She IS a Collingwood Supporter

Sportsmen should be able to play the game without verbal “low blows” from either their opposition or spectators. That’s not confined to racist taunts. Sportsmen should not have to put up with some fat, unfit cunt in the crowd calling out things like “Ya fuckin’ poofter!”, “You’re fucking hopeless, you shouldn’t even be on the park”, “I fucked your sister! She’s a log!” or any other of the cornucopia of sledges I’ve heard from the sidelines over the years.

Having said that, there’s a reasonable limit to the response. I don’t see anything wrong with the player pointing out to the offender that they are a nobody, who nobody will ever even watch for free. But going off the field in response to taunts, racist or otherwise smacks of prima donna antics.

Adam Goodes’ handling being called an “ape” by 13 year old Collingwood fan Julia Surowka was certainly effective, if a little high handed, taking it upon himself to demand she be ejected from the ground as he did. Some letters in this week’s papers thought he made a mountain out of a molehill and were it an isolated incident, they’d be right. But he and other players regularly cop a barrage of very low brow sledging from the sidelines. I can understand a player turning around and saying: “Fuck this and fuck you! I’ve had an absolute gutful of this shit!”

He’s 100% right to say, in effect: “I come here to play footy. I do my best and give fans their money’s worth and this is what I cop in return? I’ve had enough and so have a lot of other people.” After he’d made his point and extracted an apology, Goodes didn’t carry it on. In fact, he publicly announced that the girl had apologized personally and asked people to support her.

The girl did get singled out for attention and she is only 13. She claimed that she didn't realise calling a black man an ape would be construed as racist. I find that a bit of a stretch, but it's possibly true. I've called big, dumb, white guys apes before.

Nasty, dumb abuse of the opposition players to unsettle them is the behaviour of a peasant. That’s not the same as having a bit of a laugh in their direction or making a wry observation about the standard of their performance.

There’s a world of difference between a clever, cutting sledge such as Shane Warne’s challenge to Daryl Cullinan: “Daryl, I’m going to send you right back to that psychiatrist’s couch” and a moronic spray like “You’re an ape” or “You black ape”.

There’s also a world of difference between repeated, cold sledging and for example, a bowler yelling in the heat of the moment: “You fuckin’ arsey cunt” at a batsman after his third edge through or over slips, as Fingerton may have occasionally done.

Some readers may recall a spectator releasing a pig onto the field at the SCG during the 1982-83 Ashes tour. It had “Eddie” painted on it, as a taunt to portly English spinner Eddie Hemmings. Maybe it was potentially hurtful, but it was extremely funny at the time, which is what ameliorated any insult. Hemmings took it good spirit and gained a bit of respect as a result.

What if someone released a monkey onto the field with Goodes or Symonds or Balotelli written on it? You fat pig! You black monkey! Not the same. Weight is something you can actually control, unlike skin colour. The latter has the added dimension of statements of racial inferiority. Even if the sledger believes what they are saying as ideology, or even that it is backed by scientific evidence, a sporting field is not the place to express this sort of political statement.

Given his behaviour toward Andrew Symonds during India’s 2007-08 tour of Australia, it would have been a valid statement had someone released a monkey onto the field with Harbhajan written on it. But that’s because it’s having a go at Harbhajan for being a liar and a hypocrite. It’s also pointing out the irony of him calling a fellow brown person a monkey, something which he quite bewilderingly was unable to grasp.

That’s the difference: there are some players who are genuine dickheads and bring crowd and opposition taunting on themselves. I think that’s fair enough, as long as the insults are specifically targeted at whatever it is about the player’s behaviour that pisses people off so much: arrogance, hypocrisy, lack of heart, cheating, being a general grub.

There are some sports and some teams whose fans have a reputation for low sledging, even violence. There is often a cultural element to the behavioural differences.

Where are flares most likely to be thrown onto the field? At a soccer match where at least one of the teams has lots of wogs as supporters.

Who are the football clubs with the worst behaved supporters in Australia? The ones whose supporters are either the biggest bogans eg. Collingwood, or have a strongly ethnic element from an aggressive culture eg. the Canterbury Bulldogs.

There won’t be any less racism in the minds of the home crowd at Chatswood Oval as the North Shore gentry watch Gordon play Wests or Parramatta. Many will be quietly pigeonholing the opposition’s multitude of coconuts as big and tough, but a disorganized rabble due to their low IQs, probably kept out of prison thanks to organized sport. However, more than knowing better than to call out something derogatory, they genuinely have no urge to do so. Perhaps the odd comment may be passed in select company over a quiet drink in the club afterward.

You may think this casual snobbery is every bit as bad as a bogan Collingwood supporter screaming racist epithets, but it’s not. The difference is in knowing how to behave. People will always hold any number of biased and insulting views. Some may even be to some extent justified. It’s impossible to change this by force, but what society can expect is an understanding of when such views can safely be expressed and when they should be kept to oneself.

It’s reasonable for players to complain about low acts of abuse from spectators or the opposition and have an expectation of an effective sanction. What should not happen is an acquiescence by administrators to ethnic lobbies or commentators falling over themselves to demonstrate their PC credentials, such as the Herald Sun’s Mark Robinson.

No, matches should not be abandoned because of racist taunts. Calling someone a monkey or a black cunt does not warrant a 10 week suspension (you get less for a dangerous spear tackle, which has the potential to maim for life). To call for stadium closures ie. playing to an empty crowd because of repeated, racist abuse is ridiculous excess.

Why is racism singled out?

Because it’s the new “black” amongst the white, middle class left.

Harassing somebody about their race is not worse than harassing them about a multitude of other characteristics which they cannot control. If sporting authorities are going to be serious about racist sledging, they should be serious about all low sledging, but with appropriately severe sanctions.

Being called a black cunt, or having a banana thrown at you is not going to ruin your life. It is not worse than an opposition player delivering repetitive, withering barrages about someone’s wife, sister, religion or IQ.

The referee / umpire is there to make a judgment on when on field “banter” has gone too far. They may put a player on report, issue a warning, an immediate sin binning, or in some cases, a sending off. Security are there to police unacceptable spectator behaviour. The rest of the crowd should help by letting a dickhead know they are heavily outnumbered. If an entire section of the crowd is repeatedly causing trouble, then maybe authorities can consider collective penalties on fans and the club.

Many black or brown people would be irate at the above assertions, with charges that I couldn’t possibly know what I’m talking about and what they have to put up with.

The latter is to a significant extent true, however I’m saying that it is not as relevant as they would demand it be. Black people should not get to control what other people can and can’t say to them, determine the level of offence and the sanction. Kevin Prince-Boateng can call for players who make racist remarks to never be allowed to play for the club again, but why should any white people give his self serving position credibility by considering it?

Here’s a dose of reality:

Racism might be top of your agenda, but it’s not near the top of mine, or most other white people’s. Nor is it for other people to tell me what should be most important to me. I see sin binning for racist sledging as fair, but not a lifetime, or even 10 week ban. If you’ve been called a black cunt or a monkey in the heat of the moment, it’s probably not the first time and it almost certainly won’t be the last.

Most people are to some extent not only racist, but bigoted in many aspects … and not just white people. Many Asians refer to black people as monkeys (without a glimmer of understanding of the irony involved). Many Arabs consider black people to be inferior. Arab enslavement of black Africans only ceased when the British and French occupied the former Ottoman Empire after World War I.

Added to this, many non-white people play the race card when it suits them. Aboriginals cannot credibly say “Fuck you, you fucking white trash” to an air hostess, then pretend they didn’t and sue for racial discrimination when they are kicked off the plane.

Is that behaviour going to ameliorate racism or entrench it?

Racist views are not going to go away any time soon. If sporting bodies want to effectively combat racism in sport, draconian penalties will not achieve this.

I suggest they will have the opposite effect. By turning people away from a game they see as now pandering to activists with an agenda they don’t support, blame for ruining the game will be sheeted onto the very people who want to keep playing it, without the racist sledging.

More sensible would be to try and remove the identity politics from sport and punish a broad category of nasty, low sledging.

On a final note, for those who value liberty, there is a particularly disturbing element to the reaction to the Adam Goodes incident and it’s not that a 13 year old bogan made a racist remark.

It’s the heavy handed response. Either warn her, or eject her from the ground and be done with it. Being 13, her family would have had to go with her. The collective punishment would have been worth something.

Instead, MCG security told the girl’s parents to remain in their seats while they took her away and the police questioned her for two hours. Being (it seems) poorly educated, the parents acquiesced. 

This is the typical type of crap security personnel often try to pull: concocting a bogus procedure to pretend they are not utter turds who are not even good enough to make the police force.

The parents should have told security very clearly that they would not be allowed to take a 13 year old girl anywhere without their permission and without them being present. Further, if any security guard touched her, they would see them charged with assaulting an underage girl.

That’s the only way to deal with scumbag security guards when they try to assert an authority which exists only inside their heads: remain calm and make it very clear they will end up with a worse legal outcome than you.

Additionally, the parents should have told their daughter to say nothing to the police and make it absolutely clear to those officers that the parents (or other adult family) must be present at all times while their daughter is being questioned, as is any minor’s right.

Even worse is Eddie Maguire’s statement:

"We've organised counselling services ... for her, her friends and family”.

I can see where this is going: down the UK path. Only when the accused has issued a pro forma, self-excoriating apology and satisfied some social engineering bureaucrat that they have acquiesced to the “correct” ideology, only then will they be allowed to re-enter society.

Update: Eddie McGuire subsequently joking on radio about getting Adam Goodes to promote King Kong, The Musical is more a result of a dumb person's attempt at irony than outright racism. It was certainly insensitive, but what do you expect from a dumb shit like Eddie McGuire?

Miranda Devine is right in her charge of rank hypocrisy, given his role in leading the pious in their public chastisement of a poorly educated 13 year old girl for doing much the same thing.