Like most I am against it and have written many times. I would have prosecuted the person who threw bananas in front of Eddie Betts.
I do wonder whether the authorities are causing a trivialisation of what prosecutions for racism mean.
We have accepted jokes - often in good nature and sometimes not - with respect to peoples bodies and appearance.
At the police academy there were two "Boltons" "I was skinny bolton" the other was "fat bolton"
Short people are told to stand up when they already are and red heads are called blue.
I have been with Aboriginal friends during many incidents of real racism in daily life. Simply booking in to a Motel and watching a friend being advised repeatedly and pointedly that "the mini-bar is an extra". is just one incident burned into my memory.
I do wonder whether prosecuting authorities are going to trivialise the issue of racism by prosecuting a person saying "Smile please I can't see you" to a dark skinned person as part of a drivelling retired sportsmans night of generally poor humour.
I can hear the ultra-anti-everything people jumping up and down now. But there is a balance.
There is no reason to be proud of being black. Nor of being white or brindle. These are accidents of birth and neither proud nor shameful.
The risk I am pointing to is that of making a prosecution over race matters not an abominable event that we all abhor.
What Andrew Bolt was found guilty of was not shameful at all. He was identifying inequity and abuse of the system by light skinned aborigines.
What this retired soccer player was saying was a trivial reference to an ordinary body type - not a villification of a person because of their race.
I think the authorities may be losing sight of the real problems of racism and training us all that racist prosecutions are themselves a joke.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-37406549