Jon Ralph: Taylor Walker’s racial slur proves the long and painful battle Eddie Betts talks about is far from being won

A six-week ban has offered Taylor Walker the chance for redemption for his racial abuse of a SANFL player. Jon Ralph says it is a “fitting” penalty — here’s why.

The most powerful AFL moment in recent years might have come on a Zoom interview rather than anything that happened on the football field.

It was in June last year when Eddie Betts poured his heart out – again – on Fox Footy’s AFL 360 program after he was racially abused on social media with a photo of a monkey.

Betts had clearly had a gutful.

He was angry and confused and in pain. Again.

But above all, he was exhausted.

Why should he have to spend his life fighting racist idiots instead of celebrating his heritage?

“It’s just tiring, just fighting, fighting, fighting every year,” he said.

“The last six years over in Adelaide I’ve been racially abused every year online, I had a banana thrown at me and quite frankly I’m getting sick and tired of it.

“It just drains you, you kind of think ‘Why am I playing footy’?”

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Taylor Walker and Eddie Betts, like they did so often, celebrate a Crows goal in 2019. Picture: David Mariuz

Taylor Walker’s six-game suspension for his racial abuse of North Adelaide player Robbie Young, announced on Friday morning, is a fitting penalty.

If it were eight or ten weeks, that would have been fine, too, but it balances the need to heavily punish Walker and the capacity for him to gain a second chance and redeem himself by his actions.

Handing Walker a ban that ended his career is no use because he needs to help be the solution, rather than the problem.

Yet, the greatest mystery of this entire episode is this: how can Walker utter the kind of racism abuse that sees him banned when he professes to be such a great mate of Betts’?

He has seen Betts’ pain, he has lived it at the Adelaide Football Club, and when the chance comes to sledge a SANFL rival, out comes the same tired old Neanderthal garbage.

Walker’s greatest challenge won’t be sitting out six matches, and going through an education process, it will be finding forgiveness from his teammates and friends such as Betts.

How does he look Wayne Milera in the eye, a teammate who spoke as recently as June about attempting to get a car loan at a bank and being asked if the forms he was filling out were for unemployment benefits?

Or Shane McAdam. Or Ben Davis, who has worked so hard to learn more about his Indigenous heritage in recent years and this season designed Adelaide’s Indigenous jumper.

Walker warming up before the Indigenous Round clash with Collingwood. Picture: James Elsby/AFL Photos

What do we make of Walker’s own comments, which now ring so false, about a fan who threw a banana onto the field in Betts’ direction in 2016?

He tweeted: “Absolutely disgusting! Shouldn’t ever be allowed back into enjoy the football. Very disappointing.”

How much of a hypocrite does that make Walker now?

What Betts might suspect is that Walker is another one of those teammates who stand up for racism when it gets them good PR and social media support.

But behind their backs – in WhatsApp groups and text messages, or through snide remarks to an Adelaide player in a huddle – is prepared to throw around blatantly racist remarks.

How many football lovers are chiding Walker for his stupidity, but don’t have the guts to call out their mates and tell them that those tired old jokes and abuses just aren’t funny, or anywhere near acceptable?

It is the casual racism that Heritier Lumumba spoke about so many years ago.

The belief that Indigenous players only make the grade through talent instead of hard work.

The feeling racist abuse is only really unacceptable if it is made directly to an Indigenous person rather than in some pathetic joke shared between white teammates or over a few beers away from prying eyes.

Walker has betrayed his mate and all the Indigenous players who elevate this game to a higher plane.

The $20,000 fine to an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander program is a drop in the ocean given his earning capacity.

What does Indigenous teammate Ben Davis think of Walker’s actions? Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

So, now, Walker has to find a way to become so educated in this space that he devotes himself to advocacy for Indigenous causes rather than just becomes another cautionary tale.

During a year that Lance Franklin will likely break the 1000-goal barrier, in which Eddie Betts will hopefully play his 300th game and in which Shaun Burgoyne became a 400-gamer, this should have been a season for celebration of Indigenous causes.

Instead, our Indigenous players are still abused weekly online, with the Australian E-Safety Commissioner admitting this week the best remedy is to find online algorithms to hide the abuse instead of actually stop it.

Heaven forbid we should attempt to identify these anonymous trolls or force social media giants to take some responsibility for the toxic sludge they monetise online.

And, now, Walker has again uncovered the dark underbelly of Australian society, where we just try to hide our racism rather than actually change our attitudes.

Where so many people are not prepared to examine their own prejudices over their determination to boo Adam Goodes out of the game … even when he spoke of the heartbreak those actions caused.

Each episode of on-field racism has provided a teaching moment for the league and its player attitudes, which is what Walker’s racist slur will become.

But Eddie Betts would be right to ask this question: Why does it have to come with so much pain and so much anger in a battle that Walker’s actions prove is so far from being won?

Originally published as Jon Ralph: Taylor Walker’s racial slur proves the long and painful battle Eddie Betts talks about is far from being won