1. OPINION WEEKEND NEWS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2016 11
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Brad Hogg.
Picture: AAP Image/Joe Castro
It’s happy birthday today to
Australian cricketer Brad
Hogg (1971-).
George Bradley Hogg was born
in Narrogin, Western Australia.
Hogg grew up on a sheep farm
in Williams, Western Australia,
before boarding at Aquinas
College in Perth.
He made his first-class cricket
debut for Western Australia in
1994 as a middle-order
batsman, but soon began to
improve his left-arm wrist spin.
In 1996 he was selected in the
Australian team to tour India as
a replacement for the injured
Shane Warne. Hogg made his
Test match debut in Delhi,
taking 1-69 with the ball and
scoring 1 and 4 with the bat.
He played seven One Day
International matches about
this time, but struggled to
make much of an impact and
was soon back playing
domestic cricket.
Hogg earned a recall to the
Australian one-day team for
the 2002-03 tri-nations
tournament, again replacing an
injured Warne.
When Warne was suspended
after testing positive to a
banned diuretic, Hogg officially
became Australia’s No 1
spinner in the one-day team.
He was integral as Australia
won the 2003 World Cup in
South Africa, taking 13 wickets
at an average of 24.76.
He was again a key member of
the team that won the 2007
World Cup in the West Indies.
Hogg announced his
international retirement in
2008, finishing with 17 Test
wickets from seven matches
and 156 wickets from 123
One-Day Internationals.
At the age of 40 Hogg
announced he would play in
the Australian domestic
Twenty20 competition, the Big
Bash League, with the Perth
Scorchers. He took 12 wickets
in the tournament and earned
a recall to the Australian
Twenty20 squad. He played in
the 2012 and 2014 ICC World
Twenty20 tournaments.
Hogg is still thriving in the
shortest form of the game and
remains in contention for
international duties.
It’s time to talk about racism
elaine.cooney
@sheppnews.com.au
ELAINEELAINE
COONEYCOONEY
HOW ON EARTH CAN PEOPLE THINK IT IS
APPROPRIATE TO PAINT THEIR FACE BLACK
AND COME TO A PARTY AS AN ABORIGINE?
When I moved into my new
rental, Eddie came as part of
the deal.
My friend rescued this
beautiful black tom cat but he
got into raging fights with her
cat, Maxwell, so I agreed to
adopt him.
Eddie is the most affection-
ate — actually really quite co-
dependent — pet in the
world.
It’s not his constant craving
for attention and invasion of
my personal space that
makes me a little uneasy, it’s
his name.
The previous owners called
my black cat Eddie, after their
favourite football player Eddie
Betts, who is indigenous.
I gasped when they told me
the meaning behind the
name but they proceeded to
say that the ginger one was
called Ling, after former
Geelong redhead Cameron
Ling, which only went part-
way to alleviating my fears
that it was inappropriate and
possibly offensive.
I tried changing his name,
but he would not respond to
it — he identified with Eddie,
so I had to live with it.
I have no idea if this is
casual racism or not, but it’s
enough to make me feel
uncomfortable and afraid of
causing offence.
This sensitivity is not
shared by many of our News
Facebook readers who cannot
see how offensive blackface
is.
Our famous Aboriginal
Shepparton musician Adam
Briggs is usually a placid
sort and lets a lot of racism
go — he just deletes and
blocks people on Facebook
who exhibit racist views —
but earlier this week
he had to take a stand against
white people posting photos
of themselves dressed as
indigenous people, complete
with black facepaint.
Whatever the origins of my
cat’s name, how on Earth can
people think it is appropriate
to paint their face black and
come to a party as an
Aborigine?
Did they not consider that
they were making a mockery
of the people who faced years
of oppression and violence at
the hands of white men?
Shepparton people took to
our Facebook page defending
the ‘‘costumes’’ and basically
telling people not to take it so
seriously.
I am a new resident to
Australia, so I have not had a
formal education on Austra-
lian history but from all
accounts I hear the true stor-
ies of indigenous massacres,
dehumanisation and the
stealing of their children is
not high, or compulsory, on
the academic agenda.
Indigenous people have
been generous with their
time and patience, teaching
me about their culture and
how they managed to survive
against all the odds for the
past 228 years but when I
speak to some of my white
Australian friends about it
they shake it off.
Maybe it is due to guilt but
if I raise the issue of racism
against indigenous people
with these same friends, I get
a half eye roll or some equally
dismissive gesture and I’m
told not to get too serious, too
deep . . .
But this is not something
that is going away; we need to
talk about it.
And this is why, while
embarrassing for Sheppar-
ton’s deputy mayor Fern
Summer, it was good to catch
up with her so she could
explain why she considered
blackface acceptable.
She had no intention to be
racist, but due to her lack of
knowledge about how
indigenous people feel about
this practice, she had failed to
see why it caused offence and
wrote her views on social
media that the community
then criticised.
This was maybe no fault of
her own but possibly indica-
tive of the flippancy we
attach to issues which can be
deeply offensive to another
culture.
And we need indigenous
leaders such as Bradley Boon
who can educate the
community about why black-
face is offensive.
But shouldn’t it be obvious?
Does it show — as Bradley
pointed out — that there are
clearly some education gaps
if people cannot see this is
socially unacceptable and not
helping with reconciliation?
In the end of the day, is the
‘‘political correctness’’ people
claim to be fighting against
worth causing pain and suf-
fering to our indigenous
people?
Racism disguised as patri-
otism and arguments of free
expression is creating a huge
divide in our society and it’s
time we started putting
education in place, so we can
all live in a world without
feeling humiliated and opp-
ressed.
Haven’t we had enough of
this already?
Letters to the Editor
Disease thrives
Rex Tooley,
Shepparton
HIV, Ebola, Nile River virus
(and others) have become
conspicuous in recent years,
not because these viral dis-
ease are new to the world, nor
necessarily because of muta-
tion, as often seen in influ-
enza, but because of the
opportunity to spread easily.
Global urbanisation, air
travel, population densities,
public transport, all these are
factors giving rise to the
seemingly wide spread of in-
fections and illness rates.
It’s not because we are any
more vulnerable, but rather
through increased exposure
to pathogens, both bacterial
and viral.
Mosquito control certainly
helps reduce infection, but in
cases where direct human
contact is the only source of
infection the dilemma is
much more difficult to
control.
Theatres, schools, etc also
contribute, as does every col-
lective human activity.
It is not widely known that
the most successful viruses
are those that do not kill their
human or animal hosts.
As with Ebola, we isolate
infected people from the pub-
lic and treat their symptoms;
those infected either die or
recover.
When a fully effective iso-
lation procedure is put in
place, there are no new cases
to sustain infection and the
outbreak ends — as was the
case recently in Africa.
Bubonic plague is a classic
similar case; while millions
died in cities of Europe, those
in isolated regions — where
outside human contact was
rare — survived the plague,
because human transmission
was avoided.
Rabies, bubonic plague and
a host of ancient viruses
remain to this day, but control
measures, isolation, and more
effective treatments can limit
the spread of incidental
outbreaks. Containment is the
critical issue.
Worldwide virus illness
mortality is now greatly re-
duced, while the global popu-
lation has exploded.
Vigilance and fast expert
action are the key elements,
and while vaccine develop-
ment of the past and future
might not eradicate a patho-
gen, it makes the risk of wide-
spread infection much less
likely. There may well be
some risks to a very few in
mass vaccination programs,
but no-one can argue that
millions of lives are preserved.
The preservation of human
life and health in a commun-
ity is precious, and vacci-
nation is a small risk I gladly
take.
Mall problem
Wilfrid (Bill) Lumley,
Mooroopna
“Where to now for Mall?”
Shepparton News February 5,
2016: The perpetual question
of what to do with the mall is
again commandeering our
news headlines.
Perhaps we should look at
the question from another an-
gle and ask what are the at-
tractions of shopping at our
multiplying shopping markets
over that of Shepparton’s cen-
tral shopping precinct?
I suggest a major one would
have to include the conven-
ience of free parking — and
that could be an immediate,
non-capital outlay solution to
the very real concerns of the
mall traders.
Perhaps our city fathers
should have a chat to their
colleagues over at Albury for
their advice on how that city is
able to offer its residents and
visitors free parking in the
central business district.
Possibly the major attrac-
tion of instigating free parking
is, in comparison to re-
opening the mall, the minus-
cule capital outlay required.
Of course there would be a
substantial shortfall in rev-
enue but surely that would be
simpler to adjust than the
repayment of the substantial
cost for the infrastructure of
the reopened mall.
Free parking could be
offered for the first two hours,
then an hourly fee charged;
this would ensure the con-
tinued employment of our
parking officers whom I sug-
gest should also be ambas-
sadors for the city of
Shepparton, representing our
Visitors Centre with a recog-
nisable uniform and a general
knowledge of Shepparton to
assist visitors and residents.
Perhaps a ‘‘win-win’’?