No one is denying WA Today scab journo Brendan Foster’s recent articles about Mathew Pavlich constituted shameless muckraking, but is casting aspersions about the Freo great a laughing matter?
Foster’s misguided justifications were delivered with head firmly in his arse when he mistook social media reaction for interest in his writing.
"The click rate is amazing", his editor said before Foster leapt in and said "I’m famous!"
Foster, whose colleagues are on strike, but has no compunction is crossing a picket line to further his own career, could be heard chuckling before adding "I'm not suggesting that Pavlich is racist I’m just…."
The [looking at photo I’m going to say] 59 year old[?] tried to continue before his editor cut him off.
"Bring it back Fossy, you can get another 5 articles out of this nonsense" his editor pleaded.
Foster wanted to make something abundantly clear from the outset: He hasn’t accused Pavlich of being a "racist". To do so would require him to stand on his own convictions. It’s much easier to throw shade with vague associations.
For almost everyone in a city of 2 million people, the 353-game veteran was being nothing more than a fun-loving larrikin and there wasn't an ounce of malicious intent behind his joke.
But Foster, rather than reconsider his position in light of the overwhelming proportion of people who disagreed with him, instead managed to find a few people, like Aboriginal elder Robert Eggington, who also didn't think it was funny because they read into a joke about a suburb a racial link that wasn’t there. Eggington’s view, that Pavlich’s comment could reinforce negative stereotypes about Aboriginals in Midland is completely defensibe. Of course, Pavlich’s comments also reinforced negative stereotypes about white people in Midland, unless you consider that it’s only Aboriginal people in Midland commit crimes, which no-one does. Everyone knows no-one in Midland can be trusted.
Foster, whose writing can reach an audience of hundreds of people, and who has no problem using that platform in an attempt to damage an admirable man’s reputation with no justification, would like the readers to know that those who disagreed with him on facebook are bullies and ‘keyboard warriors’, demonstrating that Foster is less concerned with race relations than his own thin skin.
Foster contends that if there was any lingering doubt about the comment (which there isn’t), why didn't the AFL, Fox Footy, The AFL Players' Association, the Fremantle Dockers and Pavlich himself come out extinguish any spot fires? Foster, rather than consider the option that he is almost alone in finding a racial connotation to the joke, instead assumes that he is the only moral crusader who cares about racism, whish is absurd and possibly delusional.
It's too simple to roll out a lazy argument about racism without discussing the link in the comment to race, or accusing Pavlich of racism personally. But given how casual racism has not yet been eliminated from the AFL, surely now was the time to attempt to cash in with vague non-accusations.
In the end, it was left to Walters to take to social media to say what Pavlich said "was not the right thing to say by any means, but there was no intention to hurt anyone in Midland or from Midland by those comments." Walters presumably didn’t feel the need to defend Aboriginal people, because Pavlich’s comments were about Midland, a fact Foster has failed to grasp even days after the comment.
If you look at Foster’s desperate and misguided appeal to authority in what Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane has previously said about racist "jokes", you’ll see they have nothing whatsoever to do with jokes about suburbs.
"It can involve things like jokes, offhanded comments or exclusion that is directed at people on racial grounds," he said.
“Jokes about suburbs aren’t racist” Soutphommasane presumably would also say.
The issue here is not one of political correctness gone mad, but the possible impact of the joke had it been racist. Which it isn’t. But imagine if it was?
As an anonymous football writer, the wider community expect very little from Foster, and his slanderous beat-up will encourage journalism students to consider changing degrees.
Foster also contends that seeing a racist connotation in a joke about a suburb doesn’t make him a racist, because he voted for Obama, or something.
No one, Foster contends – irrespective of their standing in the community - is above scrutiny. Unless you disagree with Foster, in which case ‘leave me alone keyboard warriors!’
Most of us have overheard offhand remarks at the pub or while standing around the BBQ that reinforce stereotypes about suburbs. They are pretty funny.
Most of us have also overheard offhand racist remarks at the pub or while standing around the BBQ that reinforce racial stereotypes. People usually tell those people to pull their head in.
Because most people can tell the difference between a joke about a suburb and a race of people.
Brendan Foster is not most people, so he will tell you to pull your head in about any joke he can contort his mind into misapprehend as racist.
No-one invites Foster to BBQs.
Most jokes about suburbs often go unnoticed or challenged because they are merely brushed off as jokes. Which they are.
The language has become infused in our social norms and values: It has become part of our everyday speech. [This isn’t paraphrased. Foster actually wrote this. I’m still trying to figure out what he’s on about here.]
Last year, the book, The Biggest Game in Town: an analysis of the AFL's vilification policy which probed the racial, religious and sexual vilification in the AFL found most Aboriginal footballers are still peripheral players at most clubs. There was, sadly, no data on players from Midland. Presumably because they stole the laptop the data was stored on.
I’d like to make clear that I don’t consider Foster to be racist, or a terrible person, but if we continue ignore lazy journalism, and brush it off as mere political correctness gone mad, then we are part of the problem.
