered.
Never mind that some of the greatest players and men to have played our game have been Aboriginal.
Sir Doug Nicholls, Michael Long, Adam Goodes, Gavin Wanganeen, David Wirrpanda and respected long serving umpire Glen James have all be associated with our game and are people of the highest order, but they, and many others, are conveniently forgotten and lumped into the category of ‘bloody Aborigines.’
To say the Aboriginal community is not without its problems would be a blind faced lie, but which group isn’t? To tar everybody with the same brush because of the behaviour of some is both ignorant and unfair.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s I spent ten years working on Aboriginal communities in the far north of Western Australia.
I worked mainly as a school teacher, but was also involved with sporting organisations and the Aboriginal art industry.
It was not all rosy. Alcohol was a problem as was domestic violence, but despite what the local papers would have you believe, the problem was not just an Aboriginal one.
It was perhaps just more visible throughout the Aboriginal community. The ‘whitefellas’ were better at concealing their problems.
On one remote community in the Kimberley region I sat around a table having dinner with the handful of white staff who worked there.
I listened quietly while they lambasted and made fun of the local Aboriginal population, shaking my head in disbelief at the wide-ranging generalisations they were making.
They spoke of alcoholism and substance abuse while not so quietly getting smashed on wine themselves, and later one of the teachers produced a joint which was eagerly passed around. They told me that they were worried about me because I wasn’t partaking.
I quietly excused myself and left.
This hypocrisy was something I would experience over and over again.
In Halls Creek, a town with a shocking reputation, but one in which I never felt more accepted, I had a labourer proudly tell me that he drank half a slab each night before bed. He wasn’t an alcoholic mind you, not like those ‘blackfellas’ on the corner.
The corner was the intersection of the Great Northern Highway and Duncan Rd. The bottleshop there did a roaring trade and each afternoon 30 or so Aboriginal people would be sitting under the trees near the creek drinking – some just socially, some into oblivion.
It was all very public and because it was on the edge of the highway, it was the lasting impression that tourists passing through would have of, not just the town, but the Aboriginal population in general.
The remainder of the population (of approx 1500 people) who were home bringing up their kids or out working or trying to live their lives the best way they could, were conveniently forgotten.
The handful of people drinking by the creek were visible, but not indicative of the whole population. Just as many ‘whitefellas’ (if not more) were at home drinking and believe me, domestic violence was not unheard of within their ranks either.
It was just not as ‘public’.
Just as it would be ridiculous for me to say that, because of what I saw in Halls Creek, most white people were alcoholic, substance abusing, violent hypocrites, so it is for those shaking their heads over Liam Jurrah and thinking that it reflects on all Aboriginal people.
Think of it this way. Ben Cousins did drugs therefore all Western Australians must do drugs.
Of course they don’t. So let’s not allow any preconceived ideas about indigenous Australians to unfairly tarnish the entire Aboriginal community. Ignorance is no defence.
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