As I said about David Hume and bigotry, whatever you say about some wars, you are likely to get your head shot off.  May I say something here about prejudice?  When we say that people are prejudiced, we mean that they hold beliefs that are unreasonable – the beliefs cannot be rationally justified.  These people have a bias.  Think of a bowling ball.  It is so constructed that it must lean in one direction: it must deviate from a straight line.

When we invoke this label, we usually mean that the subject person has an unreasonable dislike for some one or others.  Their thinking is corrupted by their enmity.  But their thinking may equally be corrupted by their affection for or loyalty to some cause or people. 

If you ask Collingwood and Carlton supporters about an incident where a player for one side has put a player for the other side in hospital, you are very likely to get very different responses.  And that difference will be largely driven by prejudice.  One side will say it was an outrage; the other will be outraged at the suggestion that their man did anything wrong.  In the old days in the outer, the two might well have come to blows about their dispute. 

It is not so much ‘My club right or wrong’ – it’s just that my club does not behave badly.  At least, not to the extent that I would have to admit.  That would be disloyal. . And footy clubs are built on loyalty and allegiance.  You can call me ‘partisan’ if you like, but that is the way the world is.

You see all of this in the reaction of people to allegations of war crimes.  Those who are committed to either side will have very different responses.  Those responses will be driven by prejudice – their loyalty to their side and their hostility to the other.  The letters columns in the press give evidence of this prejudice – this corruption of thought – in abundance, and every day.  It is at best tiresome to the unaligned.

But the war followers have now been joined by people who say that Laura Tingle was wrong to say that Australia is racist.  It is one of those cases where the vehemence of the denial evidences the seriousness of the allegation – and suggests that the allegation may be well founded. 

Those who champion our innocence about race are presumably not in daily contact with members of the Aboriginal, Muslim, or Jewish communities.  Nore were they standing near me in my sixty years of following Australian football and listening to the gross, gutless and callous abuse directed at some of the wonders of our game – footballers of colour.

Racism – ABC – Tingle – Gaza.