Beloved Australian soccer captain Sam Kerr (well beloved to some, the media seem to love her. Social media? Not so much), has done something a little bit naughty. She uttered some not-so-nice words to a police officer in London early last year. First of all, no matter what side of politics you’re on, whether you’re woke or anti-woke, I don’t care, but I think nobody should be cancelled, or lose their careers over something they say. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. We sometimes say stupid things. So I’m not here campaigning for Sam Kerr to lose her job.
However, she did say something that other sports stars have lost their jobs over. What did she say? Well after a big night out, she reportedly threw up in a taxi and got into an altercation with the driver over the taxi fare, presumably over the cleaning fee, so the police were called and she allegedly called the police officer a “stupid white bastard”. However, it’s being reported that Kerr herself said she didn’t say that all, she said, “stupid white cop”. Either way, the intent is the same. She called the police officer “stupid”, as well as “white”, and consequently was charged with Racially Aggravated Harassment, which she could potentially go to jail for.
This of course resulted in the Progressive Left, or the Woke Left, or whatever you want to call them, their minds collectively imploded. You see, the Progressive Left are all about criminalising language, when it suits them. They are obsessed with historical oppression and identity politics. The only things that matter to them now are race, gender, and sexuality. They no longer focus on the real problems facing poor people, but instead turn their gaze to imagined microaggressions against over-privileged university graduates. And because Sam Kerr is a person of colour (I hate that term by the way. It sounds rather racist, don’t you think?), she’s of Indian descent (noting, she’s also of Caucasian descent, but that doesn’t seem to count), she’s a lesbian (she has a Caucasian fiancée), and of course, she’s a woman, whatever that means. Nobody seems to be able to define it anymore. The point is, she ticks all the Woke Left’s boxes, so to speak. So when they heard she was charged with racism, as I said, their collective minds imploded.
Instead of calling out the racism for what it is, they instead tried to defend her. But to be fair, it is a bit hard for them to rationally support her racist comments in this instance, so what else can they do? Well they can simply change the definition of racism. For example, the Conversation are reporting: “Sam Kerr’s alleged comments may have had a racial element, but they were not ‘racist’” in quotes.
Obviously, laws should be colourblind, and should be applied equally. If Sam Kerr gets away with this, it sets an incredibly stupid and dangerous precedent.
Of course, politicians like Senator Lidia Thorpe who profit (as in benefit) from the racism industry, tweeted: “Replace all statues of captain cook with statues of Sam Kerr, our one true captain”. Basically, calling her a hero for using racist language towards a police officer.
Former Australian soccer captain Craig Foster has called on Football Australia to strip Sam Kerr of her captaincy if it is confirmed that she did indeed use racist language towards the police officer, to show how seriously the sport takes racism.
Look, I think this is the natural result of criminalising language. We get stupid situations like this. It seems like the world can’t agree what racism is. Crimes like murder are obvious. You either kill someone or you don’t. Sure, we could argue over whether it’s manslaughter, or whatever, but somebody is dead. Burglary and theft are obvious. Something has been stolen. There’s no debate. But criminalising language, as we’ve seen with this racism debate, is a very dangerous path. It’s open to abuse. Somebody says something, and then somebody claims they feel offended. How can we disprove it? Maybe we should just do away with this whole racism thing.
Even if the world decides that what Sam Kerr said wasn’t racist, it was still wrong. She is a role model. Many girls (and boys) look up to her. At the very least, she needs to apologise. She won’t, because that would be an admission of guilt. But in a perfect would, she might say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I was drunk, but that’s no excuse. We should be nice to one another no matter what our cultural backgrounds. Racism is racism, and I was wrong to say what I said. Please forgive me.”
Call it double standards. Call it selective outrage. Call it hypocrisy. But one thing that is crystal clear, racism is only called out by the Progressive Left when they are the victim.
MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn