Australian sport’s indigenous question mark is a black one

The NRL’s Indigenous All Stars are all smiles with the the organisation’s suits / Pic :: The Brisbane Times

This is a slightly unusual post as it’s not related to photography or music, or even journalism and multimedia. It’s about sport, which is kind of my job and something I try and keep away from in my own time, but it’s an issue I’ve found fascinating to discuss this past week.

Australia’s National Rugby League has organised a first this season by pitting a team of so-called “Indigenous All Stars” against a team of “NRL All Stars” as a prelude to the 2010 regular club season. To many Australians, there is nothing unusual about this, it seems. To me, I find it quite bizarre.

I said as much via a tweet/Facebook status update, remarking: “This is probably going to sound bad to someone, but I find the concept of ‘indigenous’ teams slightly racist”. Sure enough, the comments back started rolling in. I got everything, from agreement to vehement disagreement. My buddy Jesse even felt compelled to write a blog on the topic off the back of what became a very lively discussion on my Facebook page.

The subject of race and sport is one close to my heart, since my university major was on a similar topic – The over-representation of black athletes in sprint-based athletic events. My findings were that, contrary to popular belief, black athletes are driven to such sports through social mechanism rather than a perceived physical athletic ability that is superior to those of a paler complexion.

But that’s off topic. To me, the idea of indigenous teams seems to go against everything most right-thinking societies try to educate us on when it comes to matters of colour and creed. Of course, in reality, there is only one race – the human race – so I’m looking at this from the perspective of culture and skin tone.

As part of the Facebook discussion, I stated: “(It) makes no sense – we spend years educating ourselves that we’re all equal, no matter our colour or creed, and then we come up with this nonsense and say, ‘Let’s play each other and see which is the dominant colour’. On reflection, I should have perhaps substituted “colour” for “people”, but you get my drift.

Jesse stated his case very eloquently in his blog, but to me, it remains an unusual and somewhat patronising concept. I see the fact that indigenous Australians are playing professional football as evidence of their equality and willingness to rise above adversity. Sadly, such equality hasn’t filtered through to other walks of life (in most cases). There are few, if any, aboriginal chief executives in Australia, for example. Most indigenous heroes are sporting ones Down Under – Cathy Freeman, Evonne Goolagong, Tony Mundine, Michael Long, to name a few. The neglect of the indigenous culture of this country, and Australia’s failure at embracing it in the same way New Zealand has the Maori culture, is something I know many Australians are ashamed of. (Incidentally, New Zealand Rugby has a similarly weird team called New Zealand Maori, which is open only to players of a Maori background.)

Things can change, I’m sure, but the forming of indigenous teams to play what are essentially white, Anglo Saxon opponents is not the way to achieve this. Positive discrimination is not a concept I’m on board with. I know the players themselves feel proud to play for “their people”, as they put it.

Indigenous All Stars captain Preston Campbell, for example, said this week his place in side was bigger than any other representative duty he’d experienced. “This is bigger than that. I’m playing for my people, I’m playing for my family, I’m playing for my community, and what bigger passion can you get than that? I don’t think there is any,” he said. Incidentally, Campbell has never been selected to play for his state (New South Wales) or country (Australia – of course), as far as I am aware, despite at times being in the form to do so.

But the development of his sentiment, while admirable, is a bad thing, and certainly doesn’t make the birth of this fixture the right choice. Separating a nation’s people is the wrong way to unite them, in my opinion. And Australian rules football does it too, and has for much longer. Indeed, for the AFL, it is a bizarre source of pride.

I won’t say much more on the subject. I’ll leave it to you to comment and spark more debate, maybe even draw more thoughts from me. I look forward to reading your thoughts.