Adam Goodes: How racism drove him from Australian Rules football
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 20 July 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nowhere has the symbolic power of the Black Lives Matter movement been more evident than in the sports arena. All too often racism undermines the notion of a level playing field. HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to an athlete who made a stand. Adam Goodes was a star player in Aussie Rules football. One of the greatest ever players of Aboriginal descent, he quit the game after years of racist abuse. What lessons can Australia and the wider world learn from his experience?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today is a |
| 0:06.1 | sporting superstar in Australia. The fact that he's not well known around the world is simply |
| 0:11.6 | because his sport, Aussie rules football, is barely played beyond Australia's shores. But Adam Good |
| 0:18.8 | story transcends his sport and it resonates far beyond his |
| 0:23.4 | home country. On his mother's side, his heritage is Aboriginal Australian. For him, |
| 0:29.5 | professional sport was a route out of poverty. But as he discovered, as his career progressed, |
| 0:35.3 | it was not a route out of racism. Adam Goods ultimately took a stand, |
| 0:41.0 | sparked by an incident in a game when he was called an ape by a 13-year-old girl in the crowd. |
| 0:47.4 | He spoke out about racism. He was lauded as an Australian hero by many, but condemned as a bully and a fraud by others. For two years, |
| 0:57.4 | he was roundly abused in stadiums across Australia. Then he quit. Now, a film has been made about |
| 1:03.8 | his story, which has stirred debate inside Australia and chimed with a wider international discussion |
| 1:10.4 | sparked by the Black Lives Matter |
| 1:12.8 | movement and the focus on systematic racism and discrimination. Is Australia and the wider world |
| 1:18.9 | ready to learn from those who know the reality of racism? Well, Adam Goods joins me now |
| 1:26.4 | on the line from New South Wales. Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:30.2 | Thanks for having me, mate. Adam, you quit your sport, Aussie rules football in 2015, having made a |
| 1:37.7 | stand against racism. Five years on, racism and racism in sport is top of the agenda with the Black Lives Matter movement, making it such a theme right across the world. |
| 1:49.9 | How much do you believe has changed in the past five years? |
| 1:53.1 | I think the biggest thing that's changed for me is that I, you know, I'm not putting myself in a situation for that, you know, abuse to be put on me every time I went to work. |
| 2:02.9 | So that's the biggest thing that's changed for me. And I'm incredibly more happier, you know, |
| 2:08.1 | during that period. And, you know, I've definitely moved on from that part of my life. And I think, |
| 2:13.8 | if you think globally about what's changed, I think a lot more people are awoke now to, |
... |
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