OPINION: So, you’ve got the Western Australian Premier, Colin Barnett, telling you to keep any culturally provocative statements to yourself.

So, you’ve got tens of thousands spitting poison at you every time you go to work.



So, you’ve got a former A-League player calling for your deportation.



You’ve got media commentators saying you’re dividing the country, football fans furious, crowds crying. Country matters are being neglected.



Stop playing the victim, they say, shouldn’t you cop the blame?

Harden up, Adam.



They say you were malicious, and they are honourable men.

View photos Radio presenter Alan Jones has been an outspoken critic of Adam Goodes. Photo: Getty Images More

Before you brought up any of these racial issues, the crowds used to cheer for you. Something’s changed. You’d need to be blind to miss it.



In 2013 you were the one who was graceless enough to be offended by an often-repeated racial slur. That ape gibe was about your beard. If shaved you’d never hear that word again, promise.



It was an honourable sledge.



You were the one who in 2014 used the Australian of the Year platform to speak on an issue close to your heart (it’s irrelevant, apparently, that that is precisely what every Australian of the Year recipient does).



Be honourable, they said.



You were the one, who, in the face of a racially charged onslaught, chose to throw your cultural pride in the face of a baying Carlton throng back in Round Nine.



They were an honourable crowd.



And you were the one who finally had enough on the weekend. In this day and age we hound uncomfortable opinions into comfortable obscurity. Haven’t you been watching?



Harden up, Adam. This is a proud nation.

View photos The crowd at a Reclaim Australia rally in Sydney on July 19. Photo: AAP More

Calling out casual – and overt – racism isn’t comfortable for us: We’ve got an identity to live up to. We’re a brave, plucky bunch; larrikins who love a laugh, a fair go and who sanctify mateship above all else. We don’t take things too seriously.



Don’t you see how this makes us look? Not like an honourable crowd.



We’ve got blokes running around wearing Union Jacks and Commonwealth Stars around their necks like Clark Kent went Down Under. They’re working hard to keep the Aussie dream alive.

Aussie pride is good. Aussie pride is sacred. Aussie pride is everything: Just don’t ask us to think about it too deeply.

Just try to be the right type of proud Aussie.

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