Basketball On The Internet.

THE hardest part yesterday about the hearing and verdict for Josh Childress was seeing – again – what a gaggle of filthy, mindless, gutless tools social media can throw up at the drop of a hat.

It is as if the relative safety and often anonymity of Twitter, for example, allows the worst elements in our society to step out of the shadows of ignorance and stupidity and release their vile bile and vitriol without any fear of reprisal.

In this instance, it was aimed at an African American man – I make the distinction because much of the venom spewed forth was race-based - whose sole crime was losing control of his emotions for a few seconds and hitting an opponent.

As if that has never happened before.

Go back to March and Gary Ervin’s knee-lift “nut-cracker” to Chris Goulding during the semi finals.

Should that one loss of control define the player forever?

Shane Heal, Grant Kruger, Chris Anstey ... a lot of players have experienced that momentary snap.

Childress leapt to his feet after bouncing off a hard screen by Jesse Wagstaff and ran him down with a hit Barry Hall might once have admired.

Guilty?

Yep.

Found guilty?

Yep.

Penalty delivered?

Yep.

Adequate or not? That’s up to you.

And that’s all there is to it.

Life goes on.

For the trolls to spring forth from the bowels of society and Childress to be victimised was not only shameful but so disheartening for the naïve among us - myself included – who want to believe we embrace being multi-cultural.

As an Aussie-born kid, the son of migrants, with a crazy wog name and a salami-and-cheese sandwich for lunch at school, at its worst I never was subjected to anything as sad as we bear witness to today.

Far too recently, cyber-bullying led to Charlotte Dawson’s tragic death and I wholeheartedly applaud any attempts by the Sydney Kings and authorities to track down these idiots.

Trips to the United States, especially “down south” left me fearing for that country’s future, such is the inherent racism barely buried beneath the surface.

It is a racism born of long-established hatred and is beyond disturbing when seen first-hand.

Racism in Australia, at least that which we have seen occasionally exposed within the NBL, comes more from ignorance than any deep-seated hatred.

That doesn’t excuse it, but when some half-tanked fan tries to upset an African-American by spitting out the N-word as he passes by, he has no genuine understanding of its history or origins or relevance across the Pacific.

It’s similar to that Collingwood kid calling Sydney Swans footballer Adam Goodes a name and not having anywhere near the life experience to recognise the hurt associated with doing so.

It just “seemed like a good idea at the time.”

We see footage of that idiot woman’s rant at Asians on a Sydney train, or some drugged fool’s verbal and physical assault at a calm and extraordinarily patient African security officer on another commuter train and any thinking Australian simply hangs his/her head in shame and embarrassment.

I have always been proud to be an Australian. I love my country. We live in the best place in the world. We have a disproportionate number of heroes, sporting stars and selfless volunteers.

We have it all.

Unfortunately, “having it all” also means we have the bogans, ferals and F-wits who hide behind their anonymity or are buoyed by the strength-in-numbers of like-minded fools.

Social media sadly allows them free rein but also gives a false impression their numbers are greater than they are.

There’s a reason the silent majority is called “silent”.

Good people, genuine people, loving and caring people still overwhelmingly outnumber the F-wits.

Long may it stay so, even if they have found ways to vent their own deep inadequacies.

Good luck to Josh Childress in the future.

Some fool in a crowd will still spew forth some vile epithets at some point.

He just doesn’t represent the best country in the world.