Oversimplifying a serious matter or a fair cop – were Sam Kerr’s alleged words really racist?

For more than 24 hours, Australians were left wondering what beloved Matildas captain Sam Kerr could possibly have said that levelled a charge of racism against her by a London police officer.

After it was revealed the phrase allegedly used was “stupid white bastard”, the reactions came in thick and fast.

Kerr has been charged with racially aggravated harassment and has pleaded not guilty to using insulting, threatening or abusive words that caused alarm or distress to a police officer in January 2023.

Roger Cook, the Labor premier of Kerr’s home state of Western Australia, said he did not believe the comments were racist, a view with which NSW premier, Chris Minns, agreed. And it was shared across the political divide as well with conservative Nationals MP Matt Canavan saying he was a “white guy” and he was not offended.

But independent MP Rod Roberts said such a comment shouldn’t be tolerated – and wouldn’t be if the word “white” was replaced with “black”. Former Socceroo Craig Foster said interpersonal racism against a white person is still racism.

So, is it?

Prof Fethi Mansouri, an expert in intercultural communication at Deakin University, said “it is very difficult to see how this can amount to being a serious racist incident”.

“If we [say] that we are really trivialising and oversimplifying the huge impact that racism is actually having on people who are oppressed.”

It’s all to do with power and the governance systems that reinforce it, Mansouri said.

“Racism, in many ways, reflects the notion that one group is categorised on a hierarchy as being better than the other group … You are basically pejoratively putting someone down in a way that relates to your own position within society.

“You only have to look at the history of power imbalance between white people and people of colour, only have to look at history of slavery and colonisation to see this,” he said.

For Mansouri, it’s difficult to see how an incident could engender harm or injury on an individual if the subject belongs “to the majority white group in that society and the perpetrator is a person of colour”.

“We’re talking about London. We’re talking about someone who belongs to the Metropolitan police. It is very difficult to see how that is reinforcing an existing imbalance in power relationships.”

Racism in the context of Kerr’s case has been stripped of what the sociologist Miri Song calls its “history, severity and power”, Alana Lentin and Francis Awaritefe wrote in the Guardian on Friday. “Racism is no longer the ideology that accompanies racial capitalist systems of colonialism, slavery and imperialism; it becomes a matter of individual morality.”

The incident comes amid burgeoning accusations of “anti-white” racism or reverse racism globally, which Mansouri said is when “people who are members of the majority groups … go on the offensive, saying: ‘Well, I’m also being subjected to racism’”.

Mansouri said such claims minimise real acts of racism, warning that a “lack of understanding of the history of racism, of its complex manifestations, can lead to really oversimplifying our discussions”.

Foster said in a statement posted to social media that regardless of the outcome of the charge, if the statement is verified Kerr should be stood down as captain.

“It is possible to be innocent of criminal charges and have breached the standards necessary to lead the country in any sport,” he wrote, adding that if Kerr were stood down she would “have a great opportunity to learn, understand and become a very powerful symbol of anti-racism in Australia”.

But for some Australians, the episode has just enhanced the national hero status of Kerr, who has Indian heritage.

The independent senator Lidia Thorpe called for statues of Captain Cook to be replaced with Sam Kerr: “Our one true captain.”

Both Football Australia and Chelsea, for whom Kerr plays in the Women’s Super League, have said Kerr has their support.

Sam Kerr ‘has our full support’, Chelsea manager says – video

Dr Johanna Adriaanse, a UTS expert in sport and women, said while Kerr is a high-profile sports star and a role model for women “she is human after all and can make a mistake”.

“However, what happens after that mistake is crucial … and I am surprised that Sam did not disclose the incident to Football Australia,” she said.

“When the story first broke I assumed – and think lots of others did too – that it was against a black police officer, but I think the twist in the story is [it was] against a white police officer. And I think that changes a whole lot of things and whether, in this case, it is actually racism.”

Rana Hussein, who worked at Cricket Australia as the diversity and inclusion manager, said the varying reactions to the case shows the tension Australians have with how the nation views women in sport.

“There’s this undercurrent of surprise that this was coming from the women’s sporting sector,” Hussein said. “I think its indicative of the way we do see women and women in sport as being kind of the moral centre … and I just don’t think that’s helpful,” she said.

“I want to know what her view on what happened was and we still haven’t yet heard from her.”