Racist or not?
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| Was Sam Kerr's alleged remark Racist? |
| Yes |
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68% |
[ 11 ] |
| No |
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6% |
[ 1 ] |
| Don't Know |
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6% |
[ 1 ] |
| DILLIGAF |
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18% |
[ 3 ] |
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| Total Votes : 16 |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| slangman wrote: | | People who try to add subjective caveats on what is or isn’t racist are a real danger. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. |
David is just talking commonsense; that's inherently how all language works - forever, always, since the first Neanderthal grunt. Call Donald Trump whatever you like and it has zero impact. Have your boss call you the same and you're likely to be taken aback.
She gobbed off in anger. We've all said dumb things, especially when lashing out or embarrassed. Sometimes dumb stuff comes out of your head from times yore as memories are triggered. Whatever; apologise, say you were dumb and a bad example given your status in the sport. Move on.
And while it's a mistake, you can bet her dad copped a bit as an Anglo-Indian playing in the WAFL. And you can easily see her and Daniel being abused growing up either because of their part-Indian heritage, or because all three of them were mistaken for being Aboriginal, and sadly as a consequence copping one of the nastiest forms of racism on the planet. Imagine her dad playing in the WAFL in the 1980s, FFS!
Add to that the general public abuse and stereotyping as a lesbian footballer, and you really don't know what was on her mind.
At the same time, the cop himself might have been on the wrong end of some idiotic political correctness himself, or even just trying to underscore the importance of racism or trying to uphold the perception of fairness, which is fair enough. He also does a godless job dealing with tools all day, so if he was just doing his job and nothing more he is owed a good sorry, too. I also give cops more leeway than most because their job is ridiculously difficult and stressful, despite known systemic racism and biases in representation (which I think is an organisational phenomenon with a mind of its own reflecting society, so I don't go hard at the police except for obviously bad stuff).
You are hereby sentenced to travelling the Seoul subway for one week with a book of Korean insults directed against Miguk saram (American people) in hand. And no, like Stui I was bemused, not offended, because I got it.
Here's someone in an Aussie law journal:
https://lsj.com.au/articles/sam-kerrs-alleged-comments-may-have-had-a-racial-element-but-they-were-not-racist/
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | | If a White cop in England took offence at being called White, he has to have skin like tissue paper. Maybe it was the Bastard comment that upset him, the Poms can be twitchy about that whereas to Aussies it's basically a term of endearment. |
That's possible, too. I've never tested it publicly! There are definitely nuances here that make some words sharper than Aussies expect.
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^To add to the above, I just noticed her dad also played in the SANFL and won a premiership with Port in 1988, while her mum's family were sports people! Crikey, that's some sporting credentials between them.
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What'sinaname 
Joined: 29 May 2010
Location: Living rent free
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Is he’s right when he said people shouldn’t be offended being called a monkey on the football field too.
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nomadjack
Joined: 27 Apr 2006
Location: Essendon
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| I don't have any doubts or misgivings about calling it a racist comment. Yes, structural factors may determine how impactful the comment is on the person on the receiving end, but underplaying the comment or trying to redefine its nature as some on 'the left' have done doesn't do anyone any favours. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| What'sinaname wrote: |
Is he’s right when he said people shouldn’t be offended being called a monkey on the football field too. |
Yeah, he only gets one stopped clock moment every twelve hours – he maxed out his quota halfway into the article!
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| nomadjack wrote: | | I don't have any doubts or misgivings about calling it a racist comment. Yes, structural factors may determine how impactful the comment is on the person on the receiving end, but underplaying the comment or trying to redefine its nature as some on 'the left' have done doesn't do anyone any favours. |
I acknowledged it as such in my first post in this thread, but I also don't think that that's the conversation-ender that some here think it is or want it to be.
Unlike some (perhaps most) on the left, I do think that racism in its purest sense exists regardless of power differentials, and that it is possible for, say, a black person to feel categorical prejudice against white people much in the same way a white person might feel categorical prejudice against black people. I think we overlook something innate in the human psyche and culture when we deny that, or seek to explain it away as being justified or politically unproblematic when the subaltern does it.
I also think that the orthodox left-wing understanding of why racism is harmful – and why it matters – is basically true, and that (to offer another example) it'd be absurd to talk about "heterophobia" in the same breath as homophobia or "able-bodiedism" in the same breath as ableism. In those dynamics, it's much easier to understand any reverse-prejudice as being primarily a function of power dynamics. Racism is a little bit different as there are various imaginable cultural contexts (including within white-majority societies) in which anti-white racism might have a similar mentality and impact to racism against minority ethnicities, so I grant some greater complexity there, much as I do for misogyny/misandry.
What I recoil against, and what perhaps many on the left over-adjust in response to, is the transparent motivation behind much of this discourse from the right, which is basically a gotcha exercise: "admit to this being racist without qualification, or else you're a hypocrite." And we all know that right-wing culture warriors love nothing more than exposing left-wing hypocrisy. I suppose leftists could do a better job of not playing into their hands. But then, the whole thing is a pretty annoying distraction to begin with, and I think most normal people regardless of their political orientation can see that this specific case is a storm in a teacup.
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What'sinaname
Joined: 29 May 2010
Location: Living rent free
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You're sounding a bit like the Harvard President that said racism needs context.
Simple questions - racist or not? And leave it at that.
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Fighting against the objectification of woman. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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I guess that's what I'm saying: they're not simple questions, and we can't afford to leave it at that (at least, if we actually care about the issue of racism at all).
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
There's racist remarks and then there's racism. 3/4 of Kerr's family is white, just her paternal grandmother and family are Indian. Her partner is white, most of her team mates are white. She's clearly not racist.
Apart from her being pissed, we don't know the circumstances surrounding the alleged comment, what provoked her to make such an out of character remark.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| What'sinaname wrote: |
Is he’s right when he said people shouldn’t be offended being called a monkey on the football field too. |
If you're a peasant in the outer at a DRC league game in Kinshasa Stadium abusing some corrupt government official who's walked onto the pitch to hand out an award, sure. The idea that some kid who's copped it all his life has some great power advantage because he's paid well as a footballer is nonsense. But even if he doesn't care and thinks he's Lord Muck, what it means to everyone else still matters because it's a public event.
General deterrence is part of law, which is also why Sam needs to apologise to the cop and cops generally if he was just trying to do his job. Her mistake has broader implications, though again unless you're a nutter you don't hang people on a single mistake like that. Leftist crazies who do the same when a mistake runs the other way should similarly be chastised, which of course is very different from dealing with serial racists.
It seems like three-quarters of every discussion now is in reference to fractional extremes rather than consequential problems. Trump and MAGA are a problem because Trump's vying for powerful office in the superpower nation, and controls an entire party in a two-party system. If he stuck in his lane - just another big-mouthed attention seeker selling steaks and reality TV shows - no one would care.
But Sam Kerr making one mistake she'll likely avoid like the plague from here on? FFS, people, deploy some standards of rationality and proportion.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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To explore the other side of the argument, would your view change if that weren't the case (i.e. if she felt totally justified in saying it at the time and continues to feel that way with the benefit of hindsight)?
Not that I place all that much stock on them anyway, and of course the court proceedings would be preventing her from doing so, but to my knowledge there's been no public apology or acknowledgement from her regarding the incident; also, most of the coverage outside of the usual right-wing suspects in the Murdoch press has mostly been supportive, so she may not feel a great deal of pressure to do so anyway (ironically, the one public statement of note around this has been from the usually switched-on Craig Foster, who wrote a grovelling apology for criticising her!). And to be honest, apart from her being an exceptional sportswoman, I can't say I know anywhere near enough about her off-field personality to judge whether this was totally out of character or not.
There are certainly plenty of people on the activist left who would wear mouthing off at a cop as a badge of honour, after all, and calling someone "white" in a vaguely disparaging way on social media is so commonplace as to be unremarkable nowadays. Kerr may not be in that circle, but again I don't know enough about her to be sure of that.
For better or for worse – mostly the latter – nuanced takes like yours are in short supply in this age in which every incident is grist for the culture war mill, and people feel pressured to come down on one side or the other. It certainly seems to have resulted in a significant dumbing-down of our discourse.
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | | My instinctive response is a) yes, technically, though surely at the most mild end of the spectrum; and b) that cop is a massive snowflake for booking her over it. All the stuff about her being stripped of the captaincy is equally cringe and just further evidence that people are desperate to find something to be offended about. |
the cop is a snow flake?
if it was said in reverse?
no $£$%^%%$ way
couldnt give a shit about the captaincy, but she should face exactly the same music as, well for instance a 13 year old kid!More, part of her pay is role model pay.
at the very $£$%^%%$ least she could quit making excuses and tell the truth
snow flake!! thats kinda racist right there!
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| stui magpie wrote: | ^
There's racist remarks and then there's racism. 3/4 of Kerr's family is white, just her paternal grandmother and family are Indian. Her partner is white, most of her team mates are white. She's clearly not racist.
Apart from her being pissed, we don't know the circumstances surrounding the alleged comment, what provoked her to make such an out of character remark. |
how do you know its out of character?
how well do you know her?
absolutely not! if you cant call someone a blackbastard, why should whitebastard be ok?
how about we just stop the name calling?
if she has any decency, any guts at all, she will just front up, shut up on the excuses and say sorry.
if she had done that it might all have gone away.
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| think positive wrote: | | snow flake!! thats kinda racist right there! |
Oh so now it is 
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