For the benefit of his blood pressure, I’d suggest Mark Hamlin (Letters, NDL, July 30) should take his own advice and “get over” Adam Goodes as well.
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The real issue here is not Adam Goodes, but the ugly behaviour of the crowd.
Eighteen months of orchestrated booing directed against a single player is unsportsmanlike, undignified and draws attention away from the game. The AFL are right to ask the crowd to pipe down.
Sure you boo bad play now and again when you witness it, but what some people are doing now is carrying out a personal grievance against a single person, from the safe anonymity of a crowd.
It is cowardly bullying and harrassment, and we wouldn’t expect anyone else in their workplace or other context to just “put up with it”.
Well might we wonder why this bullying and harrassment is directed against an Australian of the Year who represented his culture by doing an Indigenous dance during an exhibition match in the AFL’s Indigenous round.
For it reveals far more about some people in the crowd, not Goodes, that they see an “ape” instead of an Australian of the Year and great athlete.
As for the girl who called him an “ape” — as soon as he realised her age, Goodes was a gentleman and actually arranged to have a personal discussion with her the following day. It emerged a positive experience for both and they both learnt something from having a respectful exchange of views.
But Mr Hamlin is simply mistaken if he thinks that this all boiled over because of a single incident.
As an Indigenous man, Goodes had already endured a lifetime of racially-motivated abuse against him. No matter how great his achievements on or off the field, he’d still cop the bad calls from random, anonymous cowards every time he took to the field.
After copping all that, I’d say Goodes has a far thicker skin than Mr Hamlin, who seems terribly upset about one single speech that Goodes made when he became Australian of the Year.
Instead of telling an Aboriginal player to “shut up and play footy”, it just might be worth listening to what the Australian of the Year actually had to say.
Mercurius Goldstein
Glen Innes