OK, maybe I didn't select my words very well but, here in Melbourne, I see a lot of indifference to Goodes. People might agree that it was not a good way to end but there is not a lot of recognition of the torment he must have gone through and certainly very little outrage that one of the game's champions, perhaps one of the top 10 players of all time, had to quietly retrieve his hat and graciously slip out the back door.
If and when Adam is finally acknowledged by the greater football establishment for the remarkable contribution he made on the field and continues to make off it, just watch all the same lead-hearted bigots emerge from their hovels to decry his achievements and attempt to assassinate his character.
I am sure my hero is coping well and getting on with it. That's the nature of the man. Hopefully recent events such as SSM being legitimised and sexual predators being called out are signals that "the times, they are a changin'". I think history will be kind to Adam Goodes as an agent of change but we are not there yet.
I'll finish by bringing it back to footy. I can still close my eyes and clearly visualise the bounce of the ball to commence the fourth quarter of the 2006 Grand Final. Swans down by 11 at the change. A tap-out, clearance kick forward, marked by BBB and hand-balled off to Goodes on the fly who kicked true from just inside the 50. Less than a kick in it. I thought we were going to run away with it but WCE had too much in the tank (). Amongst many other magical touches, that's how I will forever remember him.
Ironically, today the @@@@ that Goodes copped wouldn't fly.
How quickly society changes.
The difference between insanity and genius is measured only in success.
No one is attacking anyone! This is a footy thread on the subject of a Swans legend. So far, there's just a few comments on how Adam is still perceived in society. Some say things have improved, some say things haven't changed much. We are ALL on Adam's side....I don't know how this thread could become a dispute. May I say that while certain areas of society are changing for the better, as mentioned above, unfortunately I don't think things have changed too much where Adam is concerned. When the booing of Adam was happening, where I work was divided but a lot, possibly the majority, thought Adam was 'a sook', 'should harden up', 'brought it on himself', was a 'stager' and 'picked on that little girl'......they were so deluded by the utter bull they were reading online, hearing from bigoted acquaintances, radio shock jocks and the like, they had made up there minds.....none of them even knew about his 'GO' foundation and claimed he was AOTY only because he was an indigenous sportsman. I argued with them ad nauseum but it was futile. These were not people with 'open minds', they had prejudices and they would not waver......and this is not a society which is ready for positive change in all areas and Adam, Micky O and their indigenous brothers and sisters along with likeminded and intelligent white Australians still have a lot of work to do.......and as Bloods05 alluded to, the rise of the far right can hardly be seen as progress. This thread might be an 'open chat' but at it's core is a Swans footy legend and as the AFL largely reflects Australian society, it's still a footy related chat. Cheers..... PS: I actually see our club's values and culture as a reflection of the best of society that we should all aim for as Australians.
Thank you. My reference to Yiannopoulos was an illustration of how far we still have to go on the issue of racism. It is very obvious that racism was at the heart of the anti-Goodes feeling, and when the mass media still treats a man who advocates the creation of a white ethno-state and ridicules indigenous culture as some kind of pop star, it seems highly likely to me that there will be more outbreaks of the kind of behaviour we saw with Adam just a few years ago. This battle still has a long way to run.
Same here. They never really retire numbers anyway, they just stop using them for a few years until a young gun comes along. Saving it for an indigenous player is a poor precedent. Do we start allocating numbers for people of particular races? Because, that's what we would be doing.
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