Week 5

Week 5 Blog: Race as a Bond vs. Race as Discrimination

In class we viewed the documentary, Footy La Perouse Way and were asked to think about/observe three things: how sport impacts the Indigenous community, RL in aboriginal community, and the demographics of the people participating and watching. While watching the documentary, one thing particularly stuck out to me and that was how the differences in race worked as a bond for La Perouse, but race also served as a form of instigation and discrimination. For La Perouse and their fans race was something they often drew on and were proud in. The stuck together as one and used the instigation as motivation; if one teammate cracks, it will hurt the rest of the team, however if they all stay strong than they can work together as one through the disparity and differences. We see race as discrimination from the other team and the coach of La Perouse. We commonly hear him talking about do not let the other team get into your heads, keep playing your game, if you let it bother you than you already lost. We also saw an interview from former player who was discussing the different racial slurs, which are commonly said on the field. Being a foreign student, I was unfamiliar with what the slurs were and how they should be interpreted, however I just imagined slurs that are common in American culture. Even after comparing the slurs from American culture to slurs used towards indigenous people, it still seemed much worse for the indigenous people. In Australia it seems as if there is a large opinion to Aborigines are still not considered equal, and when the slurs are used, they are whole heartedly meant to emotionally hurt that person or discriminate against them. In America there is certainly racist people, however I would say the majority of the slurs used in sports is a figure of speech, often used by multiple races. Overall, I thought the aspect of using race to ones advantage and disadvantage was very interesting in the documentary and proves how existent and lively indigenous culture is in our community.