Richie Barnett: Saluting Tahu's brave stand on racism

Timana Tahu and Andrew Johns joke during a New South Wales Origin training session. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

Good on Timana Tahu for taking a stand against racism.

League needs to impose a zero tolerance attitude to something that has been part of the game for a long time.

I used to cop it as a player. Usually it was at a play-the-ball. Something would be said to get under your skin. It used to work, too. It would fire you up, make you do something you wouldn't normally do or make you lose your concentration.

Sometimes it's just gamesmanship, but at other times it was straight out racist slurs. Often it can be hard to tell the difference.

There's no place for that sort of thing any more. In the past, people just used to put up with it. A lot of the older players would have been putting up with racial slurs their whole life, just deciding to cop it. But surely the human race has evolved to the point where we are all a bit more enlightened these days?

It's good to see Tahu and other high-profile Australian athletes like Anthony Mundine take a stand against racism. Why should they have to put up with it?

Australia clearly has a racism problem although, that said, I never felt there was a culture of racism at the clubs I played for.

Racial taunts of the type Andrew Johns reportedly used have always been common in the game. Last year, Paul Gallen was fined and stripped of the Sharks captaincy for calling Micky Paea a "black c***". A few years ago a former teammate of mine, Bryan Fletcher, copped a $10,000 fine and was stood down for a match for calling Dean Widders the same thing.

It was a stupid thing to say, but there was no way Fletch was a racist. Same with Johnsy. To me it sounds like he said something in the context of trying to fire up the boys in a team talk. It was stupid and insensitive to use that language, but no one who knows Johnsy thinks he's a racist.

Even so, there's no way Timana should have had to put up with that sort of talk.

During his upbringing on a housing estate Timana would have copped that sort of thing all the time. Clearly he'd just had enough.

Racism isn't just an issue in Australia. During my time in England there was a major campaign to stamp out racism. All the clubs ran awareness campaigns and before matches PA announcers would warn spectators that racial abuse was not permitted. Even so it was pretty tough going for some of the black guys out on the wing. They'd cop plenty from the crowd.

Racism also works both ways. I've heard plenty of "smash that honkey" calls playing in games in the ghetto in New Zealand. After the game it's always sweet-as. It probably comes down to the way it is said, the context.

Saying "smash that honkey, bro" is a lot different to calling someone a white piece of s***.

But either way it needs to be stamped out. A line needs to be drawn in the sand. If people just put up with it, that sends a message to the kids coming through that it's okay, that racism is acceptable. It's not. There's no grey area. It needs to be cut out altogether.