Every time Adam Goodes has walked onto a football field over the past few months, he has been booed by sections of the crowd. The booing has nothing to do with how well or how poorly he conducts himself on the field during the game. It starts from the first time he approaches the ball and continues every time he gets it, often building as other fans join in.
In its best light, this unrelenting campaign, aimed at destroying one player's ability to do their job, is bullying. Those who boo Goodes should be ashamed to participate in it for this reason alone. However, there is a strong argument that it is worse than that.
Some justify the abuse of Goodes because of the way he plays his football these days. As his immense physical gifts decay with age, he's become more of a wily craftsman on the field. Opposing fans argue that he snipes at other players behind play, stages for free kicks and gets an unfair run from umpires.
These people don't like being called racists when they boo Adam Goodes. They'll point to past actions on the field and say they don't boo him because he's Aboriginal but because the way he plays the game is not they way they believe players should conduct themselves.
Yet there are other players considered 'dirty' by opposition fans. Joel Selwood wins more free kicks than any other player in the game. Ryan Crowley and Hayden Ballyntine have made a career out of niggling opposition players and fans. All have been booed at times, but none of them are booed on a weekly basis, from the start of the game to the finish, like Adam Goodes.
There are others who boo Adam Goodes because of the way he acts off the field. They see someone who's been gifted with a career and honours most would dream of having. Rather than just expressing gratitude for those gifts, Goodes uses the public platforms he's been given to call out ugliness where he sees and experiences it. He's not afraid to use the word 'racism', and to challenge how Aboriginal people are seen and treated.
These people don't like being called racists when they boo Adam Goodes either. They point to what he's said about racism in Australia and argue that they don't boo him because he's an Aboriginal. They boo him because they disagree with his view of Australia,