How Johnathan Thurston shamed Australia over Adam Goodes

Actually I only remember old dinosaurs from another time backing Johns on that one.

You call yourself a Guru? You certainly must be because you apparently know what is going on in the minds of every Australian. We always get the grass show wearing brigade come out when any person who happens to be in a minority is criticised. Since when did you become the arbiter of the difference between an OK Boo and a racist Boo? Your stifling political correctness is one reason why people are afraid to speak the truth any more. I booed Adam Goodes and also Crowley and other players. I have my reasons but it would take up too much of the post.and in a democracy I am entitled to my opinion. I have followed football for over 50 years and dare say Ive seen some of the greats you have only seen on footy flashbacks.Graeme (poly) farmer was my hero as a child and is a true great of our wonderful game. There have been many great indigenous players too numerous to mention and I had the privilege to see many of them play. Our game would not be the spectacle it is without these players through AFL history. I can assure you I have booed many more white anglo saxon players but of course it's OK to boo or criticise them because they are not a minority. In fact you can boo them for no reason at all. You need to get a life and stop seeing criticsm as racism. You need to learn that indigenous players are no more above being booed than any other player. That is Equality, a term you are struggling to come to grips with. If that is the best article you can come up with in football I hope you never write another one.

What i find so very amusing about the Adam Goodes story is that nobody actually knows why the booers were booing. Whats more - no-one wants to know, that would spoil it. Never let the truth get in the way when old white men need to pontificate But we hear, time after time - old white men speculating. Merely speculating about what they THINK the booers are booing about. And what they think is so frightfully important. Not one journalist...what happened to "investigative journalism"? Not one journalist or fat arrogant white git - has gone into the stands and actually asked the question. Thats why this story goes on and on...because nobody knows. But oh my, there's no shortage of old white men who want to TELL us what they think its about. Zero research.

You have to be kidding Brian – decent Australian, of which there are many, didn't engage in the booing of Adam Goodes on a racist level. The idiots who did boo Goodes, for standing up against racism, are radical right-wing tools, who understood exactly what they were doing, and are proud to be white Australian supremicists. Goodes spoke out against racism, the minority racists at the football didn't like it. Also, what is a 'True Blue Australian'? Is it that Fremantle d-head in the crowd that raised his fist at Issac Smith? Or that other idiot that leaned over the fence to abuse Luke Bruest? Or that other tool in the crowd that decided to hit that woman in the neck? Fanatics? No, not True Blue Australian, just True Blue Bogans. Total idiots, and a disgrace.

Staggers that this writer is so deep in Denial his own prima facie definitive racialism - that he so casually Projects on to the vast majority of decent, moral and generous Australians - escapes him. That this writer so easily tars such other decent Australians as Cathy Freeman with the serial bastardy of Goodes speaks only to the depth to which his insidiously- indoctrinated racialism has been made to define him. FACT: Goodes has too-consistently behaved like an 'ethnocratic' boor to not be judged by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin. FACT: Every one of those other beautiful Australian descendants of earlier-arrived-migrants was and is and always will be so judged -- and loved -- my the vast majority of ordinary, decent, moral, generous and loving, True Blue Australians! Brian Richard Allen

Some common sense at last. I am still astonished by the I am not racist 'but' comments that are people continue to come out with. Good article thanks. I was screaming round my lounge room when cathy won her gold! could hear neighbours doing the same.

Gosh... Where is the empathy. Please put yourself in his shoes. Are you indigenous? What is it like growing up in Australia as an indigenous person? Only an indigenous person could comment. When a strong, successful role model takes a stand he is beaten down, booed and told to stay in your box. Go Goodse!

"The difference with the Goodes booing is that no racist words were used". Are you high, Andy? I have had the privilege of watching Adam Goodes play in stadia across the country (every ground bar the Gabba & Metricon) since 2002. He was not booed any more or less than any other player until May 2013, when he had the temerity to ask not to be called an 'ape'. He was subsequently directly racially abused by Essendon and Western Bulldogs fans. These incidents were reported by other supporters of those clubs and well documented in the media. To their credit, the Dogs recognised they had a problem with some supporters (Neville Jetta was racially abused the week before) & this year embarked on an impressive anti-discrimination campaign. Highly recommend to all: http://www.afl.com.au/video?guid=770576 Like Warren, I am so done with the strawman arguments proferred by you and your ilk I could vomit. You think it's OK to ignore someone who asks, politely, for this behaviour to stop? To not be called an 'ape'? Sorry you are all sick and tired of reading about this. Imagine how sick and tired Adam Goodes is of people like you who think $30 entitles them to determine what level of racist, boorish and cheap behaviour you can dish out without reproach.

Nobody wanted to do the logical thing, ask the booers why they are booing. All we got was your nasty shock jocks opinion of why people were booing. No respect for the truth.

Mob rule, it is, i think. People are afraid to express any opinoin, here. Ask any Aussie their opinion and the face goes blank, they look scared, and "Woodenavaclue" is the only answer you will get There certainly is an absence of any ideals or ethics, yet people seem to wish to believe Australia is a "Christian country" - for that, you must know, and practise, Christian principles. But there seems to be ignorance of any of these principles, notably by Abbott and Turnbull, wjho both profess to be Christians but show no sign of it in their behaviour. Yup. I've lost respect for White Australia. Especially as the AFL did nothing to keep the game in good repute. No idea about ethics. You need ethics to get my respect, Aussies' only "value" if you can call it that, is money and the preservation of their pale squidgy cowardly bodies.

maybe opposition players should learn how to tackle properly.

As I said at the start, I don’t believe there is a solution to this problem that can be solely within the purview of the AFL. Hence why I did not offer one. There are hundreds of thousands of people attending AFL matches, and racism extends far beyond the confines of an AFL stadium as well. The booing of Adam Goodes is the tip of the iceberg, and merely addressing the issue of his victimisation does nothing to address the underlying causes. Racism has existed in this country for over two centuries now. Frankly I was surprised that people were so shocked that it still existed. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone, certainly not anyone who has spent any time in remote areas or had contact with indigenous Australians and the issues that they face. It is a great shame that Goodes career finished in such acrimony. My hope is that this experience is never repeated for any indigenous player in future, although whether or not any of them would be willing to invite the level notoriety and attention he drew by his public criticisms is dubious. My guess would be that they would not. That is perhaps the greater shame than the way he finished his career – that players in future will feel unable to speak out on issues of race that affect them.

i think it will impact where nobody will look - tourist numbers. Its a long way from America or Europe, and the threat of having an expensive holiday ruined by unfriendly people would put people off.

The very phrase "Australia should be ashamed" tells us Australia isnt. To know shame, you must have a knowledge of ethics, or some system of philosophy. Right and wrong. That seems absent, in my view. How come the AFL did nothing to stop the booers bringing the sport into disrepute? In most countries booing is considered unsportsmanlike, but i've heard its common here. Childish, very childish.

Thanks for saying that I was wondering the same thing. I also wondering where the term "White Australia" came from... it's just Australia. I'm wondering what I would be called if being a "White Australian" I booed a "White" sports star? Or as John Moore said, he is Indigenous and he booed Adam? So what should we be called by the Label makers? Or because I've been racially slurred by a few Indigenous people, does that make all Indigenous people racist? Seriously. Just because some people choose to be racist, weather on a sports field or anywhere for that matter, don't go clumping everybody into the same category. Thats just downright stupid.

I guess most people are a bit sensitive when they're called out for racist actions, so that's understandable. Someone called me a 'wog' for the first time in years on the weekend, as a joke (supposedly, and didn't see a problem with it), but it brought back those hideous memories of being called this and abused on a daily basis many years ago as a school child – aside from the shock being called a 'wog' (in this day and age!), I too felt that same humiliation that Adam Goodes and Stan Grant spoke about, even if it was only for a few seconds – and I'm not a public figure. It would be interesting to see how much of this is played out along partisan lines – imagine if Adam Goodes was a West Coast player, and called him a 'f**cking ape' to his face at the MCG in 2013. I can imagine the WA media would have played up an 'us and them' mentality, and the crowds in Perth would have welcomed him as a local hero, in the same way Goodes was highly supported at the SCG (even though he wasn't there), when the Swans played Adelaide. He would have been booed just about everywhere else in the land, but at least the Perth fans (West Coast, at least) would have adored him, and accused everyone else of being a racist. He would have been asked to perform his spear dance on Dancing With The Stars, and booing Goodes would have been declared treason at Domain Stadium. Or, if Goodes was a Collingwood player, we never would have heard the end of it from Eddie McGuire. Whatever you think of the issue, it's a significant stain on the AFL. A star of the game, one of the best ever to grace the field (two Brownlows, team captain, two premierships, 372 games, Rising Star – that says a lot), has shunned the game, probably never to return. Some people might be happy about that, but it's some of the worst treatment ever handed out to a sports star in Australia, where non-issues (the supposed staging for free kicks, or cheating, or sliding, or the spear dance, etc. etc. ad nauseum) have been magnified, and the real significant issues of racism (both direct and casual) and race relations with Indigenous people have been largely ignore. I don't have the answers of how it could have been handled in a better way, but it should have been. Maybe if it wasn't a 13-year old girl that abused Goodes, but the cliche of the older Aussie meathead that hurled the abuse, it might have gone down a different path, but it's too late now and too much water under the bridge.

Would support this view an matrons afl is more ingrained than in Sydney. The closer to the city, apart from south areas, the more equal the codes are. In those areas the daylight has been disappearing

hahaha you can moderate me all you like but demonizing all the booers as racists is not going to solve anything, telling people who they can and can't boo is not going to solve anything either.