Kids playing basketball in their own yard in the evening. Laughter and fun — an everyday occurrence. This is what kids do — our kids, our friends’ kids. There is nothing unusual about this.
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But on an evening at the start of the Easter break, this everyday scene became something else — something ugly, something nasty, something racist.
Racist slurs — repeated four times — yelled out from the safety of a car slowly going down the street.
Racist slurs yelled out at kids.
Nothing accidental about this action. It was a deliberate act. An act calculated to demean, insult and attack the identity of the recipients. To attack the identity of these children.
Why?
Because they were Aboriginal.
They were the children of AFL legend Eddie Betts.
As a player for both Adelaide and Carlton, Betts played 350 games, kicked 640 goals and at his retirement in 2021, held the AFL record for goal assists — a true champion.
A champion who also endured racist taunts during his playing career.
There is a pattern here.
Think about Nicky Winmar back in the 1993 season when he pointed proudly at his skin after enduring a racist incident, the shameful treatment of AFL great and Sydney champion Adam Goodes, and the stories of racism experienced by numerous other Aboriginal players.
This is not an isolated issue.
We know about these incidents because of the profile of the players and the fact that they have had the courage to speak about their experiences.
Tony Armstrong, an Aboriginal Australian television presenter and another former professional Australian rules footballer, added his voice to the response to the incident, speaking about the incidence of racism and the widespread ignorance about its prevalence.
“We talk about shock, horror, all this kind of stuff. I’m not shocked. I’m not shocked that it’s happening,” Armstrong said.
“I’m more disappointed that people think that this doesn’t happen and that this is out of the blue.”
Speaking about his own experience, Armstrong went on to say:
“Every day you walk out of the house, you’ve gotta put the hard hat on, going out into public, the same way people go on to social media and feel like it’s a war zone; I don’t know what I’m going to cop. Anything could happen.”
How would we non-Aboriginal Australians feel if this was us?
If every day we went out into the world, bracing ourselves for the racist taunts that would always be fired our way — heat seeking-missiles of hatred.
Would we have the courage to stand tall, to be open to having conversations, to try to change minds?
In responding to the incident, Betts said: “To see that someone actually got out of their car at 8.40 at night to drive to my house and yell abuse at my kids over the fence”.
“I think this hits a lot harder than all the racial abuse that I’ve had over my years (in footy), and that’s because it’s directed towards my kids with such hatred.”
Betts went on to say: “It was really, really tough and hard to see. I’m glad that I brought awareness to this because if I didn’t, you wouldn’t know what happened — and this continues to happen to Aboriginal people all over the country, and we’ve just got to keep calling it out.”
As Australians, we pride ourselves on the idea of a “fair go” of being an accepting and tolerant society. But there is a dark side to our nation, a side we prefer to look away from, a side we pretend is not there. We saw it in racist comments around the recent referendum, and we saw it captured recently in the comments made to those kids innocently playing basketball in their backyard.
“Racism, unfortunately exists everywhere,” wrote Kady Hadjab recently in the Shepparton News when reflecting on her own personal experience, a view also echoed by past Sydney AFL champion, Michael O’Loughlin.
But that doesn’t stop people like Eddie Betts, Adam Goodes, Tony Armstrong and Michael O’Loughlin speaking out — trying to make a difference.
As Betts has said, he has called out racism many times and “continues to educate because we need to stamp out racism here in Australia altogether”.
It’s a way to make a better future for us all.
While we can all applaud the work of these on and off-field champions, it is not their responsibility alone. We all have a role to play.
To step into this space.
To have what Betts described as “those uncomfortable conversations because that’s the only way that we’re going to move forward in this nation”.
To find out more about the impacts of racism.
To consider the history of the settlement of this country and how this has played into our attitudes today.
To ensure all Australian children can play anywhere, free from racist taunts.
After all, racism — it stops with me.
To find out more about Racism. It stops with me; visit https://itstopswithme.humanrights.gov.au/
Reconciliation column