Mega Thread The Adam Goodes Megathread - Now with Added Poll!

[ashep]

You mean what was just being said on AFL 360 and the players association stuff.

No mate I specifically mean Clarkson, Hodge, Lewis and Burgoyne saying that the booing is stupid and they hoped their fans were above it.

Good thing you're here to demonstrate that their faith in some of their fans is misguided.

 

[Medika_J]

This thread makes my brain hurt.

Goodes wasn't booed on a mass scale after he did something dirty or got suspended. Goodes wasn't booed after a run of dubious free kicks. Goodes wasn't booed after his brownlow win. Can we dispense with the ducking and weaving and at least agree that there are a few clear incidents that kicked the whole thing off?

Goodes was booed after being racially abused by a young girl, and subsequently, after years of work with the indigenous communities around Australia, winning the Australian of the Year award and opening up some very serious, yet uncomfortable conversations about race.

People have this moronic idea that racism is about wearing the Australian flag as a cape and screaming "**** the abos!" It's a lot more subtle than that, it's systemic, it's ingrained in our culture. No one, including Goodes, is saying that any individual or collective needs to feel 'guilt' or 'shame' for past atrocities perpetuated against aboriginal Australians. What Goodes and others are doing is trying to get people to recognise is that most people living in this country indirectly benefit from the theft, rape and massacre of an entire group of people. This has lasting impacts and the wounds are still fresh. Aboriginals were still classified as fauna less than 50 years ago. I still find it hard to wrap my head around that. Indigenous heads were sent back on ships to England. Tasmanian aboriginal people were wiped off the face of the planet.

None of this implies any sort of culpability for any one white Australian, including myself. It's not my fault that I benefit from the past slaughtering of indigenous people and I'm not going to apologise to anyone for it. But I DO. And that's the important thing. That's the conversation Goodes was trying to have. Realising that maybe young Travis being in jail or having too much drink isn't just a result of loose morals or poor character, but at least partly because of systemic injustices past and present that put him in a position that you couldn't possibly pretend to fully empathise with.

Unfortunately a large proportion of the Australian population wasn't mature or intelligent enough to have this conversation. They heard terms like 'genocide', 'theft', 'invasion' and 'race problems' and quickly jumped on the defensive. They couldn't spurt out 'but I don't hate aboriginals' quick enough. And unfortunately, this is how real racism is perpetuated. Not because your old fashioned uncle (believe me, I have several) openly said 'you can't trust them' but through the failure of everyday Australians to recognise and own the role they inadvertently play in systemic injustice. So then Goodes is a 'flog', a 'grandstander', 'divisive' and other such nonsense.

This is the reason Goodes was initially booed. Maybe a tiny percentage of Hawthorn supporters (and now seemingly every other club's supporters) that booed him are openly distrusting and resentful towards aboriginal Australians. But mainly because they couldn't handle or understand a conversation that while uncomfortable for them, is a tragic and real necessity for someone like Goodes. Then tribalism kicked in people started booing him because everyone else was and retrospectively performed mental gymnastics to come up with reasons why they did join in.

Like other people have said, the booing stemmed from racial elements, still has a dark racial undertone and is deeply upsetting for the indigenous AFL community as well as Goodes and his family. Initially I'm willing to give many a free pass for getting caught up in the tribalism. That's a lot of what footy is about. But at this point, if you join in, you're overtly racist, subtly racist, or just not very bright. The latter contingent probably constitutes the majority, but why would you even want to be associated with it at this point?

This is the post of the thread. Seriously everyone posting in here should read it.

/end discussion

 

[subaru]

Simple, because those other black fellas know there place in society. They can be tolerated.

Yeah
Like McLeod
Long
Wanganeen
CEY
Wingard
Winmar
Burgoyne
Rioli
Etc
Etc
Etc now do you realize how stupid you post sounds !?

 

[Xtreme]

It was during INDIGENOUS ROUND. All it was was a celebration. If you are offended or feel threatened by it then that is quite pathetic and weak to be honest.

Couldn't give 2 hoots to be honest just think it was stupid doing it when they were already so far in front. Plus its a war dance at a football game. How about doing a non threatening rain dance instead

 

[BORK]

Has it been established whether he was booed heavily in games where there was not an on-field incident to explain it in 2013 after 13 year old girl gate?

Or did it emerge in 2014?

 

[RegHickeyStand]

You now know booing is hurting Goodes, his family, his friends, his workmates and his community.

I'll ask again do you want to be that person who deliberately hurts and offends others? Do you think it is an act of decency to continue (regardless of what you think of that person)?

I think that is a better argument than calling people racists.

 

[DrEvil_]

Aboriginals were still classified as fauna less than 50 years ago. I still find it hard to wrap my head around that.

Probably because it is a myth.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/10/myths-persist-about-1967-referendum

 

[Timewaster]

Goodes pushed himself into the political spotlight while still playing footy. He's used his position of AOTY to get the exposure to say that modern Australia is built on rape and murder.

Now maybe some agree, but plenty won't. Goodes is now on a par with politicians, but he may have not thought through that there's a reason politicians avoid uncontrolled public spaces. Would Sarah Hanson-Young get booed? Tony Abbott? Julia Gillard? It comes with the territry.

I hope the booing stops, because Goodes is a great player and nobody deserves to get such treatment at work. But to say this is racism is deliberately misleading - Goodes is purusing a politically divisive line on race and finding that outside the PC brigade nobody's buying it. The media and Gill are just giving it oxygen.

 

[RegHickeyStand]

Couldn't give 2 hoots to be honest just think it was stupid doing it when they were already so far in front. Plus its a war dance at a football game. How about doing a non threatening rain dance instead

Or going to your own crowd and encourage them to cheer and drown out the booing.

 

[Ugottabjokin]

No mate I specifically mean Clarkson, Hodge, Lewis and Burgoyne saying that the booing is stupid and they hoped their fans were above it.

Good thing you're here to demonstrate that their faith in some of their fans is misguided.

Again for those too stupid to realise i don't formulate my opinion on what footy players or coaches think.

Unlike yourself i have an ability to dissemenate my opinions for myself.

 

[imadodgyumpire]

Lewis Hamilton has had 10/100s of people in a crowd chant "Monkey!" at him. Even wearing monkey masks. It was blatant insults. But he didn't make a big fuss about it, and the issue has died down for years. I'm afraid I think Goodes may be booed largely because people think he's a spanner.

I wonder if the AFL community who defend Goodes subconsciously just don;t like that a figure like him is actually thought of as a spanner?

 

[subaru]

Even if what this poster said is right re him being AOTY
(a) how does booing deal with this?
(b) how does it make things less divisive.

Top Post? Man ...anti logic at its finest

What came first ???
People didn't just get up one morning and decide to boo him

Booing is the negative reaction to a negative action

The fact that it's equal and opposite also is the way of the world


If Goodes does big hug of the 13 year old girl and says I forgive you for what you said, would that not have been a better course of action ?

 

[Nikita Blue]

Does anyone honestly believe in this day and age that Goodes is being booed for his skin color?

Seriously?!?

He is being booed as he has used his position as Australian of the year to foster an us against them mentality and in effect saying all non indigenous Australians should be ashamed of our past and what this country has achieved.

How else did Adam Goodes expect this to play out? And booing him for disagreeing with his views is not racist.

Imagine if Tony Abbott pulled on a footy jumper. Imagine the boos that would reign down from people who disagreed with him.

Goodes is booed for his divisive words, not his skin color

Yes a certain percentage of those booing him are racially motivated. Just don't see how anyone can argue otherwise.

 

[Medika_J]

I think that's what clear out of all of this, is that irrespective of your thoughts or Goodes, the people booing, the commentators, the AFL, whatever, the football community is now divided. It's ugly. This is not what football is about.

And you know what's funny? The most engaged people in this debate are...white.

From the white rednecks who tell him to "harden up", to the condescending self-hating white people that speak like as if they know what's best for the indigenous. Both sides are white. It's comical. White people debating the feelings of...a black man.

I am so sick and tired of hearing people say "Australia is racist", and I'm sick of people pretending like they're not offended by Goodes' past comments.

And seriously, please spare the rest of us your guilt-riddled self-hating trash about how ANYONE -- white, black, pink, yellow -- is EVER justified in dividing by race. I don't give a [censored] what you have been through: racism is antagonism as much as it is discrimination, and if you even attempt to paint me as morally inferior because of the colour of my skin, I will shout you down like the hypocritical moron that you are. I am not responsible for another person's plight. I judge a person on their character and their actions. Spare me the "white people can't be victims of racism" crap. You're just justifying a barbaric, vile narrative that fuels the fire.

That said, everyone, please, shut up, get over it, so I can get back to feeling miserable about Melbourne Football Club.

Trust me, you'll all feel better for it. At least then we can (mostly) agree on something and get along.

Go Dees.

You need to get your head checked, son.

That you assume that everyone arguing in here is white, then mouth off about people being racially "divisive"... Or that you think white people have to be self-hating in order to want to be allies to minority groups that have been systematically oppressed... I'm not sure what to highlight in your post as being most stupid, hypocritical, or plain hateful.

That vitriol will corrode you from the inside out.

 

[Pea Nut]

Couldn't give 2 hoots to be honest just think it was stupid doing it when they were already so far in front. Plus its a war dance at a football game. How about doing a non threatening rain dance instead

How about the All Blacks walk up to the edge of the playing field on Saturday week and aim the HAKA directly at the crowd pre-game and see what happens. There would seriously be a riot. What he did is exactly the same !!

 

[sedders]

I haven't booed Goodes but am much more likely to now that everyone particularly Caro and other media tosspots are telling me not to. I don't really give two shits how that makes any swans players feel. In fact if it puts any of them off their game of course I'll boo till I'm blue.

I also don't give two shits if people believe I'm racist. I know I treat people equally regardless of race.

Proudly non conformist, recalcitrant maybe, but not racist.

 

[STFU Donnie]

I don't boo, I hate it, I really hate booing double faults in tennis that happens at the U.S. Open and staring to happen in Australia now. So why do West coast supporters boo at everyone and everything else then? Booing just sux full stop. Do you suggest we don't Boo Adam Goodes because of his race? Well according Goodes him self from his AOTY speech "the ultimate reward is when all Australains see each other as equals and treat is other as equal". I agree all people should be treated equally. But Goodes doesn't really want that, he wants to be treated special because of his race, to me that is racist.

[insert picture of Capt. Picard facepalm here]

 

[hardon]

another question:

why is adam goodes so so surprised that after he did a WAR dance, he got WAR (of a kind)?

 

[Forward Press]

another question:

why is adam goodes so so surprised that after he did a WAR dance, he got WAR (of a kind)?

Do you boo the All Blacks after their haka?

 

[CountryRace]

If you want your team to win the flag

And it upsets him

Why would u stop?

 

[Bardo State]

Probably because it is a myth.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/10/myths-persist-about-1967-referendum

They weren't classed as people in the census. You can argue the tangible relevance of that, but it says a lot culturally.

 

[swansfc357]

I haven't booed Goodes but am much more likely to now that everyone particularly Caro and other media tosspots are telling me not to. I don't really give two shits how that makes any swans players feel. In fact if it puts any of them off their game of course I'll boo till I'm blue.

I also don't give two shits if people believe I'm racist. I know I treat people equally regardless of race.

Proudly non conformist, recalcitrant maybe, but not racist.

Ok but what if that continues public bullying affected his mental/emotional state?

What if it causes depression and suicide? What if AG was the next Charlotte Dawson? Would it still be ok?

 

[Cudi_420]

You need to get your head checked, son.

That you assume that everyone arguing in here is white, then mouth off about people being racially "divisive"... Or that you think white people have to be self-hating in order to want to be allies to minority groups that have been systematically oppressed... I'm not sure what to highlight in your post as being most stupid, hypocritical, or plain hateful.

That vitriol will corrode you from the inside out.

Sorry, I should have said "mostly white".

 

[Go_Blues!]

You mean what was just being said on AFL 360 and the players association stuff.

No i don't see what the media says.

Like the players association is going to come out and say Adam is wrong and we shouldn't create a new socially accepted rule for him exclusively.

And Adams view that booing of him is racial villification, as Brendon Goddard just stated, now impinges on my freedom of speech and expression. So now any booing of Adam is now racists because Adam said so.

What a sanctimonious ******. The racial insinuation makes me dislike him even more, not that i ever liked him anyway.

How does that impinge on your freedom of speach or expression? That is what freedom of speach is. If you choose to boo Adam Goodes next weekend people will know you are a racist but you won't go to jail, you won't get charged, you won't even get kicked out of the ground. Freedom of speach does not mean that you won't get judged for what you have to say. Where does this idea even come from.

 

[Pea Nut]

Do you boo the All Blacks after their haka?

If they performed it directly at the crowd, there would be a lot more than booing going on, there would be a full scale riot !!