Play Nice Indigenous AFL players call out Adam Goodes's treatment ahead of The Final Quarter documentary release

[kickazz]

Finally watched it.


The Good (of the movie):

The part where Waleed Aly succinctly describes the whole issue, and in doing so rebuts the shallow "why aren't other Aboriginal players booed" argument. Really nails it I think.

Portrayal of Eddie McGuire. I think the movie paints him as he truly is. Not so much a bad guy but as somebody a bit out of his depth on these matters and not quite "getting it".

Stan Grant. I have a lot of time for him. I loved the bit where he said we need to let the likes of Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones ask the prickly questions, that perhaps many people want to ask anyway, but crucially follows up by saying WE HAVE TO ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THE ANSWERS.

Adam Goodes. It was good to see and be reminded that what he was saying and how he said it was not as provocative and aggravating as the media would have us believe.

Robbo's "I know more knuckleheads than you do" speech. He could have said that to any number of high profile, cloistered intellectuals on any number of today's society's issues. Really made a good point.

The Bad (of the movie):

Given it was pretty much the only original content, the little "dictionary definitions" they put in as framing devices were poor in that they were clearly made up and sometimes wrong.

I was at the game at Kardinia Park where both teams ran through the banner together. The movie would have you believe that the next thing that happened was a game the following week where Adam got booed. It completely left out the fact that there was conspicuously no booing in the KP game. I'm not trying to say this as a Geelong supporter wanting recognition for this, but I think a document that observed that different behaviour and questioned the circumstances leading to that night being different would have been constructive.

I recall the booing of Franklin in 2014 gf being worse, but not mentioned in this show.

In conclusion I think that especially after getting AOTY, Goodes felt a higher sense of duty on matters of reconciliation, and engaged on a quest upon to confront and start some difficult conversations. Maybe the backlash was bigger than he expected. Maybe his constitution's ability to deal with that was smaller than expected. Either way, I don't think he thought things would turn out this way and ultimately that made him very sad; not just about the direct abuse, but that as gallant as he was, he perhaps failed in his mission. That's kind what makes this really sad viewing.

 

[JackOutback]

People who claim Goodes spoke divisively or aggressively on issues of race need to take a deeper look at their motivations. The words on the page just don’t support those claims. He was at pains sometimes to be conciliatory, where he gets angry at past treatment of indigenous people, it’s based on simple facts and feelings of hurt. Some people just want to close their eyes and block their ears to the real conversation that needs to be had and only want their indigenous people to speak about how great everything is, when for plenty of them, it’s simply not.

 

[AndyLucimitis]

Massive exaggeration

Sucked in by Ian Darling's propaganda film which made it sound like Goodes had 100,000 angry rednecks roaring their disapproval at every match. The booing of Goodes wasn't even that loud by normal "boo" standards. Many of the games where he was booed, you had to really listen for it.

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The loudest boos for Goodes happened in the game vs West Coast: 10,000 of the 38,760 crowd AT MOST. In every crowd shot, you could hear the (loud) boos, but only see 2 or 3 people booing and 10-20 people smiling. Probably 6,000 or 7,000 people booing him that day. This was the absolute nadir of the booing and it came just a few weeks after the media frenzy surrounding his war cry at the small group of travelling Carlton fans.

Eagles fans around that time booed whenever the wind gusted. They booed every time someone in the crowd farted. The fortnightly Subiaco boos became a meme on Big Footy. Umpires would give the victorious Eagles an armchair ride, but still they'd get booed off ground at half time and full time. And we're supposed to believe it's the end of the world because these WA ferals booed an arrogant Swans knob just a few weeks after he kicked a goal, then shook his spear and baited the Blues fans.

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Goodes was also booed loudly in the 2014 game vs Essendon after knocking over a few Bomber opponents and receiving a free kick for diving. The documentary tried to portray this night as the beginning of the racist boos, but it was nothing of the sort. Just your typical rude loudmouth belligerent Bomber fans heckling the Sydney protected species for a few minor trangressions, which they also did to Roughead, Hodge, Franklin, Carey and every other opposition champ.

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Goodes was booed by a similar number of Hawthorn fans during the 2014 GF. 10k at most. WAY fewer people and much 'quieter' boos than those given to that traitor, Buddy Franklin. It was a happy crowd, by the way. Hawks had the flag in the bag and Hawk fans were in celebration mode and a few of 'em were giving it to Sydney's superstars. Nothing racial about the booing. The media condemned the "racist Hawk fans" afterwards which (IMO) just fanned the flames and made people boo Goodes more loudly next time we played Sydney at the MCG in 2015.

Sydney was Hawthorn's biggest rival by far after they beat us in the 2012 GF and used their COLA to pinch Buddy from us in 2013. Hawk fans HATED the Swans during this period - more than Essendon and Geelong - and Franklin and Goodes were Sydney's marquee poster boys. There was nothing sinister about the Hawthorn tribe giving it to a pair of stuck-up Sydney flogs. That's just standard tribal barracking from a real football club towards an enemy; something which is done all around the world.

Maybe a handful of racists were hiding under the cover of the crowd, but so what? Racist rednecks drape themselves in the Australian flag, so does that mean we should stop flying it?

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The handful of other games where Goodes was booed, it was very much by a small minority. e.g. barely 1000 Blues fans were at the SCG for the Indigenous round in 2015. Maybe a couple of hundred of these Blues fans AT MOST would've booed Goodes that night before he kicked that goal and charged at them with his imaginary spear.

Historical revisionism at it's finest to suggest Goodes was booed "relentlessly for 10-11 games by 20,000 - 25,000 people"
(unless you were saying 20-25k was the total number of people who booed Goodes????)

Most of the "noise" came from the media and people arguing about it online.
It's way out of proportion with the amount of booing that Goodes actually received.

I'm happy to stand corrected and say the 20-25K might have been exaggerated (it sounded like that) but by I stand by the term 'relentless' as in that last season (2015 ?) my memory is it grew legs and became worse with each game.

I think your use of sugar-coating terms such 'as a handful of other games' and 'small minority' of fans is just as much an exaggeration.

It was a BIG thing at the time. Not a minor thing. It was front page news and a damn embarrassment. I remember my young kids at the time asking why he was being booed and I had no answer.

I can probably accept people having a beef with Goodes and not agreeing with everything he did or the way he went about it - it's a free country.


But surely, after a number of weeks of this booing - and after the AFL and press came out against - surely any person with an ounce of civility - racist or not racist - would say 'OK - enoughs enough' !!.

Instead we had this 'wave' of hate that just escalated until he retired.



EDIT:- By the way - haven't seen the movie yet.

 

[romeohwho]

Migration is the very story of our species, with territorial control a transient construct. It’s like fleas arguing over which part of the dog they own. Right now, I’m an Australian and so with millions of others, Australian lands are “my” lands. The notion that I am not on my own land is neither reasonable nor factual.



Your stretch not mine. I chose my words carefully. You should have read them carefully.

Maybe but if your race has been in a land for 40,000 plus years, seems a pretty fair statement to me. Certainly it doesn’t bother me to be reminded ‘whose lands we are on’, especially when you consider that statement in context of the whole comment he made about a race of such long occupation not rating a mention in the constitution. Native title and land rights legislation would suggest a fair chunk of it is indeed indigenous land.
I read your words re the doco carefully, just thought that your explanation was inadequate.

 

[skilts]

Maybe but if your race has been in a land for 40,000 plus years, seems a pretty fair statement to me. Certainly it doesn’t bother me to be reminded ‘whose lands we are on’, especially when you consider that statement in context of the whole comment he made about a race of such long occupation not rating a mention in the constitution. Native title and land rights legislation would suggest a fair chunk of it is indeed indigenous land.
I read your words re the doco carefully, just thought that your explanation was inadequate.

I've always found the notion of anyone actually owning land to be preposterous, given we're all going to die.

 

[Forward Press]

I've always found the notion of anyone actually owning land to be preposterous, given we're all going to die.

 

[SSwans2011]

Portrayal of Eddie McGuire. I think the movie paints him as he truly is. Not so much a bad guy but as somebody a bit out of his depth on these matters and not quite "getting it".

Take this with a grain of salt because it's virtually impossible to substantiate, but heard from someone who went on Hot Seat that some of the stuff he said in the taping was so bad it was edited out of the final episode. Wonder if anyone has similar experience. Another bloke who went on and actually won (albeit not much) didn't think he was particularly bright either, and made mention of some stuff needing to be cut. It's all hearsay though.

For the record, I still think McGuire is well-meaning (to a certain extent at least), just not particularly bright.

 

[Forward Press]

I don't doubt that McGuire means well and genuinely loves football, and Collingwood, but for a long time media personality you'd think he'd know better by now. His career lives or dies on every word he says or types.

 

[SSwans2011]

I don't doubt that McGuire means well and genuinely loves football, and Collingwood, but for a long time media personality you'd think he'd know better by now. His career lives or dies on every word he says or types.

Bang on. Hard to sympathise with someone that clearly has the means to receive education on sensitive issues, but repetitiously makes stupid comments.

 

[Forward Press]

Bang on. Hard to sympathise with someone that clearly has the means to receive education on sensitive issues, but repetitiously makes stupid comments.

I thought that when even Luke Darcy (who we routinely mock for his cluelessness at times) was gobsmacked at Ed's King Kong comments you knew that it was a colossal faux pas.

 

[Kram]

I thought that when even Luke Darcy (who we routinely mock for his cluelessness at times) was gobsmacked at Ed's King Kong comments you knew that it was a colossal faux pas.

Mate, he was heavily medicated, give him a break!

 

[Monkey King]

Maybe but if your race has been in a land for 40,000 plus years, compared to a race that ‘invaded’ and has been in the land for 250 years, pretty clear who has greater right to make such a claim.

Like I said, fleas on a dog. Humans are but a recent addition to the story of how things grow and spread and evolve. When I look to human history, not much supports your concept of how territorial control works; and migration into new territory seems an almost biological process, human diffusion. I’d venture that for most Australians, this land was not the first or last migration our genetic chain will undertake.

The issue of whose land I’m on is sorted out by the system. Native Title is just the system of government apportioning parcels of land that it controls under its conditions. It’s the system that decides and distributes all the land. It’s the ultimate expression of territorial control.

So I don’t buy it. Just seems to me like a perspective that’s in denial of the reality that confronts it, as harsh and that reality may be.

I read your words re the doco carefully, just thought that your explanation was inadequate.

So you mischaracterised what I said on purpose then?

 

[clogwearer]

Like I said, fleas on a dog. Humans are but a recent addition to the story of how things grow and spread and evolve. When I look to human history, not much supports your concept of how territorial control works; and migration into new territory seems an almost biological process, human diffusion. I’d venture that for most Australians, this land was not the first or last migration our genetic chain will undertake.

The issue of whose land I’m on is sorted out by the system. Native Title is just the system of government apportioning parcels of land that it controls under its conditions. It’s the system that decides and distributes all the land. It’s the ultimate expression of territorial control.

So I don’t buy it. Just seems to me like a perspective that’s in denial of the reality that confronts it, as harsh and that reality may be.

Nope.

You're drawing on a millennial migration theory to justify a generational system.

And you're using that generational system to argue a racist narrative.

 

[Monkey King]

Nope.

You're drawing on a millennial migration theory to justify a generational system.

And you're using that generational system to argue a racist narrative.

Biology doesn’t care about your “race”. Genes migrate. Cells migrate. Organisms migrate. Viruses migrate. Humans migrate. Your very ability to harness a thought depends on the process of diffusion. It seems an almost intrinsic requirement of biology’s struggle against entropy. Being offended by this is like being offended by photosynthesis.

My observance of natural systems is to argue AGAINST a racist narrative. There is no racial variable in saying “I belong” to the territory in which I am born and occupy. Like zero. The comment can only become racialised when its validity is challenged on the basis of racial identity and racial identity alone. Could you have got it more backwards?

 

[romeohwho]

Like I said, fleas on a dog. Humans are but a recent addition to the story of how things grow and spread and evolve. When I look to human history, not much supports your concept of how territorial control works; and migration into new territory seems an almost biological process, human diffusion. I’d venture that for most Australians, this land was not the first or last migration our genetic chain will undertake.

The issue of whose land I’m on is sorted out by the system. Native Title is just the system of government apportioning parcels of land that it controls under its conditions. It’s the system that decides and distributes all the land. It’s the ultimate expression of territorial control.

So I don’t buy it. Just seems to me like a perspective that’s in denial of the reality that confronts it, as harsh and that reality may be.



So you mischaracterised what I said on purpose then?

Given that it’s commonplace, actually ‘the norm’ at many events in Australia these days to start with an acknowledgement of whose traditional lands we are standing on, then I presume most of us are okay to be reminded of that. Unless you just take exception to Goodes also reminding you, then I wouldn’t consider it an issue myself.
Re the doco, unless you have actually watched it, then nope, sorry but am not accepting your assessment of it.

 

[Monkey King]

Given that it’s commonplace, actually ‘the norm’ at many events in Australia these days to start with an acknowledgement of whose traditional lands we are standing on, then I presume most of us are okay to be reminded of that. Unless you just take exception to Goodes also reminding you, then I wouldn’t consider it an issue myself.
Re the doco, unless you have actually watched it, then nope, sorry but am not accepting your assessment of it.

I like officialdom’s gesture acknowledging the historical controllers of whichever territory, and that their ancestors continue to experience a connection to that land that might be described as ownership or custodianship.

Inferring ownership in a modern perspective though is just blatant pandering or over-reaching. So while I acknowledge, and indeed admire, that another person experiences the land in this way, that doesn’t mean I am, today, on their or their ancestors land. Sorry fellas, I’m on my land. Tell me I’m not and I’ll tell you to wake the **** up.

I didn’t make an assessment of the doco. You’re shouting at the clouds.

 

[ferball]

Just on remote Aboriginal Communities. My Aunt worked in Communities like this as a Nurse back in the early 70's and was dismayed to see recent footage of how little the living conditions of these areas have changed (this was about 5 years ago).

This is due to a lack of political will power. Long term solutions need to be put in place (which will not yield votes) and a lot of work out of the spotlight needs to be done as well (again this will not yield votes). And very little to do with racism (granted that is her opinion but she worked in these places).

For me using the label of "racism" and then the ongoing discussions that take place actually work against solving anything.

If you really want an equal society. Stop voting for the big two parties and bring about change (and accept the good with the bad when that happens). Would it not be better to be discussing which political groups have the better ideas to help us achieve a society that provides opportunities to all vs there was at least one racist that booed Adam Goodes ?

This is right on but personally I think there is a link between racism and a lack of political will to solve the problems.

Would it not be better to be discussing which political groups have the better ideas to help us achieve a society that provides opportunities to all vs there was at least one racist that booed Adam Goodes ?

Of course but this is modern Australia. Not gonna happen.

 

[ferball]

Migration is the very story of our species, with territorial control a transient construct. It’s like fleas arguing over which part of the dog they own. Right now, I’m an Australian and so with millions of others, Australian lands are “my” lands. The notion that I am not on my own land is neither reasonable nor factual.

This is an area of conflict. Not necessarily physical conflict any more.

 

[Mahlepi]

This is a football forum
It would be great if politics was discussed where it should be

Anywhere bar a football field

 

[ferball]

Not towards individuals per se, but there are definitely certain relational ambiguities that exist between races, ethnicities, sexes, political and religious alliances etc, where animosity is easily stirred up.

For example, I could state that indigenous Australians ceded their territory by virtue of their inability to defend it; in nature, an ordinary, almost expected occurrence. I wouldn’t be incorrect either, but unless I was wanting to tap into this existing animosity from those to whom this idea is not defined, it would be a tactless approach to any discussion.

Except they didn't cede it because that is a formal process and none of the formal processes associated with the transmission of British sovereignty were followed.

It will only be ceded properly upon the uptake of a treaty between ... well every indigenous nation still able to demonstrate some form of legal system and the federal government. (edit -) Or something representing them. The fact that has been a consistent indigenous position for decades supports the idea that blackfellas would actually cede sovereignty if they got a fair go as a result. If you did approach this discussion with that in mind and with some respect it probably wouldn't be as tactless as you suggest.

 

[ferball]

This is a football forum
It would be great if politics was discussed where it should be

Anywhere bar a football field

So we can keep discussing it here then and you'll be happy.

Cool.

 

[ferball]

Can you imagine when he finally takes the plunge and enters Australian politics?

We'll have more debates about racism every time someone criticises him.

Won't that be fun?

I know. Imagine how badly he'll **** up Australian politics. How will we cope?

 

[Mahlepi]

Except they didn't cede it because that is a formal process and none of the formal processes associated with the transmission of British sovereignty were followed.

It will only be ceded properly upon the uptake of a treaty between ... well every indigenous nation still able to demonstrate some form of legal system and the federal government. (edit -) Or something representing them. The fact that has been a consistent indigenous position for decades supports the idea that blackfellas would actually cede sovereignty if they got a fair go as a result. If you did approach this discussion with that in mind and with some respect it probably wouldn't be as tactless as you suggest.

It is what is
Would a bucket of cash sort this issue

Who do we write the cheque to

 

[ferball]

This is a football forum.
It would be great if politics was discussed where it should be:

Anywhere - bar, a football field....

Get to know punctuation, you could really make it work for you.

 

[ferball]

It is what is
Would a bucket of cash sort this issue

Who do we write the cheque to

It is what it is.

When China decides that paying for our resources is a pain in the arse and points out the failure of transmission of sovereignty, your descendents can try the same thing the black fellas have been doing for years.

And obviously buckets of cash wouldn't do much more than they've already done (but you could always find and pay up those decades of stolen wages and recent stolen royalties.)

The one thing that's never done, as this thread painfully illustrates, is actually listening to blackfellas. Is hearing what the people on the ground dealing with the problems actually think will solve the issue.