This is a bizarre video apology by Adelaide Crows full forward Taylor ‘Tex’ Walker after he was convicted by the AFL of committing the worst possible offence, racism, but not just ordinary racism, but racism against a part Aborigine:
Taylor Walker’s apology video. How brilliant by Robbie Young to sit with Walker. Crows were keen for Walker to make a public appearance to show his contrition. Now he will take an extended break from the club https://t.co/cCKCKeRpcB pic.twitter.com/FFlvQFZcv9
— Jon Ralph (@RalphyHeraldSun) August 9, 2021
The nightmarish incident happened during a SANFL match between the Adelaide seconds and North Adelaide, when at a quarter time huddle Walker referred to North Adelaide player Robbie Young, who would have been about 50 metres away, as a “black cunt“, or more fully, is believed to have said something like “smash that black cunt” or “knock that black cunt out”, to a teammate, and a teammate and/or a club trainer later ratted him out for doing a racism, in public, even if the racism victim had no idea of it.
His formal punishment from the AFL is:
- suspended for six matches
- fined $20,000
- required to undergo a reeducation program
Ordinarily it’s probably a good idea that players (and spectators) are not hurling racial insults all over the place, but in terms of what you are allowed to preface ‘cunt’ with, well it’s a long list – fat cunt, short, ugly, dumb, slow, weak, etc, etc, – but the League has decided that racial and religious words are not allowed, but the others are.
In the past Aboriginal players did cop a lot of racial abuse, and there were some, like the imperturbable Richmond legend Maurice Rioli, who just ignored it, and there may have been some who got into the swing of it, and responded in the fashion that Aborigines may do when in high spirits and after having taken a dislike to you: ‘fuck you fucking white cunt’.
Then there were some, most famously St Kilda’s Robbie ‘Mad Dog’ Muir, who it is said couldn’t handle it and would lash out, and this match report from 1978 shows some of Muir’s highlights, along with his dislike of “pretty boys”, as well as, for the older gentlemen, a bit of VFL nostalgia for the days of the cauldron of suburban warfare-football:
Today you are supposed to blame all of Muir’s violence on his lived experience of racism, but it’s likely that at heart, on the football field, he was fundamentally a thug, and that the racial stuff was just one thing that would set him off. A young skinny Doug Hawkins playing just his second game would never have opened his mouth at a hard man like Muir, but still got threatened with being thumped:
Muir is most known for being ‘Mad Dog’ but it’s interesting to contrast this with how Hawthorn’s Leigh Matthews is remembered, as a Hall of Famer, considered by some to be the greatest ever player of the game, or at least the best on-baller, and who went on to be a premiership coach and tv commentator (incredibly for a man with zero personality) but who is not normally remembered as the dirty sniping dog that he was, who got criminally charged for the last incident here, even if, unlike Muir, he never jumped the fence to belt someone in the crowd.
Circling back Jen (not Jennifer) Psaki style to Taylor (not Tayla) Walker, the uber-bogan from the city that seems to have the highest concentration of bogans in the country, it’s likely that he’s done here, that Adelaide will ‘release’ him from his contract next year, because he referred to someone not in earshot as a ‘black cunt’.
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