Wednesday, 10 January 2018

Profiles in Lack of Courage: BRIAN ASHBY & ERIC YOUNG (Apr. 14, 2012)

Radio Sport/NewstalkZB, Saturday 14 April 2012 

About 1:40 p.m. .... 


"Hideous! I tell you some of the stuff is ab-so-luuuutely hideous!" 
So speaks one TONY "Boot Boy" VEITCH, solemnly denouncing the 
"anonymous" posters of racist filth aimed at Auckland Blues coach Pat 
"Lachrymose" Lam. 

If you didn't know better, you'd think that Veitch really was 
incensed, and that the posters really were "unknown" to good decent 
folk like, errr, Tony Veitch. In fact of course, he is perfectly aware 
of the origin of these "hideous" comments. They have been a disturbing 
feature on NewstalkZB for at least a generation, and on its sister 
station Radio Sport since it began broadcasting in April 1998. The 
worst (though not the only) perpetrators of this endless diet of 
racial taunts are: Murray Deaker, Paul Holmes, Leighton Smith
and .... (wait for it)...Tony "Boot boy" Veitch

This afternoon, playing along with Veitch in this grotesque charade 
are Christchurch-based commentator Brian Ashby and Prime TV's Eric 
Young. Ashby, speaking in the most serious tone he can muster, says 
that "this racism is not just an Auckland thing." He's right in one 
way---Deaker's sonorous declamations about Pacific Island "boofheads", 
their "lack of intelligence" and their "inability to concentrate" have 
disgusted the citizens of Christchurch and Dunedin just as much as 
they have shocked and appalled Aucklanders. As have Veitch's racist 
slurs against black American athletes. 

But Ashby, just like pat Lam himself, still pretends that "we don't 
know" who this "tiny minority" of racists are. 

And so does Eric Young. Young says he was initially indignant that 
South African journalist Mark Keohane had made comments about the anti- 
Polynesian comments he had heard in Auckland last year during the RWC. 
But then, after "reflecting", Young had to acknowledge that Keohane 
had a point: there ARE racists out there. Now if only we could find 
out who they are! 

No comments:

Post a Comment