Posts by Angus Robertson
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Hard News: Not good enough, Eden Park, in reply to Danielle,
Danielle its my defence.
I was at the rugby where all this took place. I am not of the habit of paying attention to anything the crowd yells, ever. I know from experience that I cannot see what is happening more than one row in front of me. This could have happened within 3 m of me and I reckon I wouldn't have had a clue. You can poke the row ahead without being seen, you can direct comments at them without being heard by anyone else - fuck I was doing that shit in assembly at highschool and didn't get caught and that was a better lit, quieter, less distracting environment.
And since I wouldn't be able to see it from right on top of it - how is a security guard 15 m away, scanning a crowd of hundreds supposed to see this shit? Answer: they fucking can't.
Now it so happens that according to the horde of commenters here my normal and quite frankly typical behaviour in a crowd makes me an assenting party to verbal and physical attack. Moreover I regularly attend a sporting venue where it is concluded this sort of behaviour is practically enabled as policy.
A great swathe of commentators here are (in my humble opinion) practitioners of grade A level fuckwittedness. At best they are wilfully drawing the worst possible connotations from a poorly worded press statement.
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Hard News: Not good enough, Eden Park, in reply to Russell Brown,
Your interpretation:
In fact, Tracy Morgan did say something of the kind when she said “harassment of a patron would not be condoned and the men could have been evicted for that.” But then she said – bizarrely – that it couldn’t be harassment unless “everybody else around” was offended by it. That’s absurd. And it is not what the park’s own Conditions of Entry say.
My interpretation:
In fact, Tracy Morgan did say something of the kind when she said “harassment of a patron would not be condoned and the men could have been evicted for that.” But then she said – informatively – they couldn’t see harassment unless “everybody else around” was offended by it. That’s realistic in a darkened sports stadium. And it is an outcome in accordance with what the park’s own Conditions of Entry say.
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You know bloody well that the topic of the post and the core of the current discussion is Eden Park's insulting response when approached for comment. I'm actually growing weary of your endlessly-shifting arguments.
It is not an insult to tell people the truth (unless you are a politician). It is refreshing.
When they say it is not their job to shift the values of society, they are stating the there are arseholes in society, people who will be arseholes at their venue and that they cannot change this.
When they say they cannot be the "PC police", it is because they cannot effectively detect and remove people who are shouting abusive comments. That they cannot act without assistance from the crowd or by someone sending a text.
That they (and by extension the rest of the rugby going public) then get told they are assenting to homophobic abuse and outright bullying - that is insulting.
They can't change society and they can't police more effectively.
The only thing they have said that is an insult is to use the term PC, but you aren't complaining about that.
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Hard News: Not good enough, Eden Park, in reply to Sacha,
When are we?
In a temporal distortion?
Eden Park received a complaint days after the crowd had left and was unable to act in a timely manner to prevent an incident that took place those several days earlier.
How the fuck Eden Park were supposed to know this was going on (much less prevent it) is a mystery.
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Dear internet,
Hannah had an unpleasant night at the rugby. Some guys behind her were yelling homophobic abuse at the players and Wayne Barnes. She objected to these comments and told them so. The guys started directing the comments at her / flicking her.
Eden Park said that though they do not condone the comments, but they would not intervene into the situation unless there was a larger disturbance beyond people merely hurling insults during a rugby match.
I believe Eden Park has a pragmatic policy here.
For those of you who have never attended rugby game at night the seating is quite dark. Security is quite unable to identify who shouts a comment. Therefore ignoring shouted comments is good policy. Only when escalates beyond insults directed at the game, do they have to act to clear the disturbance.
This incident did not escalate. The guys shouted comments, Hannah told them to STFU, they started directing much quieter comments and discreet pokes at Hannah. From an outside observer this is a reduction in disturbance.
The disturbance did not grow, rest of the crowd did not become involved, Eden Park security did not act. This does not imply assent of the rest of the crowd or on Eden Park to the homophobic insults. (In a public venue when somebody says something you don't agree with and you are not involved in the conversation - you are not giving assent by saying nothing.)
But this being the modern world, we read about in the next week - a much fuller more detailed personal account of what has occurred. And an opinion is formed that the crowd / Eden Park should have done something. Well what?
And by doing something I don't mean reconfiguring their PR so that they trot out a "we have a zero tolerance policy" - when obviously they don't. This is the PC response and unacceptable to most people.
There is a sold out stadium of 50,000 people. 10 of them are yelling homophobic insults. Your staff can identify each set of insults as coming from a section of 400 or so tightly packed people. Each of those 390+ people who didn't yell an insult will object to you interrupting their view of the rugby. If you misidentify the perpetrator that person will then be pilloried on Public Address (and assorted other sites) before you get a chance to offer a grovelling apology and resign your job. What are you going to do?
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Hard News: Not good enough, Eden Park, in reply to "chris",
chris
Do you want the specifics available to people sitting in darkened and extremely distracting enviroment where information is hard to determine and interpret? Or would you prefer the specific and much more perfect info available to people debating the subject in minutae on the internet 3 or 4 days after the event?
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Hard News: Not good enough, Eden Park, in reply to "chris",
Party A says something, Party B disagrees, they exchange words.
If you are indifferent to the argument. To which side do you assent?
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Eden Park management could really learn something from Westpac, in this situation. They had a clear policy, and it made the game more enjoyable and more family friendly. Which can only mean more bums on seats. (Which, in this time of declining ticket numbers, can only be a good thing.)
All Black games are routinely sold out and Black Cap games in smaller grounds are 1/4 full.
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Eden Park views the crowd as being insufficiently offended.
But unless everyone else around Ms Spyksma was offended by the men's slurs, they would likely not have been kicked out.
The gulf between lack of offense and being in assent is vast & nuanced.
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So in this case, as I believe Emma was pointing out, the fact no-one else complained WAS taken as assent.
Being indifferent, distracted (by I-don't-know a rugby test), practising non-confrontational behaviour, embarrassment, fear of public speaking, possessing insufficient English, politely not wishing to disrupt anyone-else's rugby watching, not having a formed opinion, being hard of hearing or whatever - none of these things confer assent to me.