It all happened in an instant – the cut shot came to my left, and somewhat anticipating it, I dove to my left, got there, and spilt it.
Aside from the physical pain of dropping a catch, the thing that irks you is the feeling of letting your team down. Chance made, chance dropped, and I was the culprit.
There have been a few misdemeanours in my time on the cricket field, but this one struck out to me especially when I began thinking about the whole saga involving Adam Goodes.
I duly expected the sledges to occur following my butter finger moment. Never I did expect a teammate, who I considered a friend to blurt out that “if [I] ate [my] Weetbix instead of [my] curry, [I] would have caught it”. Simply interpret that quote in the second person to know what was said.
Goodes, unlike myself, is actually a capable athlete. Unlike me, he is an Australian of the Year. I feel dirty for even daring compare my sheer ordinariness to someone who has inspired thousands by both his sporting deeds and his ambassadorial work for Indigenous Australians.
Yet the only similarity I, along with many Australians can claim with Goodes is that we have faced the wind chill of racism in this country, and then be made to feel that by stating the problem, we are also the cause of it.
I feel a certain sympathy for those who don’t understand – how can they possibly understand that which they do not know? While they don’t understand, it’s preferable if they didn’t exacerbate the problem by flatly denying its existence. Statements like “playing the victim”, “take a joke” are designed to simply do that.
While racism is no longer as savage a part of my life as it once was, it’s been brought into sharp focus through the experience of Goodes – for doing little more than showing a component of his Indigenous character, and having the gall to be publicly proud of it.
Waleed Aly said it best when describing Australia as a tolerant nation, until those within minorities decide not to act as a “mere supplicant” to its wider culture. It’s an issue previously in the news when Fawad Ahmed decided not to wear an alcohol logo on his cricket shirt, and now Goodes through his public demonstration of his Indigenous heritage.
Since moving to Australia at age four, it’s been my reality knowing that I will likely remain a minority in this country, through racial and religious lines. Yet if those who hold the cards should decide the fate of the minority, we should forever be submissive in their right to suppress any ideology that conflicts with their notion of “Australia”.
Adam Goodes has known his place throughout his life, and has now spoken up. The petulant booing cannot be a deterrant to what Goodes is attempting to achieve.
Tolerance is no longer enough, acceptance and only acceptance will do.
Gecko
Guest
Vas the feelings of the insulted person are absolutely valid but the intentions of the insulter should count for something before we judge them as bad people. I can imagine many 'old' Australians making jokes about curry (or making jokes to new Australian Greeks about souvlaki or to new Australian Poms about the Queen) without any intention of being insulting, whereas calling someone an ape clearly has the intention of being insulting.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Hey TAFKAP - that's a sad story. We can only hope it gets easier for people like your friend.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Thanks Benno, I hope the same.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
BigAl - they may very well do, and it most definitely can be confusing. In a multicultural fabric, it's likely that we all say and do many things that are completely natural to us, but could offend others unknowingly. That's ok - the problem isn't the offence caused. The problem is when people say "I'm offended", only to then be told to shut it, or that they're "playing the victim" or to "take a joke". It's the unwillingness to continue learning is the problem. If the woman in the hijab doesn't want to talk, then ok, let's move on. But that doesn't mean the next woman you see in a hijab will feel the same. We are all individuals born into our own culture, but we have the faculties to decide what to do with it.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Thanks Johno
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Thanks Will - all we need to do is to keep talking about this. I am not saying it should be splashed on the front page ad nauseum. We just can't let it be the hot topic of the day and then stop talking about it, only for nothing to be achieved. The United States had a significant cultural revolution when it came to their own Civil Rights issues, and those conversations continue to this day in the hope positive outcomes are achieved. From my understanding, the mindsets of Germans born after the Nazi occupation were significantly altered given the atrocities of those times, and to this day, they still struggle with the notion of mass immigration in their country - but they never stop talking about it. I don't care if Tony Abbott changes our flag to be the Union Jack, changes the anthem to God Save the Queen and makes us all recite a personal oath to Queen and Country after the Lord's Prayer every morning (well, perhaps I will). But I don't want shock jocks and other opinion merchants to deny my voice in disagreeing with him as a way to shut me down. That's the point.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Redb, perfectly described. Thanks for your post.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
holty, you seem to be mistaken that money alone will solve the problem. i can spend $1m on an awesome house with a pool, big backyard and ensuites. But it won't matter much if the structural integrity is flawed. that's the best i can describe it - Australian society has completely neglected our Indigenous peoples over many years, and still to this day, we regard them as a problem. We never regard them as a prominent part of the wide Australian fabric. We centre everything about the Britishness of Australia, from the flag down, and then look at everything else through the lens of that British perspective. People like Adam Goodes are considered inconvenient, because he serves to remind us there is an Indigenous identity to this place, and him publicly expressing that has been met with derision aimed at suppressing that identity. I am no expert, but I can see it from his perspective to a degree, because that perspective is shared by people like myself who stand on the fringes through racial and religious lines. I agree with you that nothing should be at any cost - again, I don't think the solution is rooted in money. Just when Adam Goodes dances, before going defensive, try to understand his motive for doing so. Right now, we just have so many people ready to shoot him down for expressing himself - which is a democratic right that others in far more prominent positions use and abuse far worse than anything Adam Goodes could do.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
thanks Johnno.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
I'm ok with assimilation as a general policy SVB, but that is assimilation for everyone to fit into a culture that suits everyone. Right now, the people calling for assimilation are those asking minorities to assimilate into their dominant sub-culture. It places the onus on others to make the effort, while those asking for it sit idly by and think they can pass judgement on how well we've assimilated.
Freo As
Guest
More airswings? You know the "but you are" is almost as puerile as booing? Why don't choose something of substance to say rather than targeting the person all the time? Particularly when all your doing is spewing up repetitive vague and samey criticisms.
BigAl
Guest
Vas ! - a part of the issue that you are writing of here is the giving of and taking offense when it is not intended ! re. your example of the hijab, my guess is that a culture that requires a woman to dress in a hijab in a country like Australia would take great offense if someone such as me were to come up and start a conversation, but I dont know ? - and you don't know ! It can be confusing.
The artist formerly known as Punter
Guest
I love this attitude of giving it back & have a laugh without walking in that person's shoes. As a kid I used the 'P' (mods) word that describes a Gay man. I never called a Gay person that to their face At a party a few years back the with the alcohol flowing, someone decided to have a group photo, a friend of mine, was trying to organise the photo & kept pushing me to ensure we all got into a photo, I kept calling him a 'P' repeatedly, now this live long friend was a heterosexual & took no offence, however a mutual friend who was gay, turned & walked away & said, he ain't the 'P', I am. I apologised profusely as I meant no harm, it was just a word I had used since childhood. He accepted my apology & we are still good friends many years later. Now 6 months later, he was going back to England for his Dad's 60th & wanted to bring his boyfriend & his dad said if he brought his boyfriend, both of them would not be allowed to attend the party, my friend asked why? His Dad said, 'I don't want my village to know that my son was a little "P"'.
holty
Guest
Guess you and I do have something in common after all hay Freo.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
BigAl fair point - not every person in that profile will be open to a conversation like that. That doesn't mean all of them aren't. If you try and speak to them, and they recoil - then you can justly say you did everything you could to initiate a conversation that the other person didn't want to partake in. To then brush the entire group of people with that same visual profile is then where it gets wrong...
SVB
Guest
Well said Vas. I believe integration is a far better word than assimilation. Fit into society, but you should be allowed to be yourself and not something you don't want. Therefore you don't have to accept the sledging and banter if you think it is out of line. As you also said, the constitution has nothing to do with assimilation.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Gecko - your comment has perfectly described exactly my point about how you can't understand that which you do not know. How can you make the objective statement that me being labelled a curry is not as hurtful as Goodes being called an ape? Did you know the full context of why I was called that word, the same as the context of Goodes being termed an ape? I can't categorically say whether what I felt was mild compared to what Goodes would have felt. What I do know is hearing that as an insecure 14-year-old hurt me deeply, especially given it came from a person I had regarded as a friend. While I agree with the notion of "degrees of racism", I again reiterate that it's not up to one person to decide for another what they should or shouldn't be offended by, or whether their hurt is valued more or less than others. That simply should not happen, given the other person will more often not know the full context. All we can do is listen to one another, and not turn a blind eye towards eachother when someone is trying to say they have been hurt. This country's past has been built on suppressing the pain of too many people, and Adam Goodes is bravely trying to put a stop to that. I am no moral crusader (I don't have that platform), but I do know that people who have experienced pain for no reason other than their identity should not have to go through that.
Vas Venkatramani
Roar Guru
Hang on, holty - what should I "endeavour to assimilate to?" Is it the notion that I blithely follow others' definition of "Australian", and as an Australian myself, disregard any notion I may disagree with? And what does our Constitution have to do with assimilation?
Freo As
Guest
Still struggling to come up with anything that means anything hotly?
holty
Guest
Having an epert tag by your name but not really being an epert lacks something