As a lifelong Souths supporter and NRL fan I was proud and uplifted to see the strong and genuine support offered to Latrell Mitchell by the club, especially coach Jason Demetriou, and the NRL community in the wake of the racial abuse he was subjected to at the game against Penrith last Thursday night.
Many commentators have noted the incident shows we still have a long way to go before racism is eradicated. This is undoubtedly correct. However, it is also undoubtedly correct, and needs to be positively acknowledged, that so far as racism in sport is concerned, especially in the NRL, we have come a long way in a relatively short space of time and the positive trajectory is very rapid.
For 40 years of the almost 50 years I’ve been attending football games and closely following sport, racism, overt and casual, to borrow from Trent Robinson’s comments, was commonplace. Racial slurs would echo around the grandstand and rather than gaining censure from the crowd, reactions would often be to join the abuse, or at best complicit laughter or smirks would be seen. Very rarely was a racist heckler called out by the crowd.
I witnessed this at grounds all over Sydney, including at Redfern Oval where Souths always had a strong representation of indigenous fans and players. Often within teams casual racism would be present and it was not unusual for the media to engage in casual or not-so-casual racism, speaking of indigenous players “going walkabout” and similarly insensitive comments.
This all started to change about 10 years ago and has gathered momentum in the last five years, and especially since the Adam Goodes experience. Nowadays almost no one is stupid or foolhardy enough to yell racist slurs at a game. If they do, they are lucky to make it out of the ground alive and their best hope would be for the ground staff to throw them out before the crowd takes matters into their own hands.
Further, developments such as commentators properly pronouncing Polynesian players names is evidence of a more culturally sensitive game.
The NRL has always been the game for the regular folks and is now the sport that many indigenous and Polynesian men (and women) gravitate to and feel most comfortable playing. The NRL hierarchy has been very strong in supporting our indigenous and Pasifika players and fans. However, indigenous and Pasifika players were in the minority for most of the game’s history – even if they always had an outsize influence on the game.
Many of these players must have felt very self-conscious and isolated in a more hostile era. How courageous and strong were players like Eric Simms and Arthur Beetson? Latrell is also very strong but thankfully he has a very big group of brothers and fans to support him and enjoys the institutional support of the game.
So, when we rightly lament the terrible abuse Latrell copped at Penrith, let’s also take some encouragement from the fact that the outrage it provoked is proof positive of the fact that racism is rightly and widely condemned throughout the general community and let’s harness this positive momentum.
The NRL and the players, fans, media and key administrators are showing great leadership. No cause for complacency to be sure, but let’s acknowledge the positive progress and leadership being demonstrated.
