Girl, 13, was rude, but she's not the bully

[nero_bolt]

Way over the top and what the media, the football clubs, social media and the big tough hard man of AFL hero Adam Goodes have done to this 13 year old is appalling.... 

Adam Goodes vs a 13-year-old girl. Seriously?

I DETEST racists. But the monstering of the Collingwood fan who shouted at Sydney footballer Adam Goodes is shameful.

She is just a 13-year-old who was at the football with her nan. She wasn't happy.

Collingwood was being thrashed and when the bearded Goodes took another possession in front of her, she shouted "ape".

This is very rude. I wonder at her parents. It's also possibly racist, though she insisted she didn't mean it that way. Whatever, she needed a talking-to.

Goodes heard the abuse, and pointed her out to security. A bit over the top, since she's so young, but Goodes has Aboriginal ancestry and no doubt understandably feels such insults more keenly than I think reasonable.

Still, he's widely admired, has been showered with almost every prize in footy, and was playing in the Indigenous Round honouring players of his background. What should one girl's abuse matter against all that?

Well, to Goodes it was so "shattering" the game itself "means nothing". No one in the TV commentary team, the police or the AFL seems to have dared treat it as any less catastrophic, no doubt for fear of seeming racist themselves.

I suspect the Indigenous Round also encouraged them to see the girl as a white racist caricature instead of just one very young teenager. So security marched her off, without even her Nan for support, as national TV beamed her face around the country.

Police then grilled her for nearly two hours - two hours! - even though she was immediately repentant.

Bravely, she offered to apologise personally to Goodes.

Now get this: police then asked Goodes if he wanted to press charges. Press charges? Against a 13-year-old who was clearly sorry and scared for what she'd unthinkingly blurted out?

Are people insane?

Goodes, at least, drew the line at that. But still it wasn't over. Goodes and AFL chief Andrew Demetriou held a media conference next day at which    Goodes declared: "Racism has a face. It's a 13-year-old girl."

Seriously? Goodes even said he felt like he was being bullied at school.

Excuse me, but in this confrontation - with Goodes, police, the media, the social media and the AFL on one side, and a 13-year-old girl on the other - it wasn't the girl who seemed the bully.

Perhaps Goodes realised, because he added: "She's 13, she's still so innocent. I don't put any blame on her."

No? Then why this public shaming?

Only later did Goodes take a call from the girl, who told him she was sorry. By then, the TV stations were rowing back a bit.

Replays of the incident belatedly blurred the girl's face, though she's since been named, and Channel 10 interviewed her saying how ashamed she was.

To repeat: This girl is only 13. This bullying of her is a scandal.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/girl-13-was-rude-but-shes-not-the-bully/story-e6frg6n6-1226650913020

[i-need-a-martini]

Is it racist if i'm called white trash by an aboriginal person? If yes, what do you all suggest I do about it?

Freddie - if your were a (white) public figure playing a sporting match in a public event and someone called white trash by someone from a non-anglo culture I suspect the news would have picked this incident up in much the same way.

Although of course, calling you white trash doesn't quite have the same deep meaning as it lacks the historical connotations that calling a black person an 'ape' has.

[i-need-a-martini]

I also don't see that the girl is being bullied to the degree CSers seem to imply. The media seems to be chasing her as usual and her mother appears to have pushed her into the spotlight somewhat. But the majority of people seem to have accepted her claim that didn't know what she was saying and a significant proportion are taking her side.

Unfortunately she seems to have a gaggle of bogans taunting her on FB. They are probably the same kind of bogans that troll peoples memorial FB pages by posting disgusting comments cause they think it's funny.

Most of the media talk appears to have centred on the issue of racism in sport and of our indigenous people in general. And that's a topic well worth discussing.

[freddie*rooster]

Freddie - if your were a (white) public figure playing a sporting match in a public event and someone called white trash by someone from a non-anglo culture I suspect the news would have picked this incident up in much the same way.

Although of course, calling you white trash doesn't quite have the same deep meaning as it lacks the historical connotations that calling a black person an 'ape' has.

No Martini, this was in reference to my OH, who is a white employee, who was racially abused with racial comments on a weekly basis, all because he carried out the required procedure attributed to his employment when a customer shop lifted, entered the premises under the unfluence, or acted in an agressive manner. He wasn't out on a football field earning top dollar, and this racial abuse didn't come from 13yr old girls.

[cherples]

Interesting article here

Goodes' critics way off mark

GREG BAUM             May 28, 2013             

There are apes, and there are apes. From one white man to another, ''ape'' mostly is a moderate, if unimaginative insult. Between friends, it might also be a rough endearment.

From a white person to a black person,  ''ape'' is more pejorative by far. It is freighted with centuries of treatment as a sub-species, of oppression and subjugation, and in this country, of a history that began with near genocide, withheld constitutional recognition until 1967 and that leaves indigenous Australians still  among the most disadvantaged in the nation.

It is not the word itself that cuts to the quick, but the attitude it entrenches.

The fact that the offender says she was unaware of the racist overtone of what she said makes it more important to address it, not less. It means the racism she gave voice to is deep-rooted, a peer legacy. It comes from us.

I've watched at play pre-schoolers from vastly different backgrounds, who by their words and actions show that they see not the slightest difference between one another, not even in appearance. It is adults who, mostly unwittingly, teach that there is difference, and worse, constructs of superiority and inferiority.

The idea that Adam Goodes needs to harden up is absurd. Firstly, it is a critique mostly made from a flabby armchair.

Secondly, Goodes was not whimpering about a shirtfront, or losing, or being dropped.

He was protesting the fact that racism exists at all in football, and had manifested at the beginning of a round set aside to celebrate the progress football has made in combating it and to reset the vigil against it.

It would have been easier for Goodes to laugh it off, or pretend not to have heard it, or perhaps reacted violently against it, as black men on and off the sportsfield were expected to do since forever.

Instead, he dealt with it. He hardened up all right.

The young woman caught in the centre of this drama seems to understand all the hurt that the exclamation of a single thoughtless word can cause. The sad thing is that a vocal and hysterical minority still does not. With any luck, she will fade graciously into the backdrop again now. But they will not relent.

There are apes, and there are their Darwinesque descendants.

[catsnknots]

I don't think it is racism..... getting a bit sick of everything being a racist thing.. 

However... I think the girl was wrong because it is wrong to call people names... why did she call him a name??? To upset him.. well it worked and probably backfired. 

One reason my kids hated doing sport was because of all the name calling and bullying that went on both on the field and off the field. 

I even worked with a lady that was a coach for a kids touch football team, under 13 or something like that....  She was discussing how a new kid had joined and she was going to take great delight in making this kid do extra laps of the oval because she hated this kids father... 

I told her it was because of bullies like her that other kids make bullies of themselves and think it is ok... 

[donnashuggy]

It's all food for thought, but why is everyone bullying Margo? 😄

The world has gone mad Freddie

Having said that T Abbott seems to display anti women tendencies!

[nicnacs_4u]

Speaking of  the collingwood football club, president Eddie McGuire has opened his  big mouth and put his foot in it with another could be racist remark this morning...silly man you would think he would have more brains than to say what he did especially at this time..idiot IMO!!

[not_an_eloi]

is smart mouth of aboriginal-identified descent

would put goodes view of the insult in a different perspective.

[nicnacs_4u]

is smart mouth of aboriginal-identified descent

would put goodes view of the insult in a different perspective.

wow it`s you again♥♥

[mugssy65]

I believe Eddie is from Irish immigrant parents....but I could be wrong?

Hi Nic.