The past few days, since it was reported that former Adelaide FC Captain Taylor “Tex” Walker used racist comments against another footballer, many people inside and outside the football community have been left stunned.

What he said isn’t as important as to why he said it. This vilification has come from someone who was seen as a bright light and leader within the AFL. Given the captaincy by his late coach, Phil Walsh, it was initially seen as an odd decision but one that came to fruition as Walker not only led the Adelaide Crows with fervour, but was awarded “Best Captain” from his peers in the AFL Players Association in 2016.

His on field relationship with the mercurial indigenous forward, Eddie Betts was seamless and the two of them held a cult following at the Adelaide Oval. Both played major roles in  helping the club reach the Grand Final in 2017 under the astute coaching of Don Pyke, but lost badly on the day after being the best performed team all year.

An infamous pre-season camp in 2018 kick started a 2 x year demise in performance and culture unlike anything seen in high performance team sport in Australia. Coach Pyke and other staff were shown the door and the ramifications of that camp led to an independent review led by former AFL champions, Jason Dunstall and Matthew Pavlich. It also led to Eddie Betts and another indigenous star, Charlie Cameron, seeking contracts elsewhere.

All manner of rumours have been written about what actually happened on that camp. Whatever did happen, caused significant harm to the indigenous members of the team and crossed  boundaries that were clearly significant to their culture. Taylor Walker’s response to the allegations around the camp being harmful psychologically was imperturbable, stating that he very much enjoyed it and didn’t understand the fuss. Backed by the ambivalence of the leadership within the club, the Adelaide Crows performance took a deep dive in 2018/19.

From the outside, Tex seems affable, popular and quite media savvy. He’s a boy from Broken Hill, which can be said to be “not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.” 🙂 It’s an eclectic, tough mining town and home to the late, legendary artist Pro Hart.

Of the approximate 18,000 people in Broken Hill there are 1500 indigenous Wilyakali People, the traditional owners of the land. You would assume that Tex had some interaction with his local First Nation’s People growing up and then once reaching the heights of AFL football, had ongoing education around the history of indigenous Australians.

Champion AFLW player and media commentator, Daisy Pearce spoke glowingly yesterday around the level of education that the AFL provides and how grateful she was for the opportunity to greater understand Aboriginal culture. So how could Tex get it so wrong, especially when he had one of the greatest Aboriginal players riding shotgun with him for 6 x years and was the first to back an anti-racist campaign defending Eddie Betts when a lunatic fringe of the Port Adelaide FC, threw a banana at Eddie during a game?

Children aren’t racist, they learn it from adults. Children don’t see colour, just someone to play with. The term “casual racism” is an epidemic in Australia and it comes from ignorance and lack of education in adults. A little comment here, a whisper there, and kids pick it up.

If you’re around my age (over 50) you will have heard casual racist remarks at BBQ’s, work or at family gatherings. It’s just the way it’s always been and I’ve been guilty in the past for not calling it out. This is a generational cycle that needs to be stopped and I think the vast majority of Australians have had a gutful of it.

The victims are the indigenous Australians. The targets of the vilification don’t have a say but suddenly get thrust into the media limelight to have to explain. Explain what? Apologise for their skin colour? What? It must be so exasperating for our indigenous athletes to have to come out time and time again to make statements about someone else’s racist behaviour.

Remember Eddie McGuire’s giant gaff suggesting Adam Goodes promote a King Kong exhibition only days after apologising to him for the vilification he received from Collingwood supporters?  This was from a well educated and financially generous supporter of indigenous culture in the Top End. Where does that come from?

We are so fortunate that we have this incredible culture, the oldest in the world, right here in front of us. Despite that, Aboriginals are still excluded from the constitution, and since colonisation have survived genocide, slavery and having their children removed from their parents to be “whitened”. Strangely enough, they volunteered to fight overseas for God and country but upon their return were treated as second class citizens yet again.

When Aboriginals march on January 26 to change the date of Australia Day, every cockroach in the tabloids and social media accuse them as being whingers and unpatriotic when that day is clearly a day of mourning. No other country in the world would be stupid enough to insult their own First Nations people with a celebration of colonisation. But we do. Fortunately we are seeing more and more white faces in the Invasion Day marches that hopefully will lead to a day where ALL Australians can celebrate how lucky we are.

My generation’s education of indigenous Australia was very much, “Captain Cook arrived, planted the flag and everyone was rapt!”. I know my kids are much more aware of the truth and thanks to material like the brilliant SBS series The First Australians, generations to come will have a greater understanding of our history.

Tex Walker has been banned for 6 x games, fined $20,000 and by all reports apologised to his team and the player targeted with the racial slur, Robbie Young. I think Tex is clearly remorseful but based on all the education and lived experience he has garnered being around indigenous Australians over the years he must come to terms that he is still capable of casual racism. He now has a fantastic opportunity to take a stand that could cause significant change in the wider community.

What he will do next could be the making of him and send a message to every Australian that casual racism is rife and it needs to stop. Every effort from people like Adam Goodes, Eddie Betts and Cathy Freeman hasn’t worked, but nor should it have to come from them. It needs to come from the perpetrators and Tex is a high profile one.

As Ray McClean says in his ground breaking leadership book, Any Given Team, “leaders see something and they do something. They act.”  For Tex to own what he’s done and coupled with his profile, he has the opportunity to shift people’s thinking for positive change, on scale. I’m sure his former mentor Phil Walsh would be proud of any such action.

Nothing summed up the past few days more, than the emotional response from The Adelaide Crows Coach Matthew Nicks. He was straight onto the phone to his former indigenous team mates to apologise for Walker’s actions. He didn’t need to, he just wanted to. Barely able to speak and in tears, Nicks is a man who has seen the damage first hand that prejudice and racism can do during his playing days at the Sydney Swans and his compassion in the situation was inspiring. May we have more of that please.