28 September, 2016. 20:25
CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The disastrous storms currently edging across South Australia have resulted in some bizarre behaviour from Adelaide residents, as many have begun responding in peculiar ways to the news that their entire city is without power.
Local man, Jayden, a die-hard Port Adelaide Power fan has said that the moment he heard there was a black out on the street, he went straight to the kitchen to get some bananas.
In a blatantly offensive spectacle, Jayden began throwing pieces of fruit onto the street in a hope to racially vilify someone.
“Someone said there was a black out on the street and now we have no Power!” he said.
“Well, I’m sorry. I’m not letting anyone take away my favourite football team. I don’t care if he’s black or not,”
Jayden’s behaviour is a nod to the Port Adelaide tradition of racially abusing people with fruit.
Most recently a Port Adelaide supporter who was filmed hurling a banana at Adelaide Crow’s superstar Betts in the dying seconds of the Crows’ Showdown win after the mercurial forward’s fifth goal in his 250th game
It is believed similar scenes are happening right across the city as certain South Australians struggle with the news that there is a black out of power on their streets – not a black person out on their streets.
“There hasn’t been a black out in our street for a while,” says another man Bryson,
“I thought I better make the effort of throwing a banana at him. It’s what we do down here”
In the meanwhile, all of South Australia could be without power until the early hours of tomorrow morning after a network failure.
Dear Sirs,
As a Western Australian I was appalled to read of these occurrences. I have long believed that South Australia lacks the basic tenets of civilisation and would be better served by being reclassified as an outer-western suburb of Melbourne. That simple administrative change would also free up vast amounts of GST money to be returned back to WA from where it was pillaged.
This sort of racist, boorish behaviour has no part in a mature nation, and a simple look at how Western Australians humanely deal with blacks out on the streets will hopefully convince people from overseas that we’re not all yobbos like that crowd obviously are.
Recently I was drinking in the pub at Onslow, and before being asked to leave due to an unfortunate misunderstanding I was witness to how tolerant and caring my fellow patrons can be. One came into the bar at one point and announced “There’s a black out on the street”. Without fuss, without foul language, without resort to fruit, the bartender just handed over a set of traffic cones and the civic-minded patron went outside, placed them around the black, and re-joined us to continue his refreshments. THAT is what civilised people do. The cones are supplied by a WA craft beer company that sadly makes a pretty poxy, overpriced syrup, but many people who have no spare space on their singlets for yet another coloured ribbon will gladly buy a glass of their product, admittedly then pour it on the ground because it tastes like shit, and know that they are supporting community initiatives that really matter.
For towns which get blacks out on the street more often, like Carnarvon for example, the council has a 1300 number you can call and when the road crew isn’t otherwise occupied they send the D9 around to gently scrape them off of the street and onto the nature strip. Road safety is enhanced, the community feels it’s engaging with its indigenous inhabitants in a positive way, racists throwing fruit are clearly shown their way is not our way, and nobody’s 4WD suffers unnecessary punctures or underbody damage.
Unfortunately, because much of Western Australia is fairly flat these sorts of culturally inappropriate means must be used, but always in a manner conferring dignity and respect that will not require any future Australian Prime Minister to have to apologise for them, but many towns in the south-west have sufficiently helpful topography to not require white people imposing their form of cultural hegemony to assist blacks out on the street. In some cases where there are towns built on hills of sufficient gradient (Bridgetown, Albany, Pemberton all spring to mind) it is an easy matter just to re-orient the black out on the street such that gravity will assist him or her to roll down the slope and out of harm’s way. In a sense this stops the blacks out on the street from becoming dependent on hand-outs, and allows them to know that it was their own body mass that resolved the situation and not some invading do-gooder’s misplaced patronising of them.
We are not all oafs and banana-throwers.
Regards
Ron Muppet