Hey guys!
Another week and another week closer to my exams. Get excited!
Firstly, everyone lets take a moment and marvel that my team the Western Bulldogs beat another team.
I'll give a moment to pick up their jaw from the table/ground.
Over the weekend, in the Australia version of football (AFL) or as we call it here in Australia, soccer, Australia had a round of AFL called the indigenous round where we honor and remember the indigenous Australians.
Firstly the fact, that we still need to do an indigenous round in 2013 and that there's still such a large gap between indigenous Australians and the rest of Australia should be concerning. However, in this particular round a 13 year old girl racially abused Adam Goodes, one of AFL's top players, both indigenous or otherwise.
The ground's instant response of kicking her out was outstanding and sent a clear message to other spectators. It was how the situation was handled afterwards which I found distasteful and not up to scratch.
Eddie Mcguire went and apologised to Adam personally. Which fair enough.
He then went to find the girl in question and had a chat with her. Which, I don't completely agree with. I mean she got kicked out of the grounds, surely leave it at that. I mean, does Mcguire go find out the patrons who get kicked out for being drunk and see what their side of the story is?
But not a big deal, Mcguire was just trying to be a good bloke.
He came back saying the girl didn't know that calling someone an ape was racist. I should point out here, that Adam is an indigenous player with dark skin.
So, how can a 13 year old, not know that calling someone an ape is racist? Seriously, you get taught that stuff in grade one, when you're like 7 years old. I remember students in grade 2 getting detentions because they made one racist comment. Growing up in Australia, in a country built on migration and immigration, what constituted racism and what wasn't was something that every boy and girl were taught from an early age.
The way Mcguire said that the girl didn't know calling someone an "ape" was racist, made it seem like it was an excuse. She must have just thought of the word ape because, that was the first animal that she thought of.
Because magically, if you don't know something, that gives you the right to blurt out ridiculous remarks and you should be able to get away with it. I mean, if my kids didn't know ape was a racist remark, I'd be pretty ashamed.
And then Mcguire made another comment about Goodes being an ape on breakfast radio. After, massive media uproar and public condemnation, absolutely nothing happen. I mean sure Mcguire apologized.
Sack, the moron. I don't need to point out, he's a prominent media personality and the president of one of the largest football club. He has a daily breakfast radio show on one of Australia's most prominent radio station during prime time. As a media personality, there are very few that are larger than Mcguire. As someone who has such a large sway on public opinion, he needs to be more responsible for what he says and certainly needs to thinks about what he says.
If it was any other person, who wasn't as powerful, who didn't bring in so many supporters and so many listeners he would have been sacked or stood down. He's there, only to bring in revenue.
No one who genuinely felt bad about the girls comment or was sincere in his apology to Goodes would have made another "ape" reference not one week later.
~Noskcaj~
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