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Anyone notice the Powell incident? Wonder if one of our players dobbed him in
MRP / Trib. Suns Powell Suspended for Homophobic Slur
- Thread starter Nathan Barley
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McIvor
Premiership Player
So Will Powell cops a 5 match ban for a homophobic slur towards a Lions player during the first quarter of the QClash...that is left field, given that there has been no media involvement until the AFL released the penalty.
This can't be true, the Suns board says our team is the one full of punchables; how can it be that the Suns are the bunch of squirrel-gtipping homophobes? I deny this reality
Hollow Knight
Imperfect vessel
- May 3, 2005
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Pretty disappointing response on the Suns board and Facebook page.
As mentioned above, they’re struggling to reconcile what’s happened with their groupthink narrative of Brisbane as the “bad guys”. Resorting to blame shifting and false equivalencies. One of them seemed to seriously suggest that the AFL needs to investigate whether the victim is actually gay or not before determining the sanction.
Kinda just reinforces my preconceptions. The Coast is a pretty spot and there are some good people there, but overall there I always just a persistent perceivable whiff of shallow, superficial, philosophical bankruptcy in the culture down there. Feels like they never fully shook off the residue of Joh and his white shoe brigade. I can tolerate it for a weekend at best before it just manifests into general sense of nausea.
As mentioned above, they’re struggling to reconcile what’s happened with their groupthink narrative of Brisbane as the “bad guys”. Resorting to blame shifting and false equivalencies. One of them seemed to seriously suggest that the AFL needs to investigate whether the victim is actually gay or not before determining the sanction.
Kinda just reinforces my preconceptions. The Coast is a pretty spot and there are some good people there, but overall there I always just a persistent perceivable whiff of shallow, superficial, philosophical bankruptcy in the culture down there. Feels like they never fully shook off the residue of Joh and his white shoe brigade. I can tolerate it for a weekend at best before it just manifests into general sense of nausea.
Nunez
Premium Platinum
BRAB
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When people say nasty things about the Gold Coast it makes me really sad 
I can understand not liking the Gold Coast as a place for whatever the personal reasons are but to take whatever the miniscule numbers of GC footy supporters think and label the place with philosophical bankruptcy whatever that is is too big a stretch for me.
The people there are the same as people anywhere as far as I can tell .
- Mar 12, 2003
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People on the Gold Coast or people on the Gold Coast BigFooty forum?
Brighten up Brab.When people say nasty things about the Gold Coast it makes me really sad
Sticks and stones can break your bones......
Well as a sample size the people on the GC footy forum couldn't even be rateable.
And the same as any other rabid Footy supporters. Biased and some of them unhinged.
Except for us.
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Yes. We're definitely not biased. Just unhinged.
Hollow Knight
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A complete misinterpretation of what I said.
BRAB
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Why do you hate me
Hollow Knight
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You’re the Jack Gunston of the Brisbane board.
Elixuh
See you on the 9th green at 9
The highest praise one can receive
Sorry . I thought your preconceptions of the shallow superficial culture of the GC were confirmed and left you with a feeling of general nausea.
I don't want to go there any more but I don't get that feeling about it.
- Jul 22, 2007
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As someone who has felt the power of that word in a negative way, I also understand at times even the best of us say dumb things without engaging our brain. For what seems like a life time those words were thrown around in school yards and back yards and it will take time to eradicate it from our vocabulary.
For Powell, who does actually seem like a decent person, his brain fart has left him being made example of and in reality it needs to happen. He needs to be better, those around him need to be better and the rest of the players in the AFL need to understand the gravity of what hate speech of any kind does to the vulnerable.
There was a podcast this week around a man and his gay AFL partner having to split up after years together because of the pressure involved and it's sad that people's happiness is still sacrificed because of this stuff.
However... the AFL really needs to get it's s**t together on the whole range of penalties. I don't disagree with the 5 weeks at all - it needs to be a significant deterrent.
But lets see the same sort of penalties issued out to dirty and dangerous play, not just the easy to adjudicate scenarios like this one, so that the outrage this suspension has caused doesn't happen again.
For Powell, who does actually seem like a decent person, his brain fart has left him being made example of and in reality it needs to happen. He needs to be better, those around him need to be better and the rest of the players in the AFL need to understand the gravity of what hate speech of any kind does to the vulnerable.
There was a podcast this week around a man and his gay AFL partner having to split up after years together because of the pressure involved and it's sad that people's happiness is still sacrificed because of this stuff.
However... the AFL really needs to get it's s**t together on the whole range of penalties. I don't disagree with the 5 weeks at all - it needs to be a significant deterrent.
But lets see the same sort of penalties issued out to dirty and dangerous play, not just the easy to adjudicate scenarios like this one, so that the outrage this suspension has caused doesn't happen again.
rye
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there really shouldnt be outrage over the suspension imo
lot of the suspensions for dangerous tackles, high bumps etc are incidental to the game. theyre things we will try squeeze out but will always be there as a part of AFL...
there really isnt any excuse to drop a homophobic slur and its definitely possible to remove them entirely from AFL (and society more broadly hopefully). i dont really buy the 'lost my emotions / got angry' excuse either. if vilifying another player with those slurs is what comes to your mind when you get angry it probably speaks to a bigger issue with your character and hopefully a suspension serves as adequate time to reflect on that.
i think its much more comparable to an incident like the gaff punch where theres genuinely no excuse for the conduct so throwing the book at the perpetrator is fine.
Schache_off
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Disagree that there isn't any excuse Rye. You've got a group of men born between late 80's and early 2000's who used these slurs or had them said to them throughout a lot of their school and footy life. A behaviour that was acceptable for 90% of their lives, now isn't. Not saying they shouldn't have some type of suspension and or fine but judging a wrong by today's standards and saying there is no excuse for it at all doesn't really add up.
dlanod
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Counterpoint: it wasn't acceptable then either, they just got away with it without being punished - which is very different. I would've overlapped at school with some of these players (I know I did with at least one). I used similar language through school at times, but even then we all knew it wasn't the smartest or right thing to do and you could tell because we wouldn't go around doing it in front of teachers.
I played footy and cricket at a reasonable level in the early 70's and guys who were clearly not gay were taunted with what would now be regarded as homophobic slurs . Mostly it was laughed off or seemed to make them play better. I remember 2 guys who played in our team over that time who everyone knew were gay and no one from our side ever brought that up , nor do I recall them getting targeted or expressing any problem . They socialised with other players the same as everyone else. Whether anything inappropriate was said or how they felt about life then was hard to tell. I can only presume they had had issues. We were Uni boys so there wasn't any stigma in our group but when we played teams where footy was everything homophobic slurs were randomly thrown at all of us. Because we were at Uni.
I really don't think knocking a guy out and breaking his jaw should be the equivalent suspension to someone who has let go a homophobic slur at someone who probably isn't even gay but those of you who weren't even born in my era might be surprised to know that there were gay communities of both sexes living in Carlton ,Fitzroy and Collingwood who seemed to live their lives and socialise with their heterosexual friends the same as everyone else.
I really don't think knocking a guy out and breaking his jaw should be the equivalent suspension to someone who has let go a homophobic slur at someone who probably isn't even gay but those of you who weren't even born in my era might be surprised to know that there were gay communities of both sexes living in Carlton ,Fitzroy and Collingwood who seemed to live their lives and socialise with their heterosexual friends the same as everyone else.
Elixuh
See you on the 9th green at 9
The AFL is not some unicorn workplace where you can’t expect reasonable professional behaviour and conduct - especially concerning hateful speech. Any other workplace and you’re sacked.
I actually think it’s a reasonable suspension to push cultural change. We are drawing a line in the sand and saying you can’t use this language. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request.
They can call other players a million other things. Just don’t use racist or homophobic slurs. It’s not difficult.
