Is This Really 2013?

Warning#1: Another non-wargaming post!

Warning #2: This is my opinion. You do not have to agree with it, but please respect my right to express it.

In 1993 the great Nicky Winmar of  AFL team St. Kilda  lifted his jumper and pointed to his dark skin as a response to racist abuse hurled at him from the Collingwood cheer squad. He was saying to them "I'm black and proud. Your abuse can't change that!"

Nicky Winmar's iconic gesture to the Collingwood crowd in 1993

Fast forward 20 years and in the Indigenous Round of the 2013 season, no less, Sydney Swans captain Adam Goodes was called an "ape" by a teenage girl in the crowd. Yep, another Collingwood supporter.

Goodes, another indigenous player, singled her out for security to escort from the ground. He was reportedly "gutted" by the abuse and wasn't present to celebrate their victory over Collingwood, so deeply did he feel the hurt of the abuse.

Adam Goodes nearly as iconic gesture to the Collingwood crowd in 2013

Now for all of you who don't follow Australian Rules Football, this may be news to you, but here in Australia, this latest incident has dominated the headlines and talkback-airwaves over the last week. Not only because of the issue of racism, but in the dignified response by Goodes, not blaming the girl who was too young to know better, and clearly describing the effect of racism on him personally and the Aboriginal community in general. Collingwood president and media personality, Eddie MacGuire, also gained much respect by personally apologising to Goodes straight after the match and making it clear that racism is not to be tolerated in the game and in society generally.

But Eddie undid all his good work by stupidly suggesting that Goodes should be used to promote the musical version of King Kong on his morning radio show yesterday morning!

How a lot of people reacted to Eddie McGuire's brain fail

He has unreservedly apologised and tried to explain that somehow between his brain and his mouth the words got mangled, but has been howled down for making the situation worse. His intentions don't really matter: the effect does.

And that's what has got my goat in all this, especially listening to talkback radio; the lack of empathy about what it means to be an Indigenous Australian and the effect that casual racism has. Ignorant opinions expressed on the radio that "they're all grown-ups and should take it on the chin" just don't take into consideration the ancestral dispossession, disadvantage and despair handed down from generation to generation. People like Goodes, who have made it to the pinnacle of elite sport, have done it despite their aboriginality, not because of it. They are the exceptions to the rule, but still carry the burden of disadvantage. Indigenous Australians constitute 2.4% of the overall population, but are disproportionately represented in the figures of alcohol abuse, unemployment, victims and perpetrators of violence, incarceration (including deaths in custody), mortality in general - the list goes on. Succeeding in the face of all that burden and then copping the sort of crap that's made the attention of the media in the last week, I can totally understand Goodes' saying that he's been cut to the bone. Especially when his abuser was a child who knew no better, and had obviously picked up on what adults around her had taught her.

Eddie's brain fart just topped a week that left me open mouthed with disbelief! (To be fair he has admitted since that what he said was racial vilification, no matter what his intentions were.)

Let's hope that this all translates into a focus on how we as a nation can lift the living standards of our indigenous population from its current abysmal 3rd world level to something approaching the rest of the population.....Hang on; it's an election year. There's no votes in aboriginal affairs. Silly me!