The other day, ex-AFL football star, Mal Brown, in a speech at an anniversary luncheon, referred to Aboriginal footballers – in the course of an attempted joke – as “cannibals”.

The media have blown his stupidity up into a big deal.

Mr Brown commented, “If the Aboriginal people take exception to it, then for that I am sorry, but when I die they can assess me on what I have done, not what I have said.”

Aboriginal footballers are being quoted saying they are “outraged” and “livid” — and that Mr Brown’s words were “disgraceful” – which, of course, they were.

However, it’s also true that as a coach Mal Brown did a lot for young Aboriginal footballers — many now household names — and they should thank him for that.

Perhaps they will when they realise they’ve been used — again — by the media whose interest in them is getting sensationalist headlines, little else.

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ABC Online’s headline read: “Footballers speak for the ugly racist in us all”

True enough. Everyone tends to favour those like ourselves at the expense of those who seem different.

Aborigines are perhaps just as good (or bad) at this as the rest of us.

I recall an Aboriginal girl patient of mine saying she had decided not to go to the local nightclubs any more. I asked why. She said, “Too many wogs go there.”

The term “indigenous” is, itself, suspect.

Some Aborigines like calling everybody else “non-indigenous”.

Which is unfriendly, and also a lie. The word indigenous comes from two Latin words meaning, literally, “born here”.

I was born here. But some Aborigines resent me enough to imply that I don’t belong here.

* * *

One Aboriginal sports administrator, Paul Briggs, said yesterday, “Aboriginal people are facing the Mal Browns of the world daily . . . we don’t have the low life expectancy and the poor health issues and the poor education issues because of anything other than the social relationship, the cultural relationships and the racism that permeates Australian society.”

That kind of remark helps nobody. It’s unfair to most whites. It encourages resentful, passive, victim-mentality in blacks.

Technicolor over-statements and over-simplifications make good media.

They make fixing real-life problems harder.