I don’t know. I just have a gut feeling this mentality typifies what is wrong with the world or at the very least wrong with some bizarre sub group of Australians
Adam Goodes is an Australian of the Year – to me a man who actually stands for something
Should not expect our sport stars – our heroes – anybody in the public eye – anybody in fact to just ‘suck it up’ when somebody says something or does something vile?
We seem quite happy to forgive footballers who throw punches in bars when some idiot says something stupid but when a very special man takes a stand the right way he is persecuted.
Having watched football from the sidelines, seen some pretty nasty things happen even at schoolboy games and sat in too many hospital emergency rooms with family members I must admit football of any code has lost its appeal to me.
The last game I started to watch I walked away from before the kick-off – after the disgraceful crowd behaviour during the 1 minute silence for Ron Clarke
I hadn’t watched the Adam Goodes indigenous celebration dance that apparently polarised the nation until today
Seriously Australia – we got upset about this
When I watch our young people booing in the stands for whatever reason it saddens me that parents think encouraging this type of culture is setting a good example.
To me Adam Goodes actions when he identified the young girl in the crowd was a wakeup call fro parents that this type of behavoir ishould not be tolerated That it hurts and its wrong
Please Australia stand up for what is right. I am with Jeremy Stanford on this one
This is where our country is at. White society is still so removed from our Indigenous brothers and sisters that when Lewis Jetta and Adam Goodes perform a war dance in a game of football we can only see division. We can’t embrace it like the Kiwis embrace the haka before a game of rugby. It becomes a threat because it’s not a version of what white players have traditionally done and therefore it’s unacceptable. It’s a statement.
When I saw Goodes perform his dance for the first time I was dazzled. Rather than just lining up at the start of the game and honouring the concept of an Indigenous round, this man had actually treated us to some culture.
It broke my heart that it caused controversy rather than deliver enchantment. It meant that we couldn’t truly turn the Indigenous round over to the indigenous players, we had to lend it to them on the condition that they behaved like white players. Sound familiar?
Tom Wills is widely attributed to be the father of our game. As a kid growing up in western Victoria he learnt Marngrook with the local Indigenous kids and even spoke their language. It’s inconceivable that some of the game we play now doesn’t derive from that childhood experience, but it’s denied in our official story of the game.
To me this is telling. As a culture, we still haven’t learnt to embrace the Indigenous one. It’s still separate. We’ll give on our terms, appreciate on our terms, but when it’s not on our terms, we turn on it.
I’d be happy to see every Indigenous player from now on perform the war dance every time they kick a goal.
Cartoon Source
Some reflections from around the nation – We all know and admire the Haka why not one of our own
Some sobering thoughts from Stan Grant here
