Sam Kerr, racism and broken public debate

Welcome to The Weekly Cheek Opinion with H Fergie (a few days early! I'm taking it for a test run with you all! Expect it usually on Mondays!)

Last week, the world discovered that Sam Kerr was charged with the racially aggravated harassment of a UK police officer. The nation held it’s breath when we read the charge on our screens. Is our queen, our national hero, our Sam - a racist? My stomach dropped, was the woman who provoked days worth of research around ACL injuries, suddenly not the person I thought she was, the captain of our hearts?

The following day the trash UK tabloid, The Sun, reported that Sam Kerr called the cop a “stupid white bastard” during an altercation about the payment of a taxi fare. This is widely disputed, and Sam has plead not guilty. I also read in an SBS article this morning that: The Australian is also reporting that Kerr will dispute the phrase, claiming instead that she called the officer a "stupid white cop". She is reportedly not denying she used the term "white". Essentially, I’m asking you to proceed with caution and remind yourself of the big A word: “allegedly”.

If you want to hear our news breakdown, listen to this week’s episode of our podcast, Big Small Talk.

The collective sigh of relief could have powered a wind farm. Sam now allegedly had a go at a white cop? That is a whole lot better than what many of us feared. So I made a joke. Everyone made a joke. Unfortunately my joke garnered almost 2 million cross-platform views and many an abusive message. I’ll never complain about going viral though, slay off raising engagement rates.

But beyond the initial spike in community spirit, there exists a cavern between the poles of public opinion. This gorge between the ‘sides’ of debate is never constructive, going nowhere, and eventually meaning nothing. Just a whole lot of fucking noise. This is typical for this country. Our steaming hot turd breakfast shows debate it with the emotional intelligence of a teaspoon. The headlines dribble on for clicks that slide cold hard cash into the decaying palms of Rupert Murdoch’s freshly blinged up hands. All of it is inflammatory, none of it is healthy. Then the news cycle continues on, leaving us fatigued and without hope that we can move forward together.

People continue to scream at each other in comments sections until any semblarticulations devolve to insults. We are void of the ability to listen, constantly performing our opinions and dying on every single hill. Everyone is suddenly an expert, which means no one is. I want to clarify: I am certainly not. I want to ask these questions and hear the answers (read: please use the comments section!!!!). What I see as the question that sits at the centre of this story is a singular important discussion: in the pursuit of ending racism, how do we socially define and treat it?

You’ll assume my position, but I want to explain why. I don’t expect agreement, in fact, I don’t think there is a singular correct answer here. What is important is that these conversations spark critical thought and conversation, they offer (I hope) a considered articulation - not gospel to be adopted.

In order to move through the conversation, what must first be established is the definition of racism. Here are three separate examples that place different lenses on the term:

The Diversity Council of Australia states that racism is when an individual or organisation with race-based societal power discriminates, excludes or disadvantages a racially-based person because of their race, colour, descent, nationality, ethnicity, religion or immigrant status. Racism can be conscious or unconscious, active or passive, obvious or subtle.

Oxford gives us this: “racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalised.”

The Australian Human Rights Commission defines racism as the process by which systems and policies, actions and attitudes create inequitable opportunities and outcomes for people based on race. Racism is more than just prejudice in thought or action. It occurs when this prejudice – whether individual or institutional – is accompanied by the power to discriminate against, oppress or limit the rights of others.

Next, what does the law say?

In both the UK and Australia, protections against racial discrimination exist in the law - but they don’t explicitly use ‘racism’. These legal mechanisms were created to counter the historic systems that had enforced hierarchies of racism, they are an attempt to eradicate the systemic and institutional racism that exists by protecting those most likely to experience this kind of oppression. Yes, it might be a case of intent vs impact, that the intention behind the legislation may be to restore historic power imbalances - but the effect has been this criminal charge: a woman of Indian descent accused of racially aggravated harassment against a white police officer.

What I continue to argue is that what Sam Kerr said, the meaning of the language, does amount to prejudice and discrimination - but that is not racism. The language we use has meaning and distinction, it exists on a spectrum and these words are not synonymous. Discrimination and prejudice are the language of bias, but race involves additional criteria: power.

What exists is a significant gap between the socially progressive and scholarly understanding of racism, and the way the term can be legally applied. This doesn’t render the former incorrect, it actually begins conversations about whether there should be reform to better reflect the intention behind why these racial protections exist. What matters now is whether these legal proceedings make the distinction between ‘racial’ language in nature, and what it means to be ‘racist’.

When it comes to Sam Kerr, I struggle to feel guilty for my support of the woman who changed my life last year. Not because I have double standards, or that my morals apply differently for men and women, but because Sam Kerr’s experience of racism is likely to be far more sophisticated than that of a white, male police officer in the United Kingdom.

Beyond the officer as an individual, I struggle to partake in this public debate more broadly. The Venn diagram of white men who argue relentlessly for the rights of this police officer and the white men who argued that the referendum was ‘racist towards white people’ is a circle. This group of people are wilfully ignorant, completely blinding themselves to any social issue or experience of marginalisation outside of their own faux self-victimisation. They are incapable of holding space for conversation that does not centre their needs and glorify them, let alone holding space for an acknowledgement that they are the very cause of another person’s suffering.

If we cannot see a grocery store stop selling temporary flag tattoos, if we cannot have a conversation about changing our national holiday away from an anniversary of colonisation and genocide, how are we ever going to respectfully discuss the power structures that we continue to maintain. Will the right ever be able to come to terms with the existence of white supremacy without having an allergic reaction to just the term being uttered? I’d like to see these men and women apply the same passion and sense of social justice to the charge of rape their favourite NRL player is facing. I’d like, just for a second, to see them call out racism at their next family barbecue. They won’t, because their sense of justice is not based in fairness or equality, but in loyalty to those who look and act like them. It isn’t about morality or ethics. It’s future-proofing their own behaviour, every time a man is criticised or held to account - they see it as an attack on their entire gender and work to obscure the problem.

They are listening to defend, not to hear. To quote myself (sickening I know), when we approach conversation with the sole goal of winning, we have already lost.

When we define racism, our intention should be to understand it in the pursuit of ending it wholly. Within that more panoramic understanding, we can clearly see that this Sam Kerr discussion serves as a distraction from the real problem at play. Our contextual understanding of racism must focus on the protection of vulnerable people, that isn’t a white guy with a gun on his hip.

In all of this, I can’t imagine how Sam Kerr feels. What she said was wrong, but should it be a criminal offence with a potential trial date two years after the uttering of three inappropriate words? No. Is there an expectation on women in the spotlight to be ‘squeaky clean’ in order to be liked? That’s an entire other column or book I’ll have to put on the list of things I won’t quit yapping about.

And yes, I did laugh when I saw what she said (and no I don’t feel bad about it).

H.