Brain Explosion

So what’s the chances?

I was sitting waiting for the business forum to start and the bloke next to me, noticing that I was reading Patrick Smith’s wonderful piece on the Goodes affair, opined that the booing isn’t racist.

He reeled off half a dozen excuses, the usual ones.

I said that I didn’t believe him and in my eyes these actions are racist.

He said he didn’t care and that it was a free country and he could do and think what he wanted.

I laughed at that one and suggested that we have more laws and regulations per capita than any other country on the planet. Free country my arse.

Then I suggested that even if he truly believed that his opinions weren’t based on racism would he want people thinking that he was racist? Or that he was in the company of racists?

Right there I caught him wobbling in his resolve.

You could see the mental balancing act; his gut feelings of subterranean racism, his righteousness, guilt, fear and shame – these feelings and thoughts were all at war within his skull.

Right at that point I let him off the hook because I didn’t want his brain to explode and leave the indelible stains of shame all over my free volume.