Racial Slur: The Role Of Racism In Australian Football

Have you ever been to an AFL game to watch your favourite team win but you hear all these racial slur? Well, I have and it just ruins the game for everyone, the crowd, the teams, umpires and commentators. This is why racism in AFL and everywhere else has to stop.

Do you know about the Adam Goodes incident when people were calling him an "ape". Adam Goodes said was "the problem is that children are not getting educated about racism. That is why it is such a big deal". Now racist behaviour and assumptions are now part of Australian football, alongside historical assumptions about what constitutes as Australian. In 2005, Goodes was announced as a member of the Indigenous Team of the Century, a selection of Indigenous Australians that have proudly represented AFL teams. He is a two-time Brownlow Medalist, a dual AFL premiership winner and was Australian of the Year in 2014. Only eight players have played more career AFL games than Goodes he is

The St Kilda player Nicky Winmar responded to racism from the stands by raising his shirt and pointing at his chest. Allegedly, the crowd had been reminding Winmar that, as an Indigenous footballer, he was one of them rather than one of us. Faced with a sea of hostile, Winmar effectively and eloquently displayed his pride in his skin colour. Sadly AFL supporters have a history of emphasising notions of difference by abusing Indigenous players. Yet it is only when Indigenous players refuse to accept such abuse and take a stand against it that the issue becomes highlighted and the players are criticised. Although the AFL became the first major Australian sporting code to outlaw on-field racial sledging in 1995, there continues to be too many shameful incidents of racial vilification by fans towards Indigenous AFL players. That Goodes has now been consistently booed by a variety of opposition fans for a sustained period of time suggests racial abuse may be an endemic