Carlton Supporters Club

I guess if you are one of the best indigenous football players to ever play the game and yet are still confronted with being called racist names by fans whenever you run out on the field, and even by the boss of the largest sporting club in Australia on his radio show, you might think differently about it being a pretty good place.

Quote from: deags – on November 13, 2014, 08:50:16 pm

I guess if you are one of the best indigenous football players to ever play the game and yet are still confronted with being called racist names by fans whenever you run out on the field, and even by the boss of the largest sporting club in Australia on his radio show, you might think differently about it being a pretty good place.

Point taken about the personal attacks he has endured but I would have thought his job as Australian of the year was to unite Australians...not divide them

While I think Captain Cook often gets bad press - his feats of navigation should be admired by all - school children being taught that he 'discovered' Australia is wrong and divisive.

Aboriginal Australians discovered Australia at least 60,000 years before Cook and they were followed by Melanesians, Macassans, Portuguese, Dutch and even William Dampier saw Australia before Cook.

It's a complicated issue but, for the original Australians, recognition of their long history in our land by those who came later is an essential element of a united Australia.  Goodes, as an Aboriginal person in a position of influence, has no option but to promote a more balanced view of our continent's history.

There are many countries that have their native people far worse than we do in Australia.

I just wish he said it like you did and it didnt come out as bitter and with a petty edge to it.

Quote from: ElwoodBlues1 – on November 13, 2014, 09:21:28 pm

I just wish he said it like you did and it didnt come out as bitter and with a petty edge to it.

I'm speaking as an informed yet dispassionate observer EB.  Goodes is living it and probably finds it hard to speak about it without his feelings getting in the way.

Some of my Aboriginal colleagues could discuss these issues superbly, but they were educators/administrators/bureaucrats, not footballers.  Put Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton, etc in that role and they would be able to express their views in a more inclusive way.

Quote from: Mantis – on November 13, 2014, 09:14:28 pm

There are many countries that have their native people far worse than we do in Australia.

True Mantis, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to be the best (or let the Kiwis show us up).  It's not that hard to acknowledge that the First Australians have a long history that predates the arrival of Europeans.

I guess if you are one of the best indigenous football players to ever play the game and yet are still confronted with being called racist names by fans whenever you run out on the field, and even by the boss of the largest sporting club in Australia on his radio show, you might think differently about it being a pretty good place.

Quote from: deags – on November 13, 2014, 08:50:16 pm

I guess if you are one of the best indigenous football players to ever play the game and yet are still confronted with being called racist names by fans whenever you run out on the field, and even by the boss of the largest sporting club in Australia on his radio show, you might think differently about it being a pretty good place.

An now he gets booed on the footy field. Pure racism.