It was quite a week to talk about racism in Australia last week. Reconciliation week, the Indigenous Round in AFL, a 13 year old kid who seemingly didn’t know any better yelling hurtful abuse at Adam Goodes and the untimely comments of a social A grader ignited the racism row more than ever.

Here’s a recap of last week’s events:

In the AFL Indigenous Round on 24 May, Sydney took on Collingwood. Player, Adam Goodes is an Indigenous champion playing for Sydney. Towards the end of the game a 13-year-old Collingwood supporter yelled highly racist abuse at Goodes, calling him an ‘ape’. Goodes pointed her out to the Ground officials and she was escorted out. It was clear from these actions that racism will not be tolerated at AFL games by players, staff or supporters.

In later conversations, both Collingwood and Sydney handled the matter well, seeking to help the girl understand what she had done. Eddie McGuire, Collingwood’s high profile President, went to Goodes with an apology on behalf of his club and promised some education for the 13 year old supporter.

Five days later and Eddie McGuire is on his radio programme. In a conversation with his fellow hosts, McGuire says that Adam Goodes would be the right person to promote the stage show King Kong.  He immediately tried to back off from his statement but in attempting to be funny, he did an enormous amount of damage. He has apologised and sought restoration with Goodes and the Sydney Club but, in short, the whole incident looks like a mess.

There were some good things happening along the way. Collingwood took a good pathway of offering assistance to the young girl in the spirit of restorative justice; Adam Goodes was gracious in his forgiving spirit towards the girl; and Eddie McGuire was genuine in his attempt to reach out to Goodes in the heat of the moment on after the Sydney/Collingwood game, albeit before blowing it on the radio show. Even then, I believe that McGuire was genuine in his apologies to Goodes after he realised what he had done.

In the cacophony, there is one person who stands out as exemplary—Collingwood player Harry O’Brien. It hurts me, as a one-eyed Essendon supporter, to admit that Harry O’Brien is a brilliant footballer on the field. And now, I am deeply impressed with him as a person off the field. Upon hearing of McGuire’s attempted humour O’Brien tweeted how disappointed he was with his Club President:

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a school teacher, a doctor or even the president of my football club I will not tolerate racism, nor should we as a society.  I’m extremely disappointed with Eddie’s comments and do not care what position he holds…To me Eddie’s comments are reflective of common attitudes that we as a society face.  To me Australia is very casual with racism.  I would argue that many people in this country would not think what Eddie or the 13 year old girl said last Friday is “bad”.  In my opinion race relations in in this country is systematically a national disgrace and we have a long way to go to reach a more harmonious and empathetic society.”

O’Brien later said on the Fox footy show ‘AFL 360’ that he experiences a form of racial discrimination every day, through social media or just walking along the street. He believes that Australia’s racial discrimination is often hidden under larrikinism. In the same show he also praised McGuire’s efforts over the years to be on the forefront of trying to improve the situation but that this time he slipped up. McGuire stated that he had let Adam Goodes down but that he was glad to have him and Harry O’Brien to teach him what’s right (a report on the Fox Interview can be found here).

So, what does the Bible say about all of this? King Solomon said that the tongue has the power of life and death (Proverbs 18:21). Eddie McGuire got caught out by the deathly poison of some really inappropriate utterances. Harry O’Brien brought some life words onto the scene with his well thought through and courageous speech.

The New Testament book of James elaborates on this theme. It states that the tongue, as small as it is, can be the source of a raging fire, setting the whole course of one’s life on fire (James 3:5-10). I’m sure that Eddie McGuire felt that way about his life as he sat under the media’s fiery words over the following few days. Earlier in his letter James tells his readers that a protection from the fire of the tongue is to ‘be quick to listen and slow to speak’. Good advice. As many have pointed out before, God gave us two ears but only one tongue!

When Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus he tells them they need to say only that which is of benefit to the people listening (Ephesians 4:29). What a great rule of thumb to help us keep our tongues in check!

Once again we see that the ancient wisdom of the Bible is highly relevant to the front pages of our newspapers today.

But the deeper issue here is what Harry O’Brien refers to as the everyday racism in Australia that is socially approved of as ‘larrikinism’. Racism is not OK in any form and we can’t cover it over by giving it another name.  Racism is a form of bullying and slander and it must not be tolerated if we want our country to be a welcoming place, for all children to feel safe and accepted, and for us to be a truly integrated society. The Bible has a lot to say about this. The Old Testament book of Leviticus is a good place to start where it states that you should do no wrong to ‘foreigners’ living among you.  This theme is repeated on numerous occasions across both Old and New Testaments.

So, how should we then live? We need to start with ourselves and check any ingrained sentiments of racism. Jesus said that the mouth speaks out of whatever is filling the heart (Matthew 12:34) and so an internal check is the place to start. Then we need to be as brave and empathetic as Harry O’Brien was by keeping each other accountable on this and refusing to tolerate racism in any form.

Goodonya Harry O’Brien.  May your kind increase (but if they’re as good as you on the field may they play for Essendon!).

Food for Thought.

Featured image: flickr/studiosdeboos under CC licence.