There’s an English word that you can find in any dictionary. This word children can say
freely around one another. They can even say it in the classroom in front of the teacher, and there
will be no reprisals or punishment. It’s a word that friends and family call my young daughter,
a word that she likes, because she’s such a great climber. She can now do around 15 pull-ups,
completely of her own volition. But if you’re a professional rugby league player, and use
this word directed at a fellow rugby league player, you’ll be suspended for eight weeks.
The word of course, is monkey.
Here’s Spencer Leniu, a Sydney Roosters player in the NRL who was born in New
Zealand and has Samoan heritage. He called opposition player, Brisbane Broncos Ezra Mam,
who is of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, a monkey. “Spencer Leniu
handed eight-week ban for calling Ezra Mam a 'monkey' in Vegas”. In his own words, he
said he thought his slur against Mam was just “one brown man saying something to another brown man”.
I’m not at all suggesting people should go around calling people monkeys in an offensive way,
but this is a rough sport. For example, in the very same hearing, Tayson Fakaosi was suspended
for one game for performing a crusher tackle. According to the NRL, a crusher tackle is when
a player “uses any part of his body forcefully to bend or apply unnecessary pressure to the head,
neck or spinal column of the tackled player. In some crusher tackles, the full weight of
the defender is applied in a dropping motion on the tackled player’s head and/or neck and/or
spinal column.” So applying brutal force to a player’s head neck or spinal column results in
a one-week suspension, but a word that kids say in the playground on the monkey bars, kids say
in the classroom in front of their teachers, a word that my wife calls my daughter when she’s
on her fifteenth pull-up, that word results in an eight week suspension on the rugby field.
Monkey: a small to medium-sized primate. Yes, of course. A mischievous person, especially a child.
Where have you been, you little monkey! Actually, in the Oxford dictionary, I see no indication it’s
offensive in any way. It’s got a very playful meaning. But this word got this guy suspended
for eight matches!? Actually, the next highest suspension was Seb Kris for a Dangerous Throw,
suspended for five games. According to the NRL, a dangerous throw is where a player is lifted or
elevated so that he is placed in a position where it is likely that the first part of his body to
make contact with the ground will be his head or neck, a so-called spear tackle. So raise an
opponent into the air and smash their head into the ground, like some kind of pro wrestling pile
driver, actual physical damage, five weeks, but call somebody a small to medium-sized primate,
eight weeks! Physical violence is clearly not as bad as name calling, it seems.
Look, I know, context counts. I’m not suggesting people should go around calling people monkeys in
a hurtful way, but have we somewhat gone stupid with language now, where words are considered
more hurtful than spear tackles? If he called him the n-word, okay, perhaps that makes sense.
The dictionary very clearly states that’s considered offensive. But eight weeks for a
single English word? Is that proportionate? If they just wanted to send a message, one
week would have done the trick. Okay guys, don’t call each other monkeys. It doesn’t look good.
I knew a guy, a white guy who was very hairy. People jokingly called him an ape,
or sometimes a gorilla. Sure, it’s not the word monkey, but it’s similar, right? He would take
off his shirt at the swimming pool or whatever, and his friends would say “Look out, it’s King
Kong!”. He wasn’t offended. He almost took it as a point of pride. He’d bang on his chest and call
out like Tarzan. Certainly nobody thought of it as any sort of racial slur. He was hairy,
that was all. The theory of evolution states we all came from monkeys, or apes, or whatever.
Leniu spoke about growing up with a Samoan background in Western Sydney where it was common
among his family and friends to call each other monkey in a lighthearted sort of way. He said,
“All those types of words are used in our language and how we speak to each other. I
had no idea what that word meant to Ezra, what it meant to all the Indigenous people in the game.”
Leniu was even prepared to fly his partner and himself to Queensland at his own expense
to give a face-to-face apology to Mam, but Mam wasn’t having a bar of it.
Sydney Roosters officials will put their entire club through cultural training. Yes,
this is real. “Okay class, which animals can we safely say, but which animals are bad? Doves,
kittens, dolphins, rabbits, yes, they’re all fine. Monkeys, apes, primates… no, no, no.”
It’s amazing they haven’t come after some of the team names. North Queensland cowboys? Isn’t that
assuming the players’ gender? Sydney Roosters? They should probably change that to Chickens to be
inclusive? South Sydney Rabbitohs have a picture of a white rabbit. Penrith Panthers, a black cat.
I think those colours are a bit exclusionary, we should probably change them to rainbows.
Sledging, trash talk, whatever you want to call it. What if we changed the M of monkey to say a D?
Would calling somebody a donkey be okay? According to the dictionary, a donkey is “a domesticated
hoofed mammal of the horse family” of course, but also, “a stupid or inept person”. The very same
dictionary, a donkey has a much more negative connotation than a monkey. Presumably though,
if Leniu called Mam a donkey instead of a monkey, literally just change one letter,
he wouldn’t have been suspended at all? That’s how stupid all this is getting.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, nah… that doesn’t apply anymore. If
you’re offended by a word, that’s enough for people to lose their livelihood for
eight weeks. Perhaps the NRL need to publish a list of offensive words along
with the corresponding punishment. Galah should be okay, shouldn’t it?
It’s funny, Australian women’s soccer captain Sam Kerr called a police officer,
“Stupid white bastard”, or “stupid white cop” or whatever, and Australian politicians were
defending her and saying that’s not racist, and academics were agreeing and saying it’s not racist
because of power differentials (I won’t go into that here. I talked about that in my previous
video). We can call an eight-year-old girl who is good at climbing and swinging a monkey,
or we can call a child a silly monkey in a playful way, but a big burly rugby league
player who smashes into people for a living, is offended by the very same word to a point where
the perpetrator is punished more harshly than those who performed crush tackles,
or smashing peoples heads into the ground. Are we living in some sort of topsy-turvy world now?
It’s now coming out that Leniu actually was the first to receive a derogatory
comment made by a Broncos player before his comment was made to Mam,
but he let it go and told those close to him that he would not “snitch” on other players.
NRL supercoach Wayne Bennett declared, “We are not a racist game. The game doesn’t have
to take a strong stand on this. The game has always taken a stand on racism. It’s
bulls**t to think otherwise. We don’t tolerate racism in our game and we have
always included all races – we can all be one in rugby league. It happens very
irregularly in our game. All the drama queens should stay out of the argument.”
Former professional boxer and rugby league player Anthony Mundine had a few choice words to say
regarding the matter. He said, “It ain't racism. When two brothers are brown or black fellas
they ... call each other a black C or this or that but that’s what they are. It’s like an African
American and another African American calling each other the N-word. I think they ought to
toughen up in that sense... A white fella saying that to a black fella, that’s a different story.
You have to take it on the chin. It’s what we Indigenous Australians have done all our lives.”
Former player Steve Renouf applauded Ezra Mam for taking a strong stand on racism. He said,
“I think we have all experienced racism and everyone handles it differently. I
was brought up to go with it. I was brought up to be resilient, but times are changing.
I see these young players within the NRL and they are speaking their mind and I say good on them.”
Former NRL player Johnathan Thurston thinks the punishment was not enough. He said,
“I thought it was a great opportunity to make a statement and I don't think
the eight weeks is sufficient. The NRL had a great opportunity to make a stand – not
only for the game but for society as well. I think the game has failed in this instance.﻿”
Roosters CEO Joe Kelly stated, “Inclusivity and diversity are key and fundamental values
of the Sydney Roosters and we respect equally all backgrounds and cultures
and will not tolerate any form of racism. We accept the suspension of eight weeks,
but in relation to the hearing, the club stands behind Spencer and is firmly of the
belief that he is not racist. The club remains strong in its position that Spencer did not
use the word – the subject of tonight’s hearing – in a racially derogatory way.”
As I said, I’m not suggesting people should go around throwing hurtful words at people,
but what happened to trash talk on the field? Is it not allowed anymore? “Excuse me sir,
your mother looks like… a lovely lady. I mean person. I shouldn’t have assumed her gender.
Sorry, I shouldn’t have called you sir, because that’s assuming your gender. No problems sir,
no offence taken. Now do you consent to me touching you so that I can tackle you? Sorry sir,
I do not consent. Oh dear, well I guess you better go score,
as I don’t want to cause any offence. Thank you sir for being so understanding.”