When I was six my dad, a devoted Geelong supporter took me to a football match. For the duration of play a grizzly old guy in front of us shouted obscenities at the players. When my dad asked him politely if he would mind moderating his language around his young kids he was told to shove it up his proverbial. My father never took me to another game, deeming the stands at a football match not an appropriate place for children.

I don’t think this incident influenced me negatively but it is fair to say I have no fondness for football.  Football season in Melbourne is about as interesting to me as if the entire city were mad for stamp collecting and discussion about stamp collecting peppered all social discourse. I do however now have an avid football fan as a son, and I am a footy mum, braving the cold and mud on Saturday mornings while my two boys enjoy Auskick. Perhaps this is the reason I have been following the news regarding previous Australian of the Year Adam Goodes’ sojourn from football.   Goodes has had it with people booing him, and is retreating from the game.

I want to put aside issues of racism for a while, although I will talk about that later. The fact that some commentators and football supporters think it is okay for Goodes to be booed en masse is outrageous. Much as I wouldn’t think it acceptable to be booed by the receptionist, or patients in the waiting room when I am at work as a doctor similarly it is not acceptable for Goodes to be booed at his job as a football player. Or, on the days when I am engaged in home duties, and take my three kids up to the grocery store (perhaps the hardest part of my work week) I would be most distressed if the man in the deli, or the lady behind me in line booed me. Booing is rude, unsportsman like and bullying. Unless my kids are intermitting their boos with cries of “he’s behind you” to a guy with a curly moustache in a pantomime then booing from my kids will not be tolerated.

As a mother, I was privately horrified when Goode’s publically shamed a 13 year old girl for calling him an ape at a football match.  While I know the word ape can be used with racist intent, in our house “monkey” and “little ape” happen to be terms of endearment.   At the time the story broke I had grave fears for the young girl in question and truly hoped her very public shaming did no significant psychological damage. I have no doubt my own kid, if he heard others use the term “ape” could very easily call it out himself to a footballer with no idea the term was racist.

For those of you however that don’t identify Australia as a racist society, you need to think again.  I don’t have a personal experience of racism for the simple reason that I am white.  As a doctor working alongside Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities I have witnessed institutionalised racism within the heath care system. One time when I called an ambulance for an unconscious Aboriginal lady I was abused by the ambulance officer for not just letting her “sleep it off”. The unacceptable inference being that an unconscious Aboriginal woman must be drunk. Another night as I drove to the hospital on call I came across an elderly Aboriginal lady wandering the streets in her nightgown.   I offered her a lift only to discover the hospital had discharged her from the emergency department at 1am. She was put out into the street in her nightie with no shoes and told to make her own way home. With no money she was expected to walk 3 km to her home. I took the lady back to the emergency department, told them to call her a cab and give her a cab voucher – once again, although the staff in question complied I was abused. I know my own, very white mother would never be treated the same way by either the ambulance or hospital.  So, if I as a white doctor have been sledged in my workplace for demanding the minimal level of clinical care for Aboriginal folk I can only imagine the real lived and breathed experience of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as they go about their daily lives.

Adam Goodes has a lived and breathed experience of being part of a marginalised ethnic group – one that has a shorter life expectancy and scores lower on almost every indicator of socioeconomic prosperity when compared to non-Indigenous Australians. He has crowds of predominantly white Aussies booing him.  The said booing crowds were particularly incensed when he broke into a spontaneous dance that demonstrated his Indigenous heritage.  Is it really any wonder that he is feeling racially vilified?

There will be many I’m sure that will be wondering why a white, footy adverse chick with a couple of kids is weighing into this conversation at all. I’m weighing in because of those kids. I’m weighing in because I want them to learn that the way they talk to people, on the sports field, at home and in a group matters. It matters to the person they are talking to, to themselves, and it matters to their mother.   For similar reasons I make it my business to expose them to Indigenous Australia. Although I’m not interested in footy, my kids are, and how people behave at the footy influences whether or not I send them to footy games.  If the footy is a place where crowds are going to boo Aboriginal players for displaying spontaneous cultural pride then I’m not going to send them. I’m weighing in because, whether the crowds at the footy are being racist or not, racism towards Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait people is both very real and completely unacceptable.

For Adam Goodes going through a personal journey that is being played out in the public arena I wish only positive things. I hope that he is surrounded by kind, supportive people and is receiving the love and care he needs.

To the regular readers of this blog, I seem to have departed from my usual theme, traveling with kids this week.  I promise I will be back to my regular staple of light, family fun soon.

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