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Source: (consider it) Thread: Calling People Apes
Kaplan Corday
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I know that we have had interminable threads on racism and language in the past, but I feel an urge to post this for therapeutic reasons.

Like Elihu, "I am full of the matter”, and need to get it out of my system.

On Friday, there was a football match here in Melbourne (Australian football, the real football to which soccer, rugby, grid-iron etc feebly approximate) in which which an Aboriginal player at one point called the attention of security and police to a thirteen year-old girl in the crowd who had called him an “ape”, and the girl was immediately and publicly escorted from the stadium.

She has since apologized.

The incident has received huge publicity in the media, but I have mixed reactions to it.

For a start, there is no justification these days for any adult to engage in deliberate racial vilification by referring to a black person using any sort of simian terminology, and we have all been sickened by footage of chanting soccer crowds (or sections thereof) doing so to black players in Europe.

That being said, the following considerations arise.

First, is it always wrong to use such terminology?

After all, it is quite common to abuse someone by calling them a monkey, gorilla, baboon or whatever, and in fact there is an elderly white former champion Australian footballer who has always been known as The Chimp.

Secondly, it raises again the current trend for the principle of freedom of speech to be sacrificed to mere hurt feelings, and dangerously confuses the immoral (racist abuse) and the illegal.

In fact, authorities stated that the girl only escaped prosecution because of her age!

Thirdly, and following on from the previous point, we seem to be losing the plot when a thirteen year-old girl can be treated in such a heavy-handed manner for just venting her feelings, in however a non-PC manner, at a football match.

Fourthly, and again following on from the previous point, it would seem that there is far more potential damage to the girl from being singled out by a famous player and marched out by security in front of a crowd of tens of thousands and TV cameras, and then appearing in the TV news bulletins and newspapers, than any damage which might have been caused to the player by a comment which was heard by only himself and the onlookers in the girl’s immediate vicinity.

To do the player credit, he stated that he did not want the girl punished, only educated, but that is not going to stop her life being appallingly disrupted, and the player, as an adult, should have realized that before he self-indulgently over-reacted to her comment.

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Gramps49
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In my opinion, a thirteen year old should have known there are consequences to such language. If she choses to use those words, she got what she deserved.
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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
First, is it always wrong to use such terminology?

After all, it is quite common to abuse someone by calling them a monkey, gorilla, baboon or whatever, and in fact there is an elderly white former champion Australian footballer who has always been known as The Chimp.

Relevance of this to the long-standing use of "ape" as a racial slur would be .... ????

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Stetson
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I agree with you, Kaplan, on the free-speech issue. I'm pretty much libertarian when it comes to that sort of thing.

However, public reaction is a different matter, as there is no legal right to receive warm fuzzies in response to your every utterance. Nor is there a legal right to stay on someone else's property(which is what a football stadium is) after you've said things that tick them off. On that note...

quote:
Thirdly, and following on from the previous point, we seem to be losing the plot when a thirteen year-old girl can be treated in such a heavy-handed manner for just venting her feelings, in however a non-PC manner, at a football match.


I dunno. If it was a 13 year old boy who looked like this, getting kicked out of the local mall for shouting racial slurs at black people, would anyone be saying "Aw, he was just venting his feelings in a non-PC manner, no need to be so heavy-handed about it"? I think the general attitude would be "Well, ya act like a racist jackass in a privately owned space, ya get kicked out. Welcome to the adult world, kid". I personally would not worry too much about the long-term effect on the jerk's emotional development.

Now, granted, in my sceanrio, it might not provoke the kind of media reaction that occured in Australia, because no one is paying much attention to what goes on at the local mall. But still, the girl knew she was attending a widely watched public event, so she should have foreseen that there might be some blowback for shouting racial slurs in that milieu.

[ 26. May 2013, 04:04: Message edited by: Stetson ]

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I dunno. If it was a 13 year old boy getting kicked out of the local mall for shouting racial slurs at black people, would anyone be saying "Aw, he was just venting his feelings in a non-PC manner, no need to be so heavy-handed about it"? I think the general attitude would be "Well, ya act like a racist jackass in a privately owned space, ya get kicked out. Welcome to the adult world, kid". I personally would not worry too much about the long-term effect on the jerk's emotional development.


Yes, I see your point, but we usually cut a bit of slack for comments (repulsive though we might find them) uttered on the spur of the moment at an excited atmosphere such as a football match, which we would not tolerate if they were spoken elsewhere.

Just to get away from race for a moment, football spectators get away with yelling comments about the sexual proclivities of players' mothers, but if they made a considered choice to go to a shopping mall and randomly address passers-by in such terms, they would be evicted or arrested.

Also, it is not clear whether the girl realised the racial associations, in today's culture, of calling the player an ape.

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Gramps49
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Also, it is not clear whether the girl realised the racial associations, in today's culture, of calling the player an ape.

Oh, I am sure she realizes it now.

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Golden Key
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White person calling a person of color an "ape"? Especially when it's intended as an insult? Always wrong.

I don't know what the girl intended. Maybe the situation could've been handled in a more low-key way, particularly since adult sports fans often hurl all sorts of abuse at athletes.

But what she did was wrong.

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Amos

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I wonder what the girl expected when she shouted the insult. In my experience, when people shout things out at sports events they generally hope for the approval of the people sitting around them in the stands. For them to join in is the height of approval. Then you have fifty people shouting 'Ape!' and a warm glow in the heart of the person who first had the idea to do it.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
I wonder what the girl expected when she shouted the insult. In my experience, when people shout things out at sports events they generally hope for the approval of the people sitting around them in the stands. For them to join in is the height of approval. Then you have fifty people shouting 'Ape!' and a warm glow in the heart of the person who first had the idea to do it.

That would quite likely have been the case in the past, but for years now the Australian Football League has pursued a zero-tolerance policy on racist abuse which adults, at least, understand.
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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
First, is it always wrong to use such terminology?

After all, it is quite common to abuse someone by calling them a monkey, gorilla, baboon or whatever, and in fact there is an elderly white former champion Australian footballer who has always been known as The Chimp.

Relevance of this to the long-standing use of "ape" as a racial slur would be .... ????
The Chimp was so called because he was genuinely believed to look like a monkey.

As a friend to whom I was speaking at church this morning pointed out, the Aboriginal player in question as quite long arms, and if he were white, there would be no problem in someone's calling him an ape.

This raises the issue of whether it is in fact racist to refrain from insulting a black player in a way in which you might readily insult him if he were not black.

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Gee D
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English motoring magazines used refer to the seating in Italian cars as being suitable for the Italian Standard Ape - long arms to the steering wheel, short legs to the pedals. Even in the 70s, this was offensive.

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Mili

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To add to the story this weekend is the Indigenous round, which focuses on the input Aboriginal players have made to AFL footy and highlights the importance of reconciliation. So to yell a racist comment during this round is even more significant than usual. The minority of people with racist attitudes probably think it is unnecessary and unfair that there isn't a 'white players round'. Apparently another Collingwood supporter has been caught yelling at the umpires about favoring the Aboriginal players because it is the Indigenous Round (but not the Aboriginal players on his side of course).

I agree this incident will probably have a bad affect on the girl's life, but there is a zero policy on racism at AFL games and everyone knows it. The game was nearly over and Goodes' team, Sydney, was easily beating Collingwood so the comment was not made in the heat of the moment - the girl was just angry at Goodes because he was one of the best players on the ground.

The girl has since spoken to Goodes and apologised. She probably didn't realise the impact her comments would have. Goodes had been bullied for his appearance and race at school so may have reacted more heatedly than otherwise, however he left it up to security to deal with and may have not realised they would kick a thirteen year old out of the ground.

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Barnabas62
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Looks like it may have been a "growing up" experience for the 13 year old girl, then?

Thinking about whether the insult is racial or not takes us back to a time when it was quite normal for some human beings to be regarded as subhuman because of their race. More akin to other primates than human. Hard for us to believe that's what many folks thought in the past, but it is so. "Lesser breeds under the sun" and all that. The kind of thinking which rationalised the slave trade and other kinds of discrimination as well. It's rightly seen as obnoxious and wrong-headed today, but relatively normal then. And there are still hangovers of that in the minds of some folks today.

That's the problem with "ape" or "chimp". For someone of Caucasian origins, there isn't a problem - clearly it's about how hairy you are or how long your arms are. It's different if you belong to a race which has been classified historically as subhuman. It changes the nature of the insult, doesn't it?

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Boogie

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quote:
Originally posted by Mili:

The girl has since spoken to Goodes and apologised.

And so she should. Hopefully all the publicity this is getting will move attitudes in a positive direction too.
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Cod
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Another way of putting the question is: is it OK to use such terminology where no racial implications can be drawn?

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anoesis
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Just a couple of quick responses to particular bits below.

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
...it raises again the current trend for the principle of freedom of speech to be sacrificed to mere hurt feelings...

We don't actually know whether the player's feelings were hurt - we won't unless he chooses to tell us. We do know that the AFL has been clear about the unacceptability of such things. Perhaps he 'merely' thought these principles should be upheld when reporting the incident.

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
..we seem to be losing the plot when a thirteen year-old girl...

I'd just like to reiterate what Stetson said above - what if it had been a thirteen year-old boy? Any different?

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
...can be treated in such a heavy-handed manner for just venting her feelings, in however a non-PC manner, at a football match.

So do you think the comment was really likely to be reflective of her feelings? If so, somebody was going to let her know how unacceptable they were sooner or later. Sad that the parents seem not to have.

Or - do you think the comment was more in the line of something

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
...uttered on the spur of the moment at an excited atmosphere...

- in which case would we be prepared to cut Goodes some slack if he had responded by walking over the the sideline and telling her she was a nasty little s**tstick who should stay at home until she had learned some manners?

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
To do the player credit, he stated that he did not want the girl punished, only educated, but that is not going to stop her life being appallingly disrupted, and the player, as an adult, should have realized that before he self-indulgently over-reacted to her comment.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think you are giving the player any credit at all by calling him a self-indulgent over-reactor. It sounds a bit like you think he is the one at fault in this scenario. I cannot agree.

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quetzalcoatl
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What a bizarre thread. It's a racist comment. End of.

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lilBuddha
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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
To do the player credit, he stated that he did not want the girl punished, only educated, but that is not going to stop her life being appallingly disrupted, and the player, as an adult, should have realized that before he self-indulgently over-reacted to her comment.
Self-indulgently? Bit of a push there, isn't it? Initial over-reaction you might have a case for, but self-indulgent? Not so much.
In my experience, 13 year olds know what they are saying. It is control they lack, not knowledge.
12 is when I encountered real racism for the first time, and those little buggers knew what they were saying.

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Palimpsest
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So we understand that that Kaplan thinks it's perfectly fine for 13 year old girls to shout terms of racial abuse at players who are members of groups with a long history of being oppressed.
To enforce the rules of behavior required by the league is an appalling disruption of the girl being able to shout abuse in the heat of the moment and it's an appalling over-reaction and still worse "politically correct" and a disruption of traditional football loutish behavior that Kaplan cherishes.


So sad.

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the giant cheeseburger
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I would recommend everyone read the transcript from Adam Goodes' press conference which makes his intentions to educate instead of condemn very clear.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Fourthly, and again following on from the previous point, it would seem that there is far more potential damage to the girl from being singled out by a famous player and marched out by security in front of a crowd of tens of thousands and TV cameras, and then appearing in the TV news bulletins and newspapers, than any damage which might have been caused to the player by a comment which was heard by only himself and the onlookers in the girl’s immediate vicinity.

I think the decision of her mother to seek out the attention of the media yesterday afternoon was regrettable. If it had been left with just the girl being embarrassed at being seen to be ejected from the match, heckled by the crowd as she was escorted out and humbled by having to apologise it could have just been used as a teachable moment, yes an embarrassing one but still just a moment that could be learned from instead of anything permanent. Indeed, Adam Goodes (a man with a considerable reputation for advancing Reconciliation and education about racism in Australia) did explain to her on the phone why this was an insult which is very offensive to Indigenous Australians.

If it had been left there and a short statement issued by the AFL confirmed an apology had been accepted a line could have been drawn under incident. However, her mother then sought out publicity from the media and now we all know her name, there's a good photo of her in the papers and on the web (as opposed to a brief shot on TV of her being ejected where she's not clearly identifiable) and there's no chance of it being completely left in the past from the public point of view - down the track a future employer will Google her name and these media stories will come up.

When they go through the court system in any capacity in Australia, minors have their identity suppressed from publication for very good reason.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In fact, authorities stated that the girl only escaped prosecution because of her age!

When was this said? I heard last night that they did not consider prosecution purely because Adam Goodes requested that they not prosecute.

I think that the shame of the incident (getting ejected, causing out of the ground) should have been enough of a lesson without any prosecution, but I would not object if the victim of abuse like that did choose to press charges or request a life ban from that venue. In my opinion Adam Goodes made the right call, and a courageous one at that, to use this as a teachable moment for both the perpetrator and for the nation as a whole. It is also good that his leadership in this has been respected by the police, the Australian Football League and the opposition club Collingwood.

As I wrote above, I think the only people who have handled this badly after the incident is the girl's mother who decided to seek the media's attention, and the mass media which seized upon her stupidity in going public as a good opportunity for a story.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
This raises the issue of whether it is in fact racist to refrain from insulting a black player in a way in which you might readily insult him if he were not black.

When an insult has a long history of having been used by one group against another as a racist slur, the answer is no. It's all about power, not about the actual content.

quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
In my opinion, a thirteen year old should have known there are consequences to such language. If she chooses to use those words, she got what she deserved.

I agree, but the key word is should which you quite rightly used instead of will. While Nicky Winmar (a former AFL footballer of Indigenous Australian heritage) confirmed it was good it was a single naïve teenager instead of the thousands of fans he took a stand against 20 years ago, I agree that this incident shows that there is still some way to go in education about racism in Australia, especially in the consistency of it so it reaches even the stereotypical outer suburban white trash.

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Patdys
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Cheesy,
quote:
I agree that this incident shows that there is still some way to go in education about racism in Australia, especially in the consistency of it so it reaches even the stereotypical outer suburban white trash.

Does not your second half of the statement demonstrate your first half. Or is my irony meter broken?

And I support the girl's eviction. But not the following evisceration.

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the giant cheeseburger
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I'm not a Melburnite (hate the wretched grey concrete jungle) so I don't know if the white trash in some parts of Melbourne are real and a majority, real and a minority, or just a stereotype. That's why I was careful to point out I was referring to the stereotype and not endorsing it as my view of reality.


But come on, we've all heard the jokes about Collingwood fans before.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
So we understand that that Kaplan thinks it's perfectly fine for 13 year old girls to shout terms of racial abuse at players who are members of groups with a long history of being oppressed.
To enforce the rules of behavior required by the league is an appalling disruption of the girl being able to shout abuse in the heat of the moment and it's an appalling over-reaction and still worse "politically correct" and a disruption of traditional football loutish behavior that Kaplan cherishes.


So sad.

What is sad is that you are either incapable of understanding plain language or determined to mischievously misreport it.
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fletcher christian

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Why is it deemed to be acceptable to shout any kind of abuse at all at football players? I don't recall abuse being hurled at any of the competitors during the Olympics.

[ 26. May 2013, 08:48: Message edited by: fletcher christian ]

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
Nicky Winmar (a former AFL footballer of Indigenous Australian heritage) confirmed it was good it was a single naïve teenager

Naive is the operative word.

I can't believe the pharisaical judgmentalism which was directed against her in the first instance, and is now being wallowed in on this thread.

Yes, she did the wrong thing, and of course we have to learn from our mistakes as we grow up, but how many of us would have thought it appropriate to cop that sort of treatment for the sort of stupid and mindless things we said or did when we were that age?

If Goodes had simply told her she was a shitwit (as suggested upthread) and that he was offended by her comment, that would have been enough.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
"Lesser breeds under the sun"

There is a theory, which I think originated with Orwell, that Kipling was in fact referring to the Germans, whom he he regarded as arrogant ("such boastings as the Gentiles use....").
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quetzalcoatl
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These things tend to be contextually determined, don't they? In the UK, I think any racial slur in a football ground will get you marched out of the ground, and probably arrested. But you can call the referee a wanker of a twat, and nobody will turn a hair. In parts of Europe, racist chanting seems to be permitted still.

The hot issue in the UK is gay players - will they be able to come out? I'm not sure that I would trust the football crowd to resist homophobic slurs.

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the giant cheeseburger
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If Goodes had simply told her she was a shitwit (as suggested upthread) and that he was offended by her comment, that would have been enough.

No, because he's an upstanding leader in the Indigenous Australian community who wouldn't stoop that low to get in an ugly confrontation.

Being ejected from the ground made it a "shit, I must have done something really bad to have even my fellow Collingwood fans being that angry at me" moment. A hot-tempered reply from Goodes would have made it a "he's picking a fight with me" moment and allowed no realisation of wrongdoing.
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I don't recall abuse being hurled at any of the competitors during the Olympics.

Was your TV not working during the Olympics? Not during, for example, Anna Meares' winning ride when she was heckled by the parochial British home crowd?

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SusanDoris

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Immediate reaction on reading the OP - I think I would blame the parents for the fact that she has reached that age and has not learnt that to use the term in a derisory and insulting way is not even remotely allowable.

The word 'ape' used in a discussion of evolution and species is a different matter altogether.

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SusanDoris

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From what the giant cheeseburgersays, it would seem that the mother is out to gain media attention and perhapsthinks this will give her some kind of fame? Sad, if so.

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Anglican't
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
English motoring magazines used refer to the seating in Italian cars as being suitable for the Italian Standard Ape - long arms to the steering wheel, short legs to the pedals. Even in the 70s, this was offensive.

I've always fancied an Italian Ape, I think they look cute. But we digress.

I'm not Australian, but can't see how calling an Aborigine an 'ape' can ever be justified (and would've thought that any thinking 13-year old Australian would know this).

[ 26. May 2013, 10:40: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

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Stetson
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Kaplan:

Good point about the limitations of my stadium/shopping mall comparison. But the basic argument still stands: No one has an inalienable right to be in a privately owned space, and the managers of said spaces are well within THEIR right to enforce certain standards of behaviour.

And, reading that it was the girl's mother who first got this hyped into the media pretty much tells me where the blame for any humiliation should lie. At first, I thought maybe the press had found out on their own that she was ejected, and then blew the incident up to sell papers and clicks.

However, it would appear that it was the family who were looking for a public scrap, and, well, now they've got one.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If Goodes had simply told her she was a shitwit (as suggested upthread) and that he was offended by her comment, that would have been enough.

No, because he's an upstanding leader in the Indigenous Australian community who wouldn't stoop that low to get in an ugly confrontation.

Being ejected from the ground made it a "shit, I must have done something really bad to have even my fellow Collingwood fans being that angry at me" moment. A hot-tempered reply from Goodes would have made it a "he's picking a fight with me" moment and allowed no realisation of wrongdoing.

No.

She would have been used to footballers getting abused by the crowd all the time in all sorts of ways, and to their responding to it as water off a duck's back.

If he had responded forcefully and personally to that particular comment, and let her know that he was offended by it, the shock would have been sufficient to make her realise she had crossed a line, but she would have been spared all the added complications which could dog her for years - and which, incidentally, would have happened despite her mother's involvement.

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ken
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
"Lesser breeds under the sun"

There is a theory, which I think originated with Orwell, that Kipling was in fact referring to the Germans, whom he he regarded as arrogant ("such boastings as the Gentiles use....").
Dunno what Orwell was thinking then, because that line is not from Kipling [Razz]

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
In the UK, I think any racial slur in a football ground will get you marched out of the ground, and probably arrested.

Yes, if someone hears it and complains.

There is a certain amount of ambiguity.

The ubiquitous "You dirty northern bastards" doesn't attract the attention of the authorities. (though it confuses Reading and Watford when Brighton fans use it against them).

Someone got off in court from calling Gillingham fans "pikies", but they did go to court.

A 13-year old Millwall fan was banned from going to matches for saying that the Bolton player Marvin Sordell looked like a fish. Sordell complained that it was racist. At the next Millwall away game at Bolton some of the fans took inflatable fish toys or fish-shaped balloons and threw them about a bit and sang" Marvin Sordell, he looks like a fish". I don't think anyone was kicked out for that.


"Monkey chats" along the lines of "oooh! oooh! ooooh!" can get fans ejected from stadiums when used against black players. But fans are also in the habit of chanting their favourite players names. And there is probably no way to chant or sing about Danny Shittu that doesn't sound rude to someone or other.

quote:


But you can call the referee a wanker of a twat, and nobody will turn a hair.

Pretty much. "Cunt" is common too.

quote:

The hot issue in the UK is gay players - will they be able to come out? I'm not sure that I would trust the football crowd to resist homophobic slurs.

They already do, lots. Its one of the more common kinds of insult used by football fans against players. Casting aspersions on manhood in general, anyway. I suspect that nearly every away crowd will use pretty foul language against Brighton. Millwall fans regularly chant "you take it up the arse" against Crystal Palace (and sometimes other teams) and the song seems to be spreading.

As for the OP, obviously calling the man an ape is racist. And you'd have to be a pretty stupid 13-year old not to know that.

Personally, I think people should be allowed to call people whatever they want. So there ought not to be a criminal law controlling such things.

But on the other hand people who run football grounds (ot theatres or restaurants or any other places of entertainment) also have the right to say what behaviour they expect from their customers. And footballers, like any other workers, have the right to expect that their working conditions will be as safe as reasonably possible.

So yes, kick her out of the stadium. But leave it there.

[ 26. May 2013, 12:05: Message edited by: ken ]

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fletcher christian

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The Giant Cheesburger:
quote:

Was your TV not working during the Olympics? Not during, for example, Anna Meares' winning ride when she was heckled by the parochial British home crowd?

It was, I just didn't watch it.
But the question still stands - why should they have to put up with it at all?

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Penny S
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I had a look to see what angle the mother had in going to the media. She doesn't seem to have grasped the problem herself. (Though with her surname should have had some insight into the effects of name calling.) But what was really eye opening was the letter from the girl to Adam Goodes. On a page torn out of a notebook, and in handwriting and with a style which I would have seen as not the best from the eight year olds I taught. He was absolutely right about her need of education.
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Boogie

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quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I had a look to see what angle the mother had in going to the media. She doesn't seem to have grasped the problem herself. (Though with her surname should have had some insight into the effects of name calling.) But what was really eye opening was the letter from the girl to Adam Goodes. On a page torn out of a notebook, and in handwriting and with a style which I would have seen as not the best from the eight year olds I taught. He was absolutely right about her need of education.

Hopefully all of this has been an education for them both.
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Penny S
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See letter.
Media account of apology

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If he had responded forcefully and personally to that particular comment, and let her know that he was offended by it, the shock would have been sufficient to make her realise she had crossed a line

No, that's really not how racists operate. It would have got her back up, and she would be blaming that dirty black ape for not being able to take a joke.

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Sylvander
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At first I thought this was a thread about Charles Darwin...
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But you can call the referee a wanker of a twat, and nobody will turn a hair. In parts of Europe, racist chanting seems to be permitted still.

Football stadia see a plethora of insults. I recently went to a traditional local derby where a player of the victorious home team at the end took the official announcer's microphone and made the crowd dance and chant: "Köln, die Scheiße vom Dom" (Cologne - the crap from around the Cathedral).
Should we outlaw the disgusting language on football terraces?
If so, why single out racist insults? Can someone explain why insulting someone over their ethnicity is worse than insulting them in other ways? Insults for being gay or being ugly or bald or wearing spectacles - a big one when I was a child - are just as bad manners but not punishable. Logically the same standards would have to be applied to protect everybody from group-related insults (although I also don't understand why these would sting more than individual ones, but for sake of comparison let's take only the group-directed insults).

The distinction of immoral and illegal is indeed the key point in all this.

Do we want a society where more and more immoral acts become illegal and perpetrators are put in the (digital) cutty stool for life (the internet does not forget)? Or is the cure worse than the disease? The law is a blunt hammer to build a decent (let alone a good) society and when wielded too generously it easily becomes an instrument of terror in the hands of the virtuous and the self-righteous.

[ 26. May 2013, 14:01: Message edited by: Sylvander ]

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the giant cheeseburger
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I had a look to see what angle the mother had in going to the media. She doesn't seem to have grasped the problem herself. (Though with her surname should have had some insight into the effects of name calling.) But what was really eye opening was the letter from the girl to Adam Goodes. On a page torn out of a notebook, and in handwriting and with a style which I would have seen as not the best from the eight year olds I taught. He was absolutely right about her need of education.

Hopefully all of this has been an education for them both.
I doubt it. That letter looks very much like "sorry I got caught Mr Goodes, look everyone I said sorry aren't I wonderful!"

I would like to know what the mother did that warranted her including the Collingwood Football Club in her list of apologies though, since it was the opposition club which had player verbally assaulted.

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quetzalcoatl
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Sylvander

I would think it's because certain prejudices such as racism and misogyny are seen as so destructive of the body politic, and so potentially dangerous, that they become subject to legal restrictions.

There is also a historical aspect - many Europeans are aware that it's not that long ago that they were in charge of various imperiums, which reduced black people to the status of slaves or servants. These attitudes die hard.

[ 26. May 2013, 14:06: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
The distinction of immoral and illegal is indeed the key point in all this.

Kicking someone out of a stadium =/= arresting or ticketing them for breaking the law. Stadium rules are not the law. As has been noted above, owners of private property are allowed to set conduct rules which guests must follow to be allowed to remain. That has nothing to do with "illegal" -- you are blurring a VERY thick line.

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Moo

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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
"Lesser breeds under the sun"

There is a theory, which I think originated with Orwell, that Kipling was in fact referring to the Germans, whom he he regarded as arrogant ("such boastings as the Gentiles use....").
Dunno what Orwell was thinking then, because that line is not from Kipling [Razz]
Kipling's phrase was 'lesser breeds without the Law'. It must be interpreted in the context of the preceding lines
quote:
If, drunk with sight of power we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe
Such boastings as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law.

The 'lesser breeds' were people who were boasting. This was certainly not true of the residents of those nations ruled by the British. It was true of the Germans.

Kipling was revolted by the self-congratulatory tone of those celebrating Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. 'Recessional' is an expression of his negative views.

Moo

[ 26. May 2013, 14:12: Message edited by: Moo ]

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Sylvander
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
The distinction of immoral and illegal is indeed the key point in all this.

Kicking someone out of a stadium =/= arresting or ticketing them for breaking the law. [...] That has nothing to do with "illegal" -- you are blurring a VERY thick line.
Really? Apparently the lass escaped prosecution (either for age or because player requested it).
Furthermore the debate is not just about this one case, is it? Race is indeed a legally relevant issue these days, e.g. for determining the gravity of an offense or an insult etc.

Tangent: In German even using the word "race" would be regarded as racist language!

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Sylvander
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
The distinction of immoral and illegal is indeed the key point in all this.

Kicking someone out of a stadium =/= arresting or ticketing them for breaking the law. [...] That has nothing to do with "illegal" -- you are blurring a VERY thick line.
Really? Apparently the lass escaped prosecution (either for age or because player requested it).
Furthermore the debate is not just about this one case, is it? Race is indeed a legally relevant issue these days, e.g. for determining the gravity of an offense or an insult etc.

Tangent: In German even using the word "race" would be regarded as racist language! I sometimes slip here because I occasionally think English and don't switch fast enough.

[ 26. May 2013, 14:19: Message edited by: Sylvander ]

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
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quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
The distinction of immoral and illegal is indeed the key point in all this.

Kicking someone out of a stadium =/= arresting or ticketing them for breaking the law. [...] That has nothing to do with "illegal" -- you are blurring a VERY thick line.
Really? Apparently the lass escaped prosecution (either for age or because player requested it).
Okay, point ceded. I forget other countries don't have our freedom of speech.

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the giant cheeseburger
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# 10942

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Do you not have offences such as 'breaching the peace' or similar though?

Your freedom of speech might not be quite as free as it says on the label.

[ 26. May 2013, 14:49: Message edited by: the giant cheeseburger ]

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Gramps49
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Teenagers are remarkably resilient, while this 13 year old learned a very harsh lesson, it is a lifelong lesson. She has a good chance to turn the experience around. Who knows, she may become an advocate for minorities as a career.

Besides, a year from now no one will remember this story.

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lilBuddha
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I hope they do remember, as it is not an isolated incident.

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