Putting the organised racists to the side (and off a cliff), it’s the people who join in as an ‘up yours’ to the AFL lefty woke brigade that drive me bonkers. Like, I get wanting to stick it up the powers at be, but it neglects there is a human at the end of it who is (at the very least) collateral damage. Also, why, if you’re not racist, would you line up with racists? Why would you want to be part of the ‘either racist or reactionary booing ingroup’?
When Freo played Sydney in the final in 2015 there was more than a smattering of boos at Subi. Fortunately they petered out by halftime. The bozos behind me weren’t booing, they were saying Goooooodes in a booey way. I was genuinely confused, and when I asked them what they were doing, they said they didn’t really have anything against Goodes, but they didn’t like the AFL telling fans how they should behave - but they didn’t want people to think they were racist by booing.
I mean, what do you do with that?
