Undoubtedly you are reading this article because of the header.
I guess it was a trick I learnt early in my life as the daughter of the famed tabloid journalist Brian Hogben, whose daily mantra when he edited the Daily Mirror newspaper was “Well we beat the Sun (the Mirror’s opposition newspaper) by 150,000 today”. My dad had a propensity for splattering large black type all over a front page with a headline that screamed at you.
A bit like this one really.
But why would I write a headline like this one? One that will surely cause me incredible problems with all of my friends being insulted and everyone inevitably telling me what they think of me personally as a result?
Its because it is quite true.
I actually started writing this article before I had heard that Eddie McGuire, who has had a long career as a television presenter and a long association with Australian Rules Football and is a very public Australian figure, had taken up where the thirteen year old girl of my previous post had left off.
McGuire, simply put, made more disparaging references to Adam Goodes the Aboriginal player who was subjected to a racial taunt by a thirteen year old girl football fan. McGuire runs the Collingwood (Magpies) football club of which the girl is a supporter.
Now I am not a fan of Eddie McGuire but as the president of the ‘Pies he was the first person to formally apologise to Goodes after the incident involving the racial slur. To me and most of the general public that gesture appeared to mean McGuire was truly sympathetic to the “No Room For Racism” campaign that has been recently initiated by sports bodies across Australia.
In fact, to many, McGuire might appear innocuous and indeed has fallen over himself to declare he meant no harm to Goodes when he continued the racial slur. In a scene that sounded reminiscent of the famed Fawlty Towers episode “The Germans” where the character played by John Cleese was adjured to “not mention the war” McGuire dug himself deeper into the hole of insulting behaviour.
This blog was to be about core racism. Thats the notion that if you vilify someone in someway and then scuttle away to apologise for it…how many times have you heard the phrase, ‘Oh I can say that (the insult) because my best friend is a ____’ You can fill in the blanks here with Aborigine, Muslim, Indian, Jewish, Chinese or Gay….that its still racism.
Fortunately for me today McGuire has illustrated the point perfectly. As has Delta Goodrem (The Voice) and Darryl Summers (Hey Hey Its Saturday) in the past. Both of these latter examples seemed to think that someone dressing up in ‘blackface’ was completely acceptable harmless fun in Australia even though the antecedents of this practice have a particularly nasty and sometimes violent association in America. Does that mean if you are black in Australia then you are not meant to be offended?
According to Mia Freedman however its all “batshit crazy” to think anyone would be offended by such harmless fun. Bit like McGuire implying that he thought it hilarious that Adam Goodes should do publicity for King Kong three days after one of McGuire’s Collingwood fans called Goodes an “ape”.
Oh such jolly japes to be had if you are white in Australia.
Until people stop and actually think about what it is they mean when they make any kind of disparaging comment about another human being then we will be living with racism forever. Until public figures actually COMPREHEND what it is they are presenting to people as acceptable then we will be doomed to repeat the atrocities of the past.
And until we can rid ourselves of the temptation to say something that we must predicate with ‘Oh some of my best friends are…” then we can’t possibly be rid of racism.
Todays photo is a cat photo. Its the first one ever. They are black and white though and it doesn’t seem to make a difference to them….
Lisa Hogben Photojournalist 
I have to add this… while I don’t advocate violence I reckon Sam De Brito has nailed it….http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-men-are-liars/getting-real-about-racism-20130529-2nb9h.html
I read your article with interest and while I agree with much of what you said, I believe that the problem is far more complex than you appear to suggest; or maybe I’ve simply misunderstood you. And if that’s the case, I apologise in advance.
I am a Scot and although I have lived in Australia for almost half a century, I still speak with a noticeable accent. During my time here, I’ve occasionally had to put up with mockery of my people both at the personal level and as a third party observer. The Scots accent is often mocked, usually badly and often in ignorance of the fact that there are many different accents in Scotland. Scots are often stereotyped as hairy savages (as in Braveheart); and as drunken oafs. And the Scots are often portrayed as mean spirited, narrow-minded, penny-pinchers. How often do you see TV ads where the idea that a product will save you money is conveyed by casting the beneficiary as a Scot? But you know what, none of that really bothers me because in most cases, it displays only ignorance on the part of the purveyor; and sometimes not even that.
I was warned about the Australian phenomenon of “stirring” long before I set foot on these shores; and most of the time, the stereotyping and mocking of the Scots is just that, “stirring”. And I’ve learned over my half century in Australia that the best way to deal with it is to give as good as I get. But every now and then, the comments ride on a wave of malice and the “stirring” stops being good-natured banter and reveals itself as racial vilification; and to that, I take exception.
Now, I know Scots who get upset whenever our people are disparaged; and that’s their prerogative, I suppose. But when I heard Adam Hills tell his story about the man who collapsed at the Edinburgh Festival, I split my sides laughing because it was very funny, including the accents (and more than one, I hasten to add); and I felt sure that there was no malice towards the Scots intended. We all have our idiosyncrasies, some of which are personal, and others cultural; and it does us good sometimes to take a step outside of our cultural haven and “see oursels as ithers see us” like the Scots bard, Robert Burns, suggested. But where this relates to your article is that it shows there are two variables at play here: the first involves knowing where to draw the line between harmless “stirring” and racial vilification; and the second is that the line is not in the same place for everyone.
I am not prepared to make judgements in the recent cases of racial vilification that you covered in your article. I really don’t feel qualified to talk about those specifics. Racial vilification is wrong, and hurtful, and divisive; and we as a society should be vigilant in identifying it and eradicating it. So maybe, in looking for the silver lining here, the Eddie McGuire incident, whilst being damaging to an individual who did nothing to deserve it, will serve to bring this issue to the attention of the broader public, demonstrating how blatantly nonsensical acts of racial vilification are. And I’d even broaden that to cover any form of vilification on the basis of age, or gender, or sexual orientation, or race or colour, or whatever differentiates us in a way which is genetic and therefore beyond our control. And don’t get me started on the perversion of religions to justify violence and hatred. But we have to be careful not to use vilification as an excuse to factionalise society. We mustn’t react to it by perpetrating further wrongs. After all, we don’t want to see gangs of Scots roaming the streets, beating up anyone who isn’t wearing the kilt, do we?
Excellent reply XPat… specially the bit about those gangs of Scots roaming the streets!….
I think what the point is here is the intention behind the behaviour of people like McGuire, Goodrem and of course the thirteen year old girl…Quite obviously calling someone you don’t know an ‘ape’ is insulting in any fashion… the fact that it was used in the context in which it was used is a heinous breach of intelligence and etiquette… and McGuire carrying on with the theme… well apart from being blindly stupid when it was obvious Goodes and ALL Aboriginal people felt insulted and shamed… was arrogant and ignorant of how this behaviour might affect people who have been continually derided and oppressed and called words like ‘ape’ as derogatory terms…It is ignorant in the extreme for someone like McGuire not to understand this… he is a public figure and his behaviour reflects the culture around him…
“Stirring” is quite a different matter… it implies shared viewpoints and an intimate understanding of anothers boundaries and limits…
“Stirring” becomes quite another thing when someone holds the whip hand… in this case a young white girl calling a grown black man an ‘ape’ is about as derisory as you can get…The fact that McGuire tried to create a joke from the whole thing is just disgusting…
And people like so called journalist Mia Freedman whose worldly experience seems to revolve about being “the great white hope” of teenage girls acne problems weighing in on the issue of racism with the assertion that it is “batshit crazy” to think “blackface” is not funny, shows she also has not taken the time off advising said teenage girls to educate herself in the actual meaning of “blackface”. If she had she may just be horrified to learn that it has a similar historical meaning to black fellas as the Nazi Swatztika has to Jewish people.
I have heard so many people use them phrase “Oh I was just stirring them” when really it was bullying behaviour… This term so often cloaks racist behaviour…
When people don’t realise what they are saying it simply shows themselves up as ignorant and stupid but when they don’t even acknowledge that what they have said is hurtful because it is inherently racist then the crime lies in the fact they are being cruel. And if the insult is based on something that has historical meaning to a particular group of people then that cruelty is racist.
And here is an even more poignant explanation given to me by a proud Gomeroi woman Walbira Murray…
“Offend means 1. To cause displeasure, anger, resentment, or wounded feelings in.
2. To be displeasing or disagreeable to. So, how does someone else get to decide if feelings have been hurt or not, if someone has been angered or not, been displeased? Surely it is those who are hurt who get to define that, not the offender?? To decide what offends someone, particularly is when it comes to perceived racism is perhaps one of the most glaring and obvious signs of white privilege me thinks..” Walbira Murray