hsquid
Person
North Melbourne - 2024 Bella Eddy Player Sponsor
North Melbourne - 2024 Hugh Greenwood Player Sponsor
Veteran
North Melbourne - 2023 Ailish Considine and Bella Eddy Player Sponsor
North Melbourne Season 7 - Bella Eddey and Vicki Wall Player Sponsor
North Melbourne - 2023 Aaron Hall and Flynn Perez Player Sponsor
North Melbourne - 2022 Aaron Hall and Flynn Perez Player Sponsor
North Melbourne - 2022 Kaitlyn Ashmore and Aileen Gilroy Player Sponsor
Today the club released this statement about it's position on January 26. It includes indigenous perspectives. Aboriginal and torres Strait Islander flags, and no Australian flag.
Let's keep the our discussion of explicit, implicit and perceived club related ethical/political/principled positions in this thread. It's absolutely valid for people to care about the stand the club takes on everything from Australia/Invasion day, to pokies, the Huddle, promotion of women's footy etc. But let's not have those discussions hijack thread after thread with repetitive griping that's no fun for anyone.
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This statement is the sort of thing - like the position on pokies - that makes me most proud of the club. Celebrating the day that one group of people arrived and started obliterating another is an anachronism and underlies a mindset in which one kind of people - the anglos - are somehow the 'real' Australians whose experience is more important than others.
More fundamentally, I believe it's right that the club should have a view. Some will say that 'sport and politics shouldn't mix", but this approach is almost always a excuse to look the other way when something bad is happening. Values of care and inclusion are not just morally correct, they're the foundation of effective collective functioning. They are not things you can credibly turn on and off, which is why the community work the club does, the anti-pokie stance, the support for women and is not mere virture-signaling - it's the natural result of actually having values and living them.
I understand that others will disagree with this approach, but the nature of believing something is that you act on it without waiting for everyone to agree. Unfortunately, waiting for unanimity in the supporter base would mean never taking a position. This is the common stance of many corporates and other clubs. Someone looking for this will have no trouble finding a home. But in my view it is cowardly, it uses social polarisation as a cover to not do the right thing.
So I'm extremely proud of my club for it's stance. Just as it "welcomed refugees" on the banner to many years ago. If this means we self-select the fans to those who feel the same, that's much better than settling for the same fence-sitting bland corporate cr@p you can find anywhere else. It's a huge reason the club is special and why I am going to enjoy numbers 6, 7 and 8.
Let's keep the our discussion of explicit, implicit and perceived club related ethical/political/principled positions in this thread. It's absolutely valid for people to care about the stand the club takes on everything from Australia/Invasion day, to pokies, the Huddle, promotion of women's footy etc. But let's not have those discussions hijack thread after thread with repetitive griping that's no fun for anyone.
--
This statement is the sort of thing - like the position on pokies - that makes me most proud of the club. Celebrating the day that one group of people arrived and started obliterating another is an anachronism and underlies a mindset in which one kind of people - the anglos - are somehow the 'real' Australians whose experience is more important than others.
More fundamentally, I believe it's right that the club should have a view. Some will say that 'sport and politics shouldn't mix", but this approach is almost always a excuse to look the other way when something bad is happening. Values of care and inclusion are not just morally correct, they're the foundation of effective collective functioning. They are not things you can credibly turn on and off, which is why the community work the club does, the anti-pokie stance, the support for women and is not mere virture-signaling - it's the natural result of actually having values and living them.
I understand that others will disagree with this approach, but the nature of believing something is that you act on it without waiting for everyone to agree. Unfortunately, waiting for unanimity in the supporter base would mean never taking a position. This is the common stance of many corporates and other clubs. Someone looking for this will have no trouble finding a home. But in my view it is cowardly, it uses social polarisation as a cover to not do the right thing.
So I'm extremely proud of my club for it's stance. Just as it "welcomed refugees" on the banner to many years ago. If this means we self-select the fans to those who feel the same, that's much better than settling for the same fence-sitting bland corporate cr@p you can find anywhere else. It's a huge reason the club is special and why I am going to enjoy numbers 6, 7 and 8.
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this again. Enough for one day
