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Adam Goodes story comes back to one question: Why?

Expert
31st July, 2015
137
4046 Reads

If not all supporters who boo Adam Goodes are racist, why should we ignore the fact some of them are?

If you don’t boo Adam Goodes for racist reasons, why would you willingly join in with people who do?

“If you,” as Ray Martin pondered, “were going to pick an obnoxious Aussie sportsman to boo and vilify”, why would Adam Goodes be anywhere near the top of your list?

If the view put forward by Shane Warne, Jason Akermanis and Shane Heal – that booing is part of sport and Goodes just needs to deal with it – is true, why does it feel so unprecedented for a player to be booed at every touch of the ball, in every game, by every set of opposition supporters?

If you’re booing Goodes because he stages for free kicks, why has he only won 11 free kicks this year?

If he’s only won 11 free kicks, why aren’t the 167 players that have won more being consistently booed?

If you’re booing Adam Goodes because he ducks his head, why has he won zero head-high contact free kicks this year?

If he hasn’t won any high contact free kicks, why aren’t the 435 players that have being consistently booed?

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If it’s because he’s ‘just a flog’ who engages in ‘dirty’ tactics, why is there not a similar response to every other player who can be accused of the same?

If the whole issue has ‘nothing to do with race’, why does the case study providing the most cut-through for certain columnists and shock jocks revolve around a crowd member calling Adam Goodes an ape?

If you think someone calling an indigenous person an ape is best responded to with silence, why is it so hard to respond the same way yourself when confronted with words from Goodes that you don’t like?

If you think Adam Goodes brought it on himself by ‘bullying’ a 13-year-old girl, why do you blatantly ignore his comments from the next day – “It’s not her fault… I don’t put any blame on her… the person who needs the most support right now is the little girl”?

If the media persons who continue to bring up the girl are genuinely concerned with any potential ‘bullying’ of her, why do they choose to keep her in the news?

If you’re mad at Adam Goodes because of his Australian of the Year acceptance speech, why haven’t you actually listened to or read his Australian of the Year acceptance speech?

“If you,” as Waleed Aly so succinctly put it, “really think that Adam Goodes is such a monster, why should you have to re-write history to prove it?”

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If we accept for argument’s sake there’s zero racist element at all, why isn’t the fact we have thousands of people crowded around a single person willingly taunting that person in a manner they know is hurting – a blatant case of very public bullying – incredibly wrong in its own right?

If the responses of Warne, Akermanis and Sam Newman are headline news across multiple forms of media, why are Charlie King’s well articulated thoughts heard only through a platform that had to be shared with Andrew Bolt?

If next week’s game in Geelong is an opportunity to move beyond all this, why was Chris Scott’s call to Cats fans for Adam Goodes to be treated with respect met with a stream of Facebook commenters who “can’t wait to hear the Cattery boo him out of Geelong”.

If people are motivated to boo because they don’t like being told not to do something, why would even more voices telling them not to do something accomplish anything?

If an imaginary spear can add so much fuel to the fire, why would this be an issue that goes away before Adam Goodes declares his retirement?

If Adam Goodes can’t retire without this hanging over his head, why are the people who boo so happy with themselves?

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