Goodes and booing

[ScottH]

I was just going by the news from the radio. They made it sound like it was a special one.
They mentioned that we may find out more about Goodes.

The most talked about footballer in the country, Adam Goodes, may return from personal leave to play against Geelong this Saturday night.

Sydney Swans coach John Longmire will hold a press conference on Monday afternoon.

Longmire has been reluctant to give a time frame for Goodes? return, saying only that the player was ?mature enough? to know when he was ready.

Adam Goodes may return to football this weekend | The New Daily

[O'Reilly Boy]

Adam Goodes may return to football this weekend | The New Daily

The word I heard (reliable source) on Saturday was that he will play this weekend.

[dejavoodoo44]

I'm just thought that I'd paste another brief article by Guy Rundle from behind the Crikey paywall. Unfortunately I didn't get around to reading it last Friday, which is unfortunate, as the last line contains an observation that I think is a very relevant point.




"The Goodes stuff. The whining, needy bull@@@@ that the anti-Goodes camp has come out with this week is dispiriting in a manner distinct to settler-capitalist countries -- a toxic mix of white self-congratulation, easy hurt and then playing the victim. It is something more than unpleasant for Goodes, all indigenous players, and well, anyone indigenous. But as a set of social symptoms, it's a goldmine. Magic water man Paul Hansen weighed in on Wednesday, completing the circle to a degree. It was Sheehan's late '90s classic Among the Barbarians that started a lot of this off -- the claim by highly paid culture-class professionals like Sheehan, Bolt, etc that they somehow "represent" the masses. Sheehan makes clear what everyone knows about the people who make up such a self-selecting crowd -- that their great passion above anything else is self-pity.

Football as played or watched is play and release, an expression of human freedom. Imagine the energy and focus, the self-abnegation it takes to spend the afternoon instead booing one man every time he gets the ball. That's hard work, but if they must, they must, they tell themselves. It's an envy/gratitude, half-empty/half-full type thing. People -- and whole social classes -- go through life thinking either that life is something where success breeds success, or it's a zero-sum game, and what you have, I don't. The former is gratitude, the latter envy, as an original position, which shapes how you live life. The booing crowd are envious. They want Goodes to show gratitude to them -- gratitude being a quiet, "good Aborigine", happy to get a game -- and when he doesn't their envy goes through the roof. The booing is essentially the exhaust feature of it. If that part of the crowd returned to a position of gratitude -- watching the game and simply enjoying the players' skills, without feeling the need to annihilate one of them -- they would all disappear in a puff of smoke .

That "what about me" reversal was perfectly expressed by the mother of the young girl Goodes reported, and later spoke amicably with. She thought Goodes should apologise and that would "make him a better person". The girl herself is unfussed and getting on with her life. Of course. Because she had already apologised and had it accepted, and is still a person-in-progress, not a lump of resentful scar tissue like some of the adults around her. Is that the greatest absurdity of all this? That the girl herself has renounced the act that others are still willing, in their thousands, to defend on her behalf?

No. The greatest and most vicious absurdity is that in the week after everyone was billing and cooing over To Kill A Mockingbird, a black man can still be targeted by the mob for having contact with a young white girl."



So, while it isn't possible to keep up with all the stuff that has been written on the issue, I think that this is the first time that the controversy has been put into this context (well I mentioned it in the comments section of another site, but I'm not sure if I count?). That is, why have the privileged media rightards, Jones, Bolt, Price, Devine, etc, been increasingly framing this as an issue of Goodesy doing a thirteen year old girl wrong? Could it be that they are deliberately flaming the fans, by placing it in the terms that have a launched many a lynch mob in the past? That of a large adult black man, threatening one of our innocent young women.

[stevoswan]

This just on ABC News website; "Adam Goodes will return to Sydney Swans training on Tuesday after taking time off following continued booing from opposition supporters.

Swans coach John Longmire says Goodes was overwhelmed with the support he received across the nation last weekend." Great news, let's hope he feels up to playing this weekend.....

[ScottH]

The word I heard (reliable source) on Saturday was that he will play this weekend.

Very reliable!!

[erica]

FINALLY, a statement from Mike Fitzpatrick:
Mike Fitzpatrick statement on Adam Goodes - AFL.com.au

[Bloodthirsty]

I bet anyone any money that everytime Goodes gets the ball this weekend at Simmons, he will be cheered raucously. Whether this is driven by respect or whether it is sarcastically disingenuous to sidestep the issue on a technicality (cheering is the new booing etc), I can't say yet.

[rojo]

If he was going to play on, Adam had to come back this weekend (he needs to keep up his game fitness if he is going to be worthy of selection) but I was sort of hoping it would be the next weekend at the SCG where it could have been another all-out celebration and therefore less exposed to those few (I hope) who have a counter point to prove, the ugly 'boouns' and haters. Still in coming back he was going to have to face up to opposition crowds sooner or later. Hopefully after the support shown across the board last Saturday he will be better equipped to shrug off any further malicious stuff and it will never again be like it was in Perth.

[DLBIA14]

FINALLY, a statement from Mike Fitzpatrick:
Mike Fitzpatrick statement on Adam Goodes - AFL.com.au

The man has been goaded into speaking.

And doesn't his statement just drip with so much sincerity.

[Margo]

The man has been goaded into speaking.

And doesn't his statement just drip with so much sincerity.

somehow makes it about himself ?? menace ??

[CureTheSane]

Chip Le Grand, Patrick Smith and Keven Bartlett are all having a go at the AFL Commission for their weak stance on the Goodes booing. Smith said Vlad would have handled this with his usual iron fist, not this wishy washy group that doesn't even know racism when it hits them in the face. The clubs and the players, those that actually play the game, made it very clear what they think. Gillon & Co. have been left behind still wondering what's happening. Not in the least surprised from the folks that brought you the trading ban.

http://www.sen.com.au/news/07-15/pat...oodes-response

Wishy washy is a very opt description of Gillon's 'leadership' all-round

[dimelb]

Caroline Wilson gives further disturbing news about GM's "leadership" and how the AFL operates.

I particularly noted this bit:

McLachlan has told some club chiefs that there are those at the AFL who believe that Goodes has largely brought this booing upon himself. He has also told other club bosses that some other club chairmen blame Goodes for the booing and don't believe it is racist.

Read more: A golden chance slips for AFL

What drongoes like this are running AFL clubs?

[Margo]

Caroline Wilson gives further disturbing news about GM's "leadership" and how the AFL operates.

I particularly noted this bit:

McLachlan has told some club chiefs that there are those at the AFL who believe that Goodes has largely brought this booing upon himself. He has also told other club bosses that some other club chairmen blame Goodes for the booing and don't believe it is racist.

Read more: A golden chance slips for AFL

What drongoes like this are running AFL clubs?

He'd be talking about Eddie here.

[AnnieH]

Eddie's silence is deafening.

Before the game last Friday night, of course, the Fox panel had to talk about the media attention.

Eddie went all red in the face and squirmed a bit before saying that it was wrong to boo Adam.

I suppose it's hard to talk when your mouth is full of humble pie.

[jono2707]

I expect nothing less than a dreadful show from the Collingwood supporters in a couple of weeks time at the SCG. This who sorry affair started with the character assassination of Adam following the MCG incident in 2013 and I doubt many in that mob have changed much since (girl's mum being exhibit A). Eddie's done basically nothing to help the situation and few Pies supporters would be capable of forming a decent view on the situation.

I hope they prove me wrong but I'm already bracing myself for the boos and abuse from Pies supporters on Friday week. Of course we'll be ready for it.....