IT’S time to stop the booing. Whether you think it’s racist or not, it’s just time to stop.

Maybe you agree with the professional athletes who’ve argued this week that being booed is part of the game, and that Adam Goodes should just suck it up.

As a pro athlete I cant help but laugh at athletes and fans who complain about players being booed when they are on the road #mashedpotatoes — Andrew Bogut (@andrewbogut) July 27, 2015

Maybe, like AFL legend Dermott Brereton, you believe Goodes has brought this on himself and “would do well to look at what he’s done … and work out what he can do to change that”.

Maybe, like countless fans who watch an awful lot of AFL footy, you genuinely believe Goodes is a dirty player who milks free kicks, and you boo him for that reason and that reason alone.

And maybe, like many other people, you boo Goodes because you don’t much like that moment two years ago when he pointed his finger over the fence at a 13-year-old girl.

All of these views have at least some merit. But here’s the problem.

We also know that some people are booing Goodes in a racist way. The West Coast Eagles acknowledged this in a statement, which in part read: “There are some boundaries that need to be observed. We cannot and will not condone racist behaviour.”

Racism is always a hard thing to define. A black man can use the “N” word to another black man, but a white man can’t. Where are the boundaries?

A bloke was ejected from the ground at Perth on the weekend for yelling “get back to the zoo” in the Adam Goodes direction.

The man told The West Australian: “The whole world has gone too politically correct … There was swearing in the crowd that was much more offensive than what I said.”

So where’s the line? Why was the zoo comment worse than calling a player a dickhead or a prick or a wanker?

The line is more or less here: that any comment painting one particular race as a lesser form of human is clearly racist. The Nazis employed propagandists to prove that the black man was an inferior “species”.

You tell a black man to go back to the zoo, or if you call him an ape or a monkey, you are buying into that. It is vile, dehumanising and — yes — completely racist. Just ask Andrew Symonds. Or Adam Goodes.

When Goodes pointed over the fence two years ago on that fateful night, he wasn’t picking on a teenager, as many have twisted the tale.

He was pointing not at the girl herself, but at the dark heart of racism. It was a symbolic act, as pregnant with meaning as the famous image of Nicky Winmar pointing proudly at his skin.

Many argue that by pointing at the crowd, Goodes broke a code. Theatre types call it the fourth wall. It’s the imaginary barrier between actors and audience. That wall exists in sport too. And you don’t cross it, as all those ex-footy legends have reminded us this week.

What happens on the field stays on the field, they tell us. What happens in the crowd stays in the crowd.

And yeah, absolutely, no one begrudges sporting crowds the right to a little colourful language. People work hard and footy tickets aren’t cheap. We all deserve the right to bellow at umps and players in a world where our emotional outlets are increasingly stifled.

Ninety-nine times out of 100, that logic is spot on. But this is that other one per cent of the time.

We know without question that a small section of people booing Goodes are racist. If you’re booing alongside them — for whatever reason, racist or benign — then sadly, by association, you are condoning the racist views. It effectively makes you racist, too.

That’s not fair. It’s not even half fair. But neither is racism.