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Do we really deserve Dreamtime at the ‘G?

3rd June, 2014
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Adam Goodes, being awarded Australian of the Year. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)
Expert
3rd June, 2014
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Indigenous round seems to bring out the worst in us. It’s meant to be a celebration and give us a warm fuzzy feeling that we’ve come a long way and embraced reconciliation.

We’ll still get the occasional racist idiot, but they’re throwbacks to the old days when you could stand in the outer and let loose with any form of abuse. Anything went back then.

We think all this is outlawed now. The clubs and AFL have pulled their supporters into line. Racial abuse won’t be tolerated.

But it still goes on, especially in the build up to Indigenous round. It would seem we have a long way to go.

It’s a year since Adam Goodes made his on-field stand and we haven’t learnt much. African football players are still subjected to racist taunts from the European terraces by banana-throwing bigots. West Indian-born Australian cricketer, Andrew Symonds, was subjected to similar abuse on a tour of India in 2007.

When Adam Goodes was abused by a 13-year-old kid, it was just another incident in an established pattern of racial abuse. The kid should have known better. So too should have Eddie McGuire. This was not casual racism. It was the full bottle, and to see it in any other way is a cop-out.

It’s not surprising Goodes no longer speaks to McGuire. If a player made similar comments on the field, he would have copped a suspension and been rostered in for counselling. Eddie copped the counselling but not the suspension. It was another cop-out.

We haven’t learnt from McGuire’s so-called gaffe. Racists are still around. A few weeks ago, a Bulldog supporter racially abused Demon Neville Jetta. Goodes was back in the news when a Bomber fan had a go at him.

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But it doesn’t stop there. Twitter has become the vehicle of choice for the racist abuser. The racist on the outer is now the coward on Twitter, and they are there in droves.

It is not hard to find Twitter abuse directed at Goodes, or Instagram attacks on Hawk Cyril Rioli.

As Goodes said when launching Indigenous Round with new AFL CEO, Gillon McLachlan, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Goodes is the Australian of the Year and it’s a timely appointment. He’s what this country needs to prick its collective conscience about racism. He’s vowed to fight it and to date he’s done so in a dignified manner.

During the ‘ape’ episode he maintained a silence which shamed us all.

When he pointed to that young girl he pointed at all of us. Some non-Indigenous Australians focused on the girl and said Goodes was a bully, or that Eddie was tired, and how could Goodes pick on them?

The girl, McGuire and the rest are products of a society that has peddled these views. Those insults based on the colour of someone’s skin are racist hand-me-downs from the days of White Australia, when Indigenous Australians were largely segregated.

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We should have learnt, but we haven’t. We’ve got the long walk to the ‘G and the Dreamtime match. We’ve got a football code across southern Australia that has been at the forefront in recognising the Indigenous contribution to this country. We’ve had an AFL CEO in Andrew Demetriou who’s said enough is enough, racism is out.

But we’ve still got racists. We haven’t yet shrugged off the White Australia blinkers. We like to think we’re tolerant, but we’re not. We might want to close the gap, but we don’t care enough. It requires greater sacrifice than we are prepared to make. We still play the race card to assert superiority.

Indigenous Australians let their actions speak. Look at the photo of St Kilda’s Nicky Winmar pointing to the colour of his skin at Victoria Park in 1993. The photo has outlived the racist taunts of the Collingwood crowd.

Michael Long also forced footy to confront racism. His club, Essendon, backed him.

But they were fighting entrenched attitudes that persist today. Contrast Winmar’s photo with the words of the then Collingwood President, Allan McAlistair. When he said Indigenous Australians should try and “conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire them and respect them,” he sided with the racists.

Last week Nathan Lovett-Murray related how his grandfather, Doug Nicholls, was sent packing by Carlton because players and staff thought he was on the nose. That’s the stench of racism.

A more cynical form was employed by Carlton in the 1970 finals. The club had recruited a brilliant West Australian, Syd Jackson. It was a time of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and civil rights movement, and there was growing clamour for greater social equality and an Indigenous voice.

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Jackson was the most visible expression of this voice in the VFL, but he chose to let his football do the talking. In the second semi-final he was reported for hitting Collingwood’s Leigh Adamson. When the case went to the tribunal, Jackson said he had been racially abused. Jackson’s charges were dropped, while Adamson became the guilty party.

Jackson’s defence was a lie. Adamson had not racially sledged him, though many others had. The whole thing was concocted by Carlton president George Harris, who told Jackson what to say to the tribunal. Adamson lived with Harris’s lie until Jackson revealed the frame-up.

Before the tribunal Jackson was in no position to speak for himself. As an Indigenous Australian he had to put up with racial abuse from the other side of the fence. As a Carlton player, he had to do and say what the club wanted.

His Aboriginality could be used and abused by Carlton’s hierarchy while he himself had no voice. That’s racism. The 1970 grand final was won in part because of it.

Sean Gorman has documented the problems the Krakouer brothers had when they ventured across the Nullarbor to play for North Melbourne. The football authorities suggested they were weak to hit back – it’s not what disciplined footballers do.

The Krakouers were right to hit back. Nobody deserves to be racially abused. It may not have been the act of disciplined footballers, but it was the act of human beings.

Some of those who dished out racial abuse are now footy talking heads. Some like Tony Shaw and Dermott Brereton have apologised. Brereton has admitted he racially abused Winmar and Eagles player Chris Lewis.

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Indigenous players make up over 10 per cent of AFL lists, but are barely present among the footy media. They are seen but rarely heard.

They use actions, not words, like Goodes last year when he pointed at the girl and maintained his silence. As Australian of the Year he’s acted with uncommon dignity.

To continually abuse him on Twitter shows that non-Indigenous Australians have not come very far. To racially abuse other Indigenous footballers suggests we are still a racist lot.

Maybe it’s time for Indigenous Australians to tell everyone Australia doesn’t deserve Dreamtime at the ‘G until they get a bit more respect.

Tom Heenan lectures in sport at Monash University

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