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Much ado about nothing. Namely, the Sam Kerr affair. According to news reports, the allegation seemed at one point to turn on whether Ms Kerr called a policeman “a stupid white bastard” or “a stupid white cop”. Or did it? I am not sure. That apart, is the reported vomiting in the back of a cab in dispute? A subsequent argument with an aggrieved cabbie over compensation? Is the character of the altercation with the policeman in dispute? Did the policeman say something rude or unkind to earn a rebuke? Questions, questions, questions for which I have no answer and in truth care not very much. The hyperbolic hoopla surrounding racism has got quite out of hand.
When I was living in PNG in early 1980, in the Port Moresby suburb of Tokarara, my house was raided by a “raskol gang”, so-called from the English word rascal. My then wife and three-month old baby daughter were in the house. It was about 3am. I was awakened by noise from the next-door house, some 40 metres away. My house was in a cul de sac shaped like a walking stick, backing onto bush with, I don’t remember exactly, about seven or so freestanding fibro-cement houses on high stilts. Mine was the last house; at the tip of the handle of the walking stick, as it were. Every family in the cul de sac was Papua New Guinean but us; and the man of each house likely worked for the government in a senior role, as I did.
All the lights were on in the house next door and I could see, through the louvered windows, the family herded into the bedroom at the end of the house while the gang, five or six of them, milled around pillaging. I learnt later that each house had been invaded. One raskol broke off and ran to my house. He started hacking through part of the fibre-cement wall with a large panga knife or some such. I was looking directly down at him through a louvered window, our heads less than two metres apart. Uncontrollably shaking, sweat was streaming down his black (if you’ll pardon the word) face as he hacked away.
After instructing my wife to heat water on the stove, which I intended to pour down on the attackers, I shouted with a vehemence that surprised me in retrospect, “Fuck-off you black bastard.” It worked. At the time, maybe a last lingering aura of colonial white authority saved me. He ran off shouting “white bastards.” The police eventually came. That’s another comical story. They took fingerprints in my house for Pete’s sake where no raskol had entered. And then left their vehicle’s lights on and ran their battery out. Had to call for back up.
In any event, the racial slurs used by me and by my highly strung would-be pillager came naturally to both of us. Instead of black bastard, I might more properly have said ‘melanin-rich bastard’, as he might have said ‘melanin-deprived bastards’. Or, better still, we could have dropped the reference to skin pigmentation entirely. And, perhaps, even avoided the connotation of illegitimacy by using the Aussie insults “mongrel” or “ratbag” instead of ‘bastard’. As for the eff-off, that’s more or less common parlance, isn’t it? No need to censor that.
Is there a message or moral to my story? Maybe. When people get their dander up, they’re likely to lose their presence of mind and pick on an obvious characteristic of their adversary to express their disdain. It’s unfortunate but doesn’t mean much. They might say, you big-eared bastard, if their belligerent interlocutor has big ears. Fat bastard. Skinny bastard. Bald-headed bastard. A bloke in a supermarket once called me “a little prick” when we got into a ridiculous dispute. I’m 5’7½” (notice I mention the ½” ). He was about 6’ something. I could have retorted with ”and you’re a big prick,” but it doesn’t have the same cachet to it.
As I said at the start, it’s all much ado about nothing. Real racial discrimination is a different thing. For example, basing job hiring on the colour of someone’s skin is real racism. And equally so, whether the favoured person is white or black or in-between. The odd stupid remark is part of flawed human nature. Deplore it if you will but move on tout de suite and keep it out of courts of law. Incidentally, that doesn’t give anyone legal carte blanche to insult cops. But a drunken woman (or man) might sling off in the heat of the moment, when passions are high. “Now madam (or sir), let’s please mind our manners,” might be a suitable and sufficient response. Unless, of course, the person concerned stubbornly refuses to mind her (or his) manners.
I would sure like to hear the taxi driver’s account of the incident. I wonder why we haven’t heard it yet?
Personally – I don’t think it is all about nothing. It’s like zero tolerance policing. If you don’t stand your ground on little things – you are conceding ground for the bigger things. It’s like, I’ve been called “a racist white c*** ” by a hundred Aborigines across Australia over the years until the whole message has been so normalised that every Aborigine now believes every white person is a “racist white c***” and they are authorised to say so.
I don’t know anything about “Ms Kerr”, her preferred gender identity, sexual orientation, or race/cultural identity, nor do I want to!
The mainstream media, however, is very much focused on these issues, as they pertain to the socio-political zeitgeist of revolutionary Wokeness.
The media then must dissect this subject incident to discover the lesson/message from the Woke perspective. Was or were the police “white” or “male”? That is important because it brings up the whole history of White Supremacy, Colonialism, Slavery of Black People, Patriarcy, etc., that must be considered. Was Ms Kerr a woman, or of colour, or of a non-Anglo Celtic cultural/racial identity? These are the relevant questions, and the answers must somehow support the Woke narrative!
Dirty Black or White bastard doesn’t go down well either.
My fibro house in a Tokarara cul de sac, was broken into, with me and a mate inside, in 1978. They came straight through the wall, between the studs. We made a lot of noise, like there were several of us, and they ran away. I then placed solid timber on the outside of the walls. So next time they tried to break the door down.
Is there a message to my story? In every way, history repeats itself.
In 2000 & 2001 I had to go to Port Moresby in relation to an environmental claim.
I chose to stay in Cairns and fifo daily-some called me a wimp for that, but it did not bother me.
From Fawlty Towers ‘Gander’ was expressive. My worse guilt, at RAF Waddington circa 1966: made an expletive ‘Black Bastard’ comment whom my billeted was of colour. It hurt me when felt his despair: worse seemed a good chap to hang with up, my comment was reflexive. Glasgow, Kelvingrove 1956 met a good guy from India and we got on great: mum – uneducated and suspect she could not read or write- barred me: lice etc.
Discriminatory hiring, of any kind, is freedom of association. It used to be standard practice everywhere, when we were a free people. Calling someone a bastard ( or any expletive ) was an obscenity and punishable as such. Adding the colour would hardly have aggravated the offence.
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This year-old incident has been promoted in the media to reassure White people that they have equal ‘protection’ under Britain’s suffocating anti free speech laws. It comes just as there has been a furore over the jailing of Sam Melia for two years. His was a thought crime – promoting the posting of stickers bearing legal messages in favour of White people in Britain with supposed intent to stir up ‘racial hatred’.
It’s not Sam Kerr’s lack of self control and the alleged comments she uttered as a result that is in question, it’s the partisan way in which the lack of self control and the comments are adjudicated.
“I think something is being missed, what if the person in question was a heterosexual white football player? My experience is such a person would be condemned for doing exactly the same thing with little evidence to back it up. Racist? It is the double standard that is the problem.”
I made this comment on a similar article in the Australian it was rejected. I think it is a valid point and the fact that the Australian censored me is even more concerning.I agree though the language is not of a concern to me.
The Australian keeps a tight rein on its comments section so don’t feel as though you’ve been singled out. As I said above the reason this incident is being promoted in the media is to try to falsely reassure White people that they aren’t the sole targets of anti-racism, which of course they are. Funny that they chose someone who is genetically two thirds or so White as the fall girl.
Erin Molan wrote in the Daily Telegraph:
” There is nothing more abhorrent than racism…”
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I commented succinctly and rationally indisputably correctly:
” A bit of hyperbole can be ok, but the rape of 2 and 3 year old girls is far, far more abhorrent”.
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Rejected.
I wrote:
I didn’t appreciate the overt racism by an Australian sporting captain.
Rejected.
Also they reject anything that mentions covid. For example wrt the Princess of Wales photo, I said:
This one photo has attracted a lot of media attention. It’s a shame there wasn’t similar vigilance and pragmatism around the Lancet letter of Feb/Mar 2020 that dismissed that covid came from a lab.
Rejected.
I feel so unloved by The Oz.
If police go to a domestic situation where the people are drunk then they would be sworn at much worse than that .
If the policeman had have cautioned Sam what she said was unlawful and could lead to her appearance in court and have deep ramifications for her career it may have penetrated her drunken mind and she may have even apologised .To me that is good policing not the woke circus and virtue signalling that is going on now .
Waste of public money prosecuting people for what they say when they are drunk before they have been cautioned.
A year to decide to prosecute what a joke .
Ideology driven BS .
Under UK hate laws you can get 2 years prison as recently happened for just saying white lives matter and pushing back against anti – white racism rants like white privilege on the grounds of its intent was to incite race hate.
Yes, the “intent” was the criminal offence.
A jury had to make an opinion on your intent as to what was going on in your mind.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Either cancel the hate laws or apply them without racial prejudice.
What strikes me is the fact that this girl is being held up as some sort of national icon. Are we really that desperate?
All reporting and commentary on this imbroglio, including this article, misses the point. The UK has passed ridiculous laws that make these words criminal. We may once have said of jocular interchange and schoolyard banter that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”, but in the UK now words may very well get you incarcerated. This Kerr woman played the black victim card here in OZ, and has now been hoist on her own petard in a jurisdiction with insane woke laws. The moral is- be careful what you wish for.
One of those moments when you grab your Purdey Sporter and a handful of cartridges. Purdey: always there to do a job.
I refer to the PNG episode, of course.
Fact:
Under UK hate laws you can get 2 years prison as recently happened for just saying white lives matter and pushing back against anti – white racism rants like white privilege on the grounds of its intent was to incite race hate.
Yes, the “intent” was the criminal offence.
A jury had to make an opinion on your intent as to what was going on in your mind.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Either cancel the hate laws or apply them without racial prejudice. ⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️
There are a number of issues here. There are good reasons to argue that “anti-hate” laws are bad laws but that does not excuse breaking them. They are laws passed by the elected parliament in a liberal democracy and, if we are to enjoy the freedom and prosperity that flows from the rule of law, we must fairly accept being bound by laws that we don’t agree with. I find it hard to criticise a police officer for enforcing a law when it seems to have been broken. They might just give a caution but they are not bound to. It is their discretion, not mine. I cannot see any reason for criticising the mass media for reporting on the matter. Sam Kerr is a prominent person in public life and the media would be more vulnerable to criticism if they did not report on it. Celebrity has its benefits and its price. Part of that price is to suffer ignominy if our human frailty is exposed. There is however a legitimate question for British citizens to ask of their government as to why it took a year to announce the decision to prosecute. With the intervening Women’s World Cup, that smells a bit fishy.