Over the course of the past week, there has been continued controversy over Adam Goodes being booed on the field. Ever since performing the war cry against Carlton in Round 9 (the AFL’s Indigenous Round), there have been multiple incidents of Adam Goodes being booed. 

This issue has come up again this week after Lewis Jetta preformed a spear throwing action towards a section of the West Coast crowd in defence of his teammate.

A lot of the public seem to be divided on this issue. There are those who believe that Adam is the victim of racial abuse, whilst there are others who believe that Adam should take the taunts on the chin and stop making such a big deal out of the matter.

There have been many pieces written and comments made that those who have booed Adam are racist. Whether or not this is actually the case is somewhat irrelevant. Adam himself has publically stated that he finds the booing to be very hurtful and that he is considering retiring from the game as a result. We as a society should be here to support Adam through his struggle and look to move forward in a positive and accepting way.

Adam is a highly talented AFL footballer, and may be subject to boos as a result, so we have to be careful not to label the entire football fan community as racist. That said, Adam has shown that he is a great activist for the Indigenous people and the work that he has done in this field seems to have contributed to people’s views on him. This work that Adam involves himself in is ultimately positive because it raises awareness and is something that should result in people seeing Goodes as more of a hero than a villain.

Thank you for hearing our thoughts.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Marget’s VCAL Literacy class, Horsham College.