News Hawthorn fan racially abuses Heritier Lumumba (and doesn't get thrown out for it).

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I don't want to start world war 3, but I'm completely fine with someone saying "* off back to (insert place of origin)".

However, I am not okay with "* off back to (insert place of origin) you black campaigner."

Let me just put it in perspective, would you be offended if you were overseas and someone said to you "* off back to Australia"? I would have a hard time believing anyone who says they would. The guy didn't make fun of his colour, his origins, his nationality. He simply told him to go back to the country he was originally from.

Ps. Don't crucify me, it's just my opinion. I'm not an advocate for racism. I just don't feel like this particular situation falls under racism.
 

Kilmo

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You seem to think you speak for a generation of Australians but really you project your own tiny, limited experience of the world. You're a young boy in a cave and I'm a man on the mountaintop but you don't see it, just the little cave you inhabit. You'll look back at your posts and blush.
Surely you're not implying that aggressively defending racism and xenophobia in a public forum on the internet could, in some way, come back to bite a young man soon to seek employment?
 

boxy99

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So it’s okay to tell someone who is not from Australia to F**K off back to there own Country?
I don't have a problem with it I use to live oversees and I got told that all the time and I didn't care one bit! If he Said go home black c then yeah that's horrible!

Life is going well for us if saying go home is a major issue.

This is just my opinion as I never cared less
 
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good4footy

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Interesting take by people on this one. I accept that people will be at different positions of the racism / xenophobic scale but my position is one of zero tolerance.

1) Just because a 'generation' thinks casual racism is okay does not make it right nor does it stop me from speaking out against it to help prevent it being accepted as the norm. Extreme example but Hitlers generation thought it the norm to kill Jewish people, their acceptance of that did not make it right.

2) Whether H heard it or not is irrelevant. The issue rests with the person stating the comments not with the person they are intended for. Same with whether the person is actually offended by them. Some shake it off others are offended - it does not change the fact that the comments were meant to cause offence- seems that happened at the game.

3) I do not understand why people fire up against those that find comments like that offensive. Why is it important for people to defend those comments? Or to defend by questioning whether those comments are called racism/ xenophobia- who cares what the term is, they are meant to cause offence.

4) They are not just words. Words come from a belief and beliefs cause actions if continually left unchallenged or uneducated. My preference is to err on the side of caution and challenge those beliefs then worry about going to far and becoming what some caution as a nanny state. Both of these are extremes, but I'd rather risk living in a nanny state than a society based on hate.
 

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Feb 13, 2013
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This is a terrible thread.

Two facts:

Telling someone to F off back to anywhere is offensive, and in cases, racist.

White people can be racially prejudiced against. ANY people can be racially prejudiced against based upon their race. There is far less history about it and the examples are less extreme and fewer, but denying it because you deem it less serious is not helpful.
 

Chameleon75

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3) I do not understand why people fire up against those that find comments like that offensive. Why is it important for people to defend those comments? Or to defend by questioning whether those comments are called racism/ xenophobia- who cares what the term is, they are meant to cause offence.

Rather than confront it, we redefine it. In today's world if you get racially abused and get offended, your being overly sensitive. If you confront someone who's racially abusing someone, your being politically correct. Now if you call someone who is doing the racial abusing a racist, now thats offensive.
 

domin8tors

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Not really sure that is racially abusing him. It's not smart but how different is it to saying to someone '**** off back to Western Australia'?
yeah I don't really have an issue with this. it be no different if a player traded clubs for instance last year people yelled to Thomas ***** off to Carlton. I think that some banter in good fun is ok. if he said F Off you ****** and go back to Brazil then that's different.
 

Cyclops

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Nationality is a protected attribute, along with race and religion that is covered by anti-discrimination laws.

I wouldn't be offended if someone said "f... off back to Victoria/Australia/Ireland (ancestors from there)" but I'm white middle class so I've had it easy.

If someone said "f... off back to Israel" to a jewish they'd be locked up. Its more sensitive, as is anti-aboriginal insults just because they've actually been slaughtered.

I have no doubt Lumumba would have told the idiot to f... himself and carried on if he heard. If Lumumba heard a teammate abused I reckon he'd fire up and go the bloke.

The standard has been set in the Goodes case, and I don't have a problem with that. This sort of thing just has to sort itself out.

Chameleon makes a good point, don't get caught up in counter attacking people who complain. The rules aren't there on a whim, its worth thinking about and respecting.

Also there's plenty of attributes that aren't protected, like having a beard or an ugly face. Get creative with your insults, I do and I enjoy it.
 
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F**k that was intense. I'm still waiting for someone to answer an earlier question about the Ginger's out there. What's acceptable and what's not. Do any Red Heads take offence to the commonly used terms. Is it an underwritten Aussie law (from Bob Hawk probably) that Gingerism isn't as bad as racism?
 
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Syphoncom

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F**k that was intense. I'm still waiting for someone to answer an earlier question about the Ginger's out there. What's acceptable and what's not. Do any Red Heads take offence to the commonly used terms. Is it an underwritten Aussie law (from Bob Hawk probably) that Gingerism isn't as bad as racism?

Yeah that's fine. Mainly because gingers don't have souls.
 

Kilmo

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F**k that was intense. I'm still waiting for someone to answer an earlier question about the Ginger's out there. What's acceptable and what's not. Do any Red Heads take offence to the commonly used terms. Is it an underwritten Aussie law (from Bob Hawk probably) that Gingerism isn't as bad as racism?
This is a good point. The jokes about red haired people imply, at heart, that they are inherently less attractive than non-redheads, and that they are less deserving of respect. It is also something that the person has no control over. So, when you think about it, it is a pretty terrible thing to make fun of someone about. It's just that it is so common, especially in Australia, that it goes pretty much unnoticed. The key difference I guess is that most red haired people would on average experience a similar quality of life in most other aspects to those who don't have red hair and thus the effect is obviously not as severe as say black people with slavery, jewish people with, well, history, and indigenous people with colonialism etc.

So in my opinion it is very poor form to make fun of "gingers".
 

Kilmo

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Lol, go back to Brazil is not racist.

Get a life.
yeah I don't really have an issue with this. it be no different if a player traded clubs for instance last year people yelled to Thomas ***** off to Carlton. I think that some banter in good fun is ok. if he said F Off you ****** and go back to Brazil then that's different.

Whether or not telling someone to go "go back to X" is technically racist in every instance is a red herring.

Lumumba is a man whose skin colour in a white, xenophobic society would have no doubt made him feel uncomfortable and unwelcome many times throughout his life in Australia. To tell him to f*** off to where he came from is undoubtably racist in this instance: the fact that there are people from many races in Brazil is irrelevant. Who defines what is "in good fun"? Would they have said it to Lumumba if he was white? We will never know, but I strongly believe that the answer is certainly not.

One of the problems is that the AFL is so monocultural that we have no other examples to compare it to. Almost everyone is white and from Australia. Would people be upset if someone told Nic Naitanui to "f*** off back to Fiji"? Would anyone argue that this is not racist, just merely having a laugh and good banter? Comparing it to telling someone to "f*** off back to Carlton" is not a good analogy in this instance. What about telling Majak Daw to "f*** off back to Sudan"? It's singling someone out for being different, someone who stands out from the rest of the players because of his appearance and background.

It is not up to the white majority of the AFL crowds to decide what is and is not racist. The Brazilians within earshot found it offensive, racist and repugnant.

At the end of the day, labelling to racism or xenophobia or discrimination, or deciding to what degree it is any of these things, is a moot point. Calling it out as wrong is just as important. It is not like you need to save your objections for when things are at their most offensive - you can call out someone being a racist, no matter how mild, and if it makes them stop and think then that is a good thing.

I think an appropriate quote is one from The Guardian, 2009: "The phrase 'political correctness' was born as a coded cover for all who still want to say Paki, sp*stic or queer, all those who still want to pick on anyone not like them, playground bullies who never grew up. The politically correct society is the civilised society, however much some may squirm at the more inelegant official circumlocutions designed to avoid offence. Inelegance is better than bile."
 

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