By Jack Latimore
AFL veteran player and Carlton forward Eddie Betts has spoken out for the first time about racist comments made by Adelaide Crows player Taylor Walker, saying his former teammate “needs to learn” from the incident.
Betts, who told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that he had suffered racist comments every week of his career, said he did not want to comment specifically on Walker’s words to a teammate during a South Australian league match on July 17 in reference to a North Adelaide player Robbie Young.
Carlton star Eddie Betts.Credit: Getty Images
Walker was suspended for six games, required to donate $20,000 to an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander program and apologise to the Indigenous players at the Crows and again to the entire playing group, as well as undertake an education program.
“He needs to learn from this. He needs to own it. And he needs to work towards educating himself to be anti-racist, educating people around him, calling people out on racism when he hears it. Doing that is the only way we’re all going to move forward on this,” Betts said.
“And when it comes to racism, we’re not moving forward – we’re going backwards. The sad thing is that I’m used to it. That’s the sad thing. We as Aboriginal people are used to it. And we keep fighting, but it’s hard.”
Betts has agreed to publish several racist social media posts that had targeted him in the past fortnight, saying they had caught his attention due to the number of times each post was shared and commented upon. Among the slurs are the words “half-cast c--n,” a “black c--t” and a “true paint sniffing a---”
A social media post to Eddie Betts’ Instagram account in recent weeks.Credit: Instagram
“I need people to understand this is what we go through. This is what Aboriginal people deal with in our everyday lives. It doesn’t matter if you play AFL footy in the spotlight, or if you’re in the community,” he said.
“Racism does exist in Australia, and over the past 10 years of playing AFL footy, I have been racially abused every single year. It happened last week. It happened the week before that and the week before that.”
Betts said more people needed to acknowledge racism and make a stand against it.
“People shy away from it, from knowing Australia is a racist country. No matter who you are or what you do, when it comes to racism, everyone should be held accountable. I don’t care if you’re a CEO of a company or a janitor of a toilet.”
Betts says he encounters racism every week of his career.Credit: Instagram
Walker’s racist comment was overheard by an Adelaide Crows official, who reported it. The complaint led to an investigation into the incident by the AFL Integrity Unit.
Betts applauded the actions of the Crows official, saying it took “courage to call it out”.
Betts has taken a stand against racism in the AFL.Credit: Instagram
Betts said the incident also put the Indigenous players at Adelaide Crows in an awkward situation: “They’re in a position now where they shouldn’t have to be because of the colour of their skin.
“As AFL players, we are educated on this every single year. Every single year, we go through racial vilification awareness. So every single player knows it. Every single person that gets drafted knows it.
"For us as Aboriginal leaders in the AFL, we need to show support to these young kids that are racially abused, and to the young Aboriginal kids that are at the Adelaide Football Club at the moment.”
In 2019, while still playing for Adelaide Crows, Betts was targeted with racial abuse via social media posts described by the club at the time as “abhorrent and disgusting”.
In a statement issued at the time, Crows CEO Andrew Fagan said racism had to stop and that the club’s board, coaches, staff and players were united in standing against racism.
This followed racists attacks on Betts by online trolls in separate incidents in 2017 and 2018. Betts says all racist abuse “cuts you deep” regardless of who is being targeted.
“Racism doesn’t heal. No matter how many times ... it just doesn’t heal. It stays with you forever.”
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