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‘Ape’ slur against Australian indigenous footballer Adam Goodes sparks anti-racism backlash—yet censorship still prevails

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Snapshot from heraldsun.com.auAdam Goodes ape slur incident

Round 9 of the 2013 AFL (Australian Football League) season will likely go down in history as the moment that something changed in the public consciousness in that country—whether for the better or not, only time will tell. Dubbed the ‘Indigenous Round’ in honour of the players of Aboriginal ancestry in the League (and in the wider Australian community), the opening game on the Friday night was certainly going well for indigenous Sydney Swans star champion1 Adam Goodes, with a personal best-field performance against arch-rivals Collingwood (also known as ‘the Magpies’, from suburban Melbourne). That is, until an incident occurred in the final quarter, which so soured Goodes’ night that he left the field, choosing to sit out the rest of the game alone in the dressing room, not even joining his teammates on the field for the post-game lap of victory.2

The incident was triggered by a Collingwood supporter sitting near the perimeter fence shouting something at Adam Goodes. He reacted immediately to her words, pointing her out to security staff, who then escorted her out of the ground, to be questioned by police. With the match being broadcast on television, news reports were able to replay film footage of the entire incident, though the exact words that had evidently so upset Adam Goodes were not audible. Reports simply said that it appeared to be a ‘racial slur’, from a 13-year-old girl.

Wikimedia commons/Timellis09Adam Goodes 2012 GF
Adam Goodes celebrating the Sydney Swans 2012 AFL Grand Final win.

Public reaction decrying this incident was immediate, and widespread. Magpies president Eddie McGuire personally visited Adam Goodes in the Swans’ dressing room to offer his support, on behalf of the Collingwood Football Club. It very quickly became a huge cause célèbre3 in the media and the wider blogosphere, as people wondered and tried to find out how foul the language of the evidently racist abuse must have been, to have had such an impact. However, a cautionary note was presented by one newspaper columnist, Andrew Bolt, who knew from his own painful experience (of a court case concerning two of his published articles) what it was like to be publicly accused of racism:4

“I abhor racism and despise racists. In fact, I consider people who shout racist abuse not just vicious but so stupid that I’d be mad to let them determine anything in my life. In this case, I am uncomfortable that one teenage girl with a potty mouth is given the power to overshadow a game and a celebration witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people at the ground or on TV …
“ … We are now jumping at shadows. To believe we can abolish racism so completely that not even a single teenager, carried away in the heat of a moment, will ever say anything racist is foolish. It is the plan, maybe, of a totalitarian or social engineer, but to react like this is not the act of wise people who understand the crooked timber of humanity.
“ … I have no problem with Goodes wanting her shut up or evicted. I just think turning this into such a massive symbol or cause célèbre lacks a sense of proportion. I repeat: she is just one teenage girl, and we don’t even know yet what she said.”5

It was left to Adam Goodes the following morning, when he addressed the media, to publicly speak of what the girl had actually said, that had so affected him:

“I’m pretty gutted to be honest. The win, the first in 13 years [against Collingwood at the MCG], to win by 47 points against Collingwood, to play such a pivotal role just sort of means nothing. To come to the boundary line and hear a 13-year-old girl call me an ‘ape’, and it’s not the first time on a footy field that I’ve been referred to as a ‘monkey’ or an ‘ape’, it was shattering.”6

Shortly thereafter, Adam Goodes received a telephone call from the girl, and accepted her apology.7 She confirmed to the media that she had indeed shouted “way to kick ya ape” to Goodes when he came within earshot, but hadn’t intended it as a racist taunt:

“I was really upset that we were losing and I just said something really rude and I shouldn’t have. I don’t know why it came out, I just kind of meant it as a joke and then he heard it and he thought it was racist. I’m sorry for what I said, I didn’t mean it in a racist way.”8

Reaction to this news of what the girl had actually said, fell into two main categories.

First, many people were completely bemused. Here’s a sample:

  • “I fail to see how the ‘ape’ comment is racist.”—Ivan F.9

  • “Forgive my ignorance but I’ve never even thought of calling someone an ape in a racial abuse context.”—‘Kram81’10

  • “I played as a ruckman in the Northern Football League (old Diamond Valley League) and was called a big ape or a big gorilla every week. I thought it was because I was just a big, sexy, skillful specimen. I had no idea I was being racially abused!”—‘Killer of the Burbs’11

  • [Reproduced here exactly as published—Ed.] “this is a nothing story, ive been called a cheetah many times by varies women thoughout my life and ive never been affended, i cant see what the difference is between being called a cheetah and a ape or for that matter a dog, cow, snake or fish? are apes lesser animals then cheetahs and/or humans and as thus why adam goodes was offended?”—‘Whit3y’12

Second, there were a large group of people who recognized ‘ape’ as a racial slur, who expressed their astonishment at those who couldn’t see its significance, e.g.:

  • If you weren’t so ignorant you would know the word ‘ape’ is a racial slur and is a disgusting name to call an aboriginal person.—‘Blood Bath’13

  • I am offended by your ignorance. If you can not see the bigger issue at hand here then it is evidently clear you have either a very naive view of the world or you are just a plain dum dum.—LovettRyderLloyd14

  • I’m surprised that people who can’t see a link between calling an Aboriginal man an ape and racism are actually highly enough functioning human beings to use a computer.—Gough15

However, it was noteworthy that they did not explain why ‘ape’ should be ‘racist’ when said by a white person to someone with Aboriginal heritage (but not when the other way around). Nor were there apparently any journalists in the mainstream media willing to explain it either. Only on the internet blogs could one find occasional references to what was really at issue. For example, commentator Sinclair Davidson, writing for Catallaxy Files, came closer to ‘mentioning the unmentionable’ than most:

“That brings me to what we’re all going to be talking about this weekend—not how well Indigenous players are doing in the AFL or how much work the AFL has done to promote Indigenous players and the like. Rather an incident last night when Adam Goodes pointed to a female Collingwood supporter who was subsequently removed from the stadium. She had made some comment that he had taken exception to and it was speculated that this was a racist slur.
“Okay—so this morning it turns out that the female Collingwood fan was a 13 year old girl who had called him an ‘ape’. Adam Goodes is 33, he is a dual premiership winner, Brownlow medallist, All Australian, and superstar of the game. Now what can we agree on? First, what she did was rude, poor behaviour. No question. Sure Goodes was angry about it. He is an adult and, I suspect, like many adults he finds rude children very annoying. Also she was escorted from the stadium—no problem there either. The MCG is private property and they can exclude rude people at their pleasure.
“But is it racist? Many individuals are having a go at me on twitter for questioning whether calling an Indigenous man an ‘ape’ is actually racist and not just rude. For many people it seems self-evident that it is racist. But nobody can say how or why. The ‘best’ story I’ve heard is that Social Darwinism ranks ‘people of colour’ below animals.”16

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. But note that Mr Davidson referred to ‘Social Darwinism’ rather than the dreaded ‘e-word’, evolution. ‘Evolution’ is the colloquial ‘elephant in the room’ here, that no-one wants to mention, that no-one wants to dare question (while on the other hand it’s publically acceptable to abhor ‘social darwinism’). That’s despite the fact that the associating of ‘ape’ with ‘people of colour’ as racism is because of evolutionary teaching during the past century-and-a-half. Since Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859 and The Descent of Man in 1871, many have implicitly accepted his suggestion that some people are ‘more evolved’ than others. In that context, it was easy for people of European ancestry to forget that western achievements in science, literature, music, government institutions, etc., arose in large part out of the energising freedom, mutual trust, and call-to-fruitfulness ideals (and more—see The biblical roots of modern science) provided by a biblical worldview. Instead, many people of British and European ancestry imagined that their ‘evolutionarily advanced’ societies reflected their superiority over other ‘races’—especially black ‘races’. 17

From Whalley, et al., ref 18.
Human evolution, according to a modern textbook used in Australian high-schools.18 Note the subtle colour change of the creature from a ‘black’ ape to a ‘white’ human. Is it any wonder that a 13-year-old might refer to Adam Goodes as an ‘ape’, when schoolchildren are presented with such an image as ‘fact’?

Thus the beguiling popular drawings that have long shown an evolutionary transition from dark monkey/ape to white human have become inherently the popular perception/view—and these images are still being presented as ‘fact’ in modern textbooks.18

So today, because evolution is presumed to be true, ‘ape’ taunts directed at ‘people of colour’ from people of evident European ancestry is construed as ‘racist’, i.e. demeaning black people relative to whites.

However, as the mainstream reporting of the Adam Goodes incident demonstrates, public discussion of the obvious evolutionary undertones is a media taboo!

This phenomenon of censorship19 of the ‘e-word’ in such public cases of outcry against racism is not new. In media coverage of the ‘racist row’ of November 2009 concerning a photo of Michelle Obama (wife of the US President) that had been doctored to make her features look like those of a monkey, none dared discuss why it was racist, or why similar associations done with George Bush photos were not considered racist.20 Similarly with the much publicised quest of European football authorities to stamp out ‘monkey chants’ and ‘ape grunting noises’ directed by spectators towards players of black African origins.21 And again in the infamous international cricket incident involving Indian player Harbhajan Singh’s calling Australia’s Andrew Symonds (who is of ‘Caribbean descent’) a ‘monkey’.22

It’s interesting to see the sorts of responses generated in the ‘blogosphere’ on the very few occasions that any observer did courageously point out the racism-evolution link. Here are two who dared to point out the truth:

  • “Well it isn’t so much racist as ‘evolutionist’. Believers in Darwinian evolution hypothesis* hold that the darker skinned people are closer to their ape ancestors i.e. less evolved. (Don’t get angry, this is the frank truth).”—Chris M.23

    * “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life”

  • “In schools today, as young as primary school, my children are being taught that we are all apes, or that we come from apes. I find this form of teaching highly offensive. I’m a creationist, I believe in God and that he created all things. To call someone an ape, is referring to everyone isn’t it, white or black, that’s what the schools teach anyway. Children are being educated, the wrong way.”—Eatosk24

That last sentence is especially apt given an earlier blogger’s comment, before it was known that the ‘racial slur’ against Adam Goodes was the word ‘ape’, who wrote incredulously, “Sounds like she’s only mid teens, what the h___ has she been taught in school?”25 The responses to the likes of the above astute commenters were immediate, hostile, and dismissive:

  • “Yikes.”—Couchy55526

  • “Time to head back to school. We share a common ancestor.”—Micksy27

  • “Maybe you should check your facts again mate. We share a common anscestor with apes, we are NOT apes, we did not COME from apes. [Double expletive deleted—Ed.] does no one in the world understand EVOLUTION!?!?!?!? You creationists don’t know the ACTUAL definition of evolution, then attack it for all your are worth. Good luck with killing all the strawmen.”—bobsyouruncle28

  • “The more I read your post the more I am disturbed by the level of science education in this country. We might as well be in southern USA. … You have been educated….the wrong way.”—bobsyouruncle29

Au contraire, these correspondents could do with some education themselves, about what the theory they’re trying to defend actually says. E.g. the Australian Museum public display on human origins makes it clear that evolutionary theory posits that humans are apes,30 and high-profile evolutionary paleoanthropologists have disdain for those who would play the ‘we did not come from apes’ line.

But probably of even greater interest is the hinted debate-stifling threat in the posting from the moderator on the blog when creationist correspondent ‘Eatosk’ had referred to the teaching of evolution to children …

Your post/s must address the topic and if you want a general racism discussion, you should head on over to SRP.
No more warnings.

… and this resulting plea from a blogger, to the moderator:

“Respectfully, it is impossible to address this incident in isolation, free of the wider context of what racism is or isn’t, the wider ramifications, everything. We will be limited to a thread on the facts. She said something. Goodes got upset. She got thrown out. This incident does not exist in a vacuum; it exists in a conceptual grey area of social interaction that can only be hammered out by meaningful discussion. I think some leeway needs to be given, as long as people are respectful and not abusive, to make any ‘debate’ as meaningful as possible.”—eldorado31
White House photo by Chris GreenbergThe Obamas
Missing from the mainstream media reports of the 2009 Michelle Obama racism saga was an explanation of why likening America’s First Lady to an ape or monkey is considered “racist”, while earlier likening then-President George Bush to an ape was not. As our articles Do monkeys play football? and Michelle Obama racism row—what’s it based on? made clear, it’s all to do with evolutionary teaching. Amazing though it might (therefore?) seem to black people worldwide, Mrs Obama’s own husband, US President Barack Obama, has in fact been an outspoken advocate for the teaching of evolution.

Thankfully the moderator agreed to let debate proceed. A good thing, for ‘eldorado’ is right about the need for meaningful debate, as the evolution elephant-in-the-room needs to be brought front-and-centre into the discussion. This moment in Australia’s history really is an unprecedented opportunity of potentially greater significance than the recent European ‘football monkeys’/Michelle Obama/cricket-‘ape’ sagas, which revolved around people of black African origin. The present Adam Goodes incident is really the first time that someone of Australian ‘indigenous’ origin has been the centre of such an anti-racism row. The heightened significance is because the destructive influence of evolutionary teaching on the way Europeans regarded and treated Australia’s Aboriginal people has arguably had far greater impact than on any other people group. In the evolutionary hierarchy popularized since Darwin, it’s the Australian aborigines who have been regarded as the ‘lowest of the low’. To European scientists, they represented a unique ‘living laboratory’, an unprecedented opportunity to study our evolutionary past by taking scientific samples in the present. Let’s spell out what that meant in practice: Aboriginal people were shot and their body parts shipped back to the UK and Europe for scientific study, under the justification of ‘evolution’.32,33 And the insidious influence continues today, e.g. with the push by some to create conditions where Aboriginal people have welfare incentives to communally occupy lands isolated from wider society, where they may ‘preserve their culture’—but instead the sad reality is that of a “soul-destroying existence”.34

Half-recognizing the problems; avoiding the solution

While the mainstream media assiduously pussy-footed around any reference to the deeper issues, their only fallback position to justify their anti-racism cry was to appeal to the emotional effects felt by Adam Goodes, as being the reason why calling him an ‘ape’ was a no-no. And this, too, seems to have been Goodes’ own defence of his actions, at least according to the public transcript of his media conference, as he went some way towards trying to reduce the girl’s being made a public scapegoat:

“It’s not her fault. She’s 13, she’s still so innocent. I don’t put any blame on her. … I can guarantee you right now she would have no idea how it makes anyone feel by calling them an ‘ape’. I think it was just the name calling that she was doing, and unfortunately it cut me deep, and it affected me so much that I couldn’t even be on the ground last night to celebrate a victory, to celebrate Indigenous round. I’m still shattered, personally, it’s tough. … She’s uneducated. If she wants to pick up the phone and call me and apologise I’ll take that phone call, and I’ll have a conversation with that girl about, ‘you know what, you called me a name, and this is how it made me feel’. And it’s school stuff. … I felt like I was in high school again being bullied, being called all these names because of my appearance. … I don’t know if it’s the lowest point in my career, but personally, I don’t think I’ve been more hurt by someone calling me a name than I was last night. Not because of what was said, but because where it came from: a 13-year-old girl. It just hit me that it’s not a Collingwood issue, it’s not an AFL issue, it’s a society issue. It’s an issue of what are our parents teaching our kids?”6

Yes, it is an issue of what kids are being taught, though I wonder if Adam Goodes realizes it’s the teaching of evolution as ‘fact’ that is the problem. A public comment attributed to Collingwood president Eddie McGuire was singularly unhelpful:

“The Magpies president was angered and saddened at Friday night’s events, but that ‘evolution, not revolution’ was vital in alleviating future racism.”35

Subsequently another public comment by Eddie McGuire was particularly unfortunate, coming just days after the Swans player had been ‘vilified’ by the ‘ape’ taunt. On breakfast radio, the Collingwood president suggested that Adam Goodes be invited to promote the ape-centred King Kong—The Musical.36 McGuire later apologized unreservedly, saying he was “devastated” that he had been the one to bring Friday night’s incident back into the public eye.37,38

Amid the frenzy of public comments throughout the saga, most of which endorsed the response of authorities to the incident, some voices dared to question whether the official reaction really solved, or resolved, anything. The aforementioned columnist Andrew Bolt, on hearing that the ‘racial slur’ was the word ‘ape’, and that police detained and ‘grilled’ the girl for two hours without her guardian present, was incredulous:

“Police were seriously considering charges against a 13-year-old for calling a man an ‘ape’? Are we insane?”39

Recognizing the problem, and embracing a solution

Here’s the nub of the problem. When the media reports that ‘ape’ or ‘monkey’ taunts are racist, they’re accepting a deep-seated evolutionary worldview that some people groups are less evolved than others—specifically, blacks are less evolved than whites. Of course they don’t dare put it so bluntly—it’s simply assumed. Against that backdrop, authorities not just in Australia but around the world are trying to stamp out such innuendoes. This is a classic example of society reaping the consequences (e.g. racism) of what it has sown (evolutionary teaching). Many in authority, it seems, have accepted (if not overtly promoted) the teaching of an evolutionary worldview, yet are unwilling to accept its consequences.

One blogger astutely drew attention to the ‘divided thinking’ at play in the public to-and-fro following the Adam Goodes incident:

“So—Adam isn’t an ape, except that we all were, or are or something. But we shouldn’t say it anyway. But we should have good manners and be polite. Probably because we are humans and in our culture at least, we have this ‘golden rule’ idea running in our heads.”—‘Ellen of Tasmania’40

The ‘golden rule’ idea is of course founded in Jesus’ words, as recorded in the Bible. There’s no logical justification for such altruism if evolution is true—i.e. evolution means it really is a dog-eat-dog world, where some humans can be considered to be ‘evolutionarily more advanced’ than others.

So, if it’s really time to get serious about curbing racism, then the taboo ‘elephant in the room’ topic of evolutionary teaching, and its horrific societal consequences, has to be brought into the firing line. An opportunity was missed on ‘Sorry Day’ in 2008 when the speech pre-prepared for Australia’s Prime Minister at the time, Kevin Rudd, had its references to eugenics and evolution excised out at the last minute—the classic example of high-level censorship.41 Given the events of the past weekend, leading into this ‘Reconciliation Week’,42 it surely represents a great opportunity to declare that it’s time for a true ‘Sorry Day’ from Australia’s leaders. This time there should be an apology for having sidelined the Bible’s true account of origins in favour of the falsehood of evolution, and with evolutionary teaching’s blood-stained legacy against Australia’s Aboriginal people exposed to the light of day.

However, given Australia’s current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is a self-professed atheist, it’s probably not likely to happen anytime soon.

Of the many books authored by Dr Carl Wieland, One Human Family is the one he describes as his ‘magnum opus’. And it’s not hard to see why. It deals head-on and in-depth with the racism issues undermining cultures around the world today. As the Adam Goodes saga shows, most are eager to quell racism—but the underlying issues are not being addressed, whether through deliberate censorship, or ignorance. In Chapter 17 of One Human Family, “Racism today—and hope for tomorrow”, Dr Wieland provides the ‘key to the future’ (p. 365 ff.). He would love to see this drummed into “the collective subconscious of every society: forget what you think you know from evolutionary conditioning—there is absolutely no scientific justification for the belief that someone is inferior or is to be treated differently because of belonging to people group A instead of group B.” At the same time, the book avoids ‘political correctness’ and firmly grasps the nettle as it deals with the reality of group differences in social and other outcomes. One Human Family can be purchased via our online store.

Published: 30 May 2013

References

  1. Adam Goodes has won two Brownlow Medals, widely acknowledged as the highest individual honour in the sport of Australian Rules football. The Brownlow Medal is awarded annually to the ‘fairest and best’ player in the AFL during the home-and-away season, as determined by aggregate votes cast by the officiating field umpires after each game. Goodes won in 2003 and 2006. Return to text.
  2. Suspected slur against Adam Goodes mars indigenous round, http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/suspected-slur-against-adam-goodes-mars-indigenous-round/story-fndv7pj3-1226650266237, 24 May 2013. Return to text.
  3. A cause célèbre (lit. French: famous case) is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, campaigning and heated public debate. Return to text.
  4. In Australia today, having even very modest Aboriginal ancestry can qualify you for various economic benefits set aside for indigenous people. Our book One Human Family explains on p. 110 that a group of very light-skinned public figures identifying as Aboriginal launched the court action against Andrew Bolt and his newspaper employer for naming them in this context. Return to text.
  5. Bolt, A., Goodes should not let one Collingwood teenager have this power, http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/goodes_should_not_let_one_collingwood_teenager_have_this_power/, 25 May 2013. Return to text.
  6. Adam Goodes media conference, http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-05-25/what-adam-goodes-said, 25 May 2013. Return to text.
  7. Adam Goodes receives an apology from Pies fan who made racial slur, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/adam-goodes-receives-an-apology-from-pies-fan-who-made-racial-slur/story-fnca0u4y-1226650404962, 26 May 2013. Return to text.
  8. Girl apologises to Goodes, ‘did not mean to be racist’, http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/05/25/16/17/girl-apologises-to-goodes-says-she-did-not-mean-to-be-racist, 25 May 2013. Return to text.
  9. From a letter to the Queensland newspaper Courier Mail, 28 May 2013, p. 22. Return to text.
  10. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-53. Return to text.
  11. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/adam-goodes-gutted-after-13-year-old-girls-racial-slur-who-called-the-sydney-champion-today-to-apologise/story-fni5fan7-1226650256245. Return to text.
  12. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-38#post-28391917. Return to text.
  13. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-38#post-28391824. Return to text.
  14. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-38#post-28391917. Return to text.
  15. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-44#post-28395394. Return to text.
  16. Davidson, S., Dreamtime weekend, http://catallaxyfiles.com/page/3/, 25 May 2013. Return to text.
  17. Williams, G., ‘A Civic Biology’ and eugenics, Journal of Creation 20(3): 123–127, 2006. Return to text.
  18. Whalley, K., Neville, C., Robertson, P., Rickard, G., Phillips, G., Jeffery, F. and Ellis, J., Science Focus 4, Pearson Educational Australia, Melbourne, 2005. Return to text.
  19. Whether self-imposed, or by editors. Return to text.
  20. Michelle Obama racism row—what’s it based on?, 8 December 2009. Return to text.
  21. Catchpoole, D., Do monkeys play football? Creation 29(3):12–14, 2007. Return to text.
  22. It’s just not cricket!—‘Monkey’ jibe considered racist; ‘donkey’ apparently not, 8 January 2008. Return to text.
  23. Reader’s comment at http://catallaxyfiles.com/2013/05/25/dreamtime-weekend/. Return to text.
  24. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-41#post-28392722. Return to text.
  25. Comment from reader ‘Pykie’, posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-7#post-28385816. Return to text.
  26. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-41#post-28392722. Return to text.
  27. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-39#post-28392212. Return to text.
  28. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-39#post-28392217. Return to text.
  29. Reader’s comment posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-40#post-28392306. Return to text.
  30. Humans are Great Apes, http://australianmuseum.net.au/Humans-are-apes-Great-Apes, acc. 28 May 2013. Return to text.
  31. Reader’s response to moderator’s warning, posted at http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/adam-goodes-confirmed-racial-slur-by-fan-apology-made-and-accepted.1008006/page-40#post-28392440. Return to text.
  32. Wieland, C., Darwin’s bodysnatchers: new horrors—People deliberately killed to provide ‘specimens’ for evolutionary research, Creation 14(2):16-18, 1992. Return to text.
  33. Cosner, L. and Bates, G., Racism—a consequence of evolution?, 7 April 2011. Return to text.
  34. Wieland, C., One Human Family, Creation Book Publishers, Atlanta, USA, 2011, chapter 14: “Indigenous issues”. Return to text.
  35. Teenage girl apologises for racist insult in letter to Adam Goodes, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/teenage-girl-apologises-for-racist-insult-in-letter-to-adam-goodes/story-e6frg6n6-1226650580225, 25 May 2013. Return to text.
  36. Collingwood’s Eddie McGuire makes ‘King Kong’ gaffe over Adam Goodes, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/collingwoods-eddie-mcguire-makes-king-kong-gaffe-over-adam-goodes/story-fnca0u4y-1226652825692, 29 May 2013. Return to text.
  37. Eddie McGuire says he’s ‘devastated’ after making on-air gaffe linking Adam Goodes to King Kong musical, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/national-news/eddie-mcguire-makes-on-air-gaffe-linking-adam-goodes-to-king-kong-musical/story-fncynjr2-1226652776987#ixzz2Uebl6wOr, 29 May 2013. Return to text.
  38. Eddie McGuire apologises for King Kong comment regarding Adam Goodes, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-29/eddie-mcguire-apologises-for-king-kong-comment-regarding-adam-g/4720152, 29 May 2013. Return to text.
  39. Bolt, A., Goodes should not let one Collingwood teenager have this power, http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/goodes_should_not_let_one_collingwood_teenager_have_this_power/, 25 May 2013. Return to text.
  40. Reader’s comment posted at http://catallaxyfiles.com/2013/05/25/dreamtime-weekend/comment-page-4/. Return to text.
  41. Wieland, C., A sorry day—with an unlikely twist, 13 February 2008. Return to text.
  42. National Reconciliation Week, http://www.reconciliation.org.au/nrw, acc. 27 May 2013. Return to text.