Let The Kids Play Ball.

On Thursday night, AFL great Eddie Betts shared footage of his kids being racially abused in their own backyard to his Instagram. In the footage, you can see four children playing basketball in a fenced yard before a white car driving down the street slows down in front of the home. Someone then yells racial slurs at the kids. 

“Aboriginal kids deserve to be able to play safely, free from racism and abuse over the fence. We are not even safe in our own homes. If you know who this is please let them know I’m open to having a chat about how much this hurts our kids.”

The Victorian Police have now confirmed they are investigating the attack.

It is bad enough that Aboriginal and First Nations people are subject to racial abuse in public spaces, but for children to be subject to this treatment while they are in their own homes, their safe space? That is disgusting. 

Let kids be kids. Let the kids play ball. Let them live in a world where they don’t have to be scared that the car slowing down near their house is about to yell racial abuse at them. Let them live in a world where they don’t have to worry about being racially abused full stop. 

According to the Adelaide Crows website Eddie's son Billy was born in 2015, making him nine years old, and Lewis is now nearly 12. The other two children were apparently their cousins. To be driving a car, we’re going to assume that the driver is an adult. A full-grown adult purposely goes out of their way to racially abuse four children. 

“I’m more disappointed that people think that this doesn’t happen and that this is out of the blue. Every day you walk out of the house, you have the hard hat on, going out into public, the same way people go onto social media and feel like it’s a war zone, I don’t know what I’m going to cop. Anything could happen.” Stated Tony Armstrong on the ABC this morning. 

I’ve seen comments that Eddie should be the “bigger person”, and that the footage shouldn’t have bee put on social media. And do you know what I think? Fuck that. If the footage makes you uncomfortable, GOOD. It should. You should be fucking uncomfortable that there are people willing to racially abuse anyone, let alone CHILDREN. 

Eddie Betts is someone who continually works to educate people on racism, through conversation and through education. Him sharing this footage has reignited a very important conversation that unfortunately needs to be had time and time again. Maybe one day we won’t have to talk about racism and racial abuse, but at the moment, it’s still necessary.   

The only way to make a change is to call this shit out. Don’t sit by idly as people racially abuse others, especially children. Whether you hear it, see it or read it, call it out. There should be no place for racism in this society - it only does harm.