brently
Oceanic Whitetip Shark
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2006
- Messages
- 983
- Reaction score
- 9
Choc Mundine may have been right about the nrl being racist. in a sense. i know his comments were directed at rep selections, i.e. he was overlooked because he is indigenous, and were easily disproven by the selection of many of his indigenous peers; however, recent nrl behaviour has me thinking...
last year mickey paea expressly requested that gallen's racial slur stay on the field and that everyone move on as the latter apologised and he, the victim, was saisified with this. yet the nrl saw it as its duty to investigate and ensure gallen received an appropriate consequence. which he did - from the nrl and the club.
billy slater taunts cory patterson over his mental health issues, apologises and escapes discipline or consequence.
now gibbs has also escaped sanction after belittling ben hannant on account of his religious beliefs.
what gal did was 100% not on, don't get me wrong. but what is going on? are we to believe that issues of male mental heath and religious intolerance are of lesser significance?
for mine, the message from the nrl appears to be, "no mickey, you don't know what you are saying. we will look out for you on this one even if you think you can't do so yourself, don't you worry".
i know there are differences in these three cases but there appears to be significant disparity in the fervor with which the nrl pursued gal compared to slater and gibbs. one interesting similarity is that patterson is indigenous (not sure about hannant) and this would suggest it is the issue that matters to the nrl, not the people involved or their heritage.
i am not an indigenous australian but feel somewhat agrieved that our code's administrators have betrayed a latent prejudice in this way. i could be wrong but it just doesn't feel right. i don't believe gal or our club were targetted unfairly; it seems the nrl is being choosey on which issues it believes are pc important and in doing so could be further marginalising some of its players and, by extension, supporters.
that's my say. go sharks.
last year mickey paea expressly requested that gallen's racial slur stay on the field and that everyone move on as the latter apologised and he, the victim, was saisified with this. yet the nrl saw it as its duty to investigate and ensure gallen received an appropriate consequence. which he did - from the nrl and the club.
billy slater taunts cory patterson over his mental health issues, apologises and escapes discipline or consequence.
now gibbs has also escaped sanction after belittling ben hannant on account of his religious beliefs.
what gal did was 100% not on, don't get me wrong. but what is going on? are we to believe that issues of male mental heath and religious intolerance are of lesser significance?
for mine, the message from the nrl appears to be, "no mickey, you don't know what you are saying. we will look out for you on this one even if you think you can't do so yourself, don't you worry".
i know there are differences in these three cases but there appears to be significant disparity in the fervor with which the nrl pursued gal compared to slater and gibbs. one interesting similarity is that patterson is indigenous (not sure about hannant) and this would suggest it is the issue that matters to the nrl, not the people involved or their heritage.
i am not an indigenous australian but feel somewhat agrieved that our code's administrators have betrayed a latent prejudice in this way. i could be wrong but it just doesn't feel right. i don't believe gal or our club were targetted unfairly; it seems the nrl is being choosey on which issues it believes are pc important and in doing so could be further marginalising some of its players and, by extension, supporters.
that's my say. go sharks.
