Silver Ferns complaints about Dame Noeline Taurua revealed from Netball NZ report
The Silver Ferns complaints which triggered the standing-down of Dame Noeline Taurua have been revealed.
Taurua was stood down in September, days out from the Taini Jamison Trophy series against South Africa, but has since been reinstated.
It followed anonymous player complaints stemming from a training camp in Sydney in January. The Players Association put these complaints to Netball New Zealand, who eventually launched a review, led by former New Zealand Cricket high-performance chief Bryan Stronach.
Comrades.
I’m a Gen Xer.
I grew up in an economic downturn that generated latch key kids who were left alone because both parents were working.
We were the first user pays generation and you either sank or swam.
We were hedonistic to numb that stark reality.
We were brought up in an education environment with the value of ‘be the best YOU can be’.
We saw ourselves in terms of class and as citizens and we had a deep distrust or power and Governments.
None of that is true with the new generations.
Brought up by Helicopter parents in an educational environment that stated, “Everyone is special”, they do not see themselves as citizens or a class, they see themselves as an identity.
Their pronouns are ‘Me’ and ‘I’. They define themselves with hashtags.
Any emotion that doesn’t cheerlead their feelings is harmful and must be ended immediately.
Doomed to be dominated by entrenched Boomer privilege on a burning planet, their focus became the policing of micro aggressions.
Their enemies are heteronormative white cis males, objectivity, due process and free speech.
It is this culture clash that is what I think happened in the Dame Noeline Taurua fiasco.
High performance anything demands a level of focus and drive that is uncomfortable and emotionally challenging, but the cultural expectation from younger generations of ‘my feelings are paramount’ clashes with the older generations desire to push beyond your feelings.
The brittle safe space demands of a generation taught that their feelings are all that matter repeat the sort of clashes Dame Noeline Taurua now symbolises.
That’s not to say that there aren’t times when the younger generations menu of feelings don’t matter, the terrible case of elite Kiwi cyclist Olivia Podmore was a shameful cavalcade of abuse and bullying that no human being, not matter the level of high performance, should ever have had to encounter.
Being able to sift through what is legitimate objective abuse and the easily triggered feelings of snowflakes is a nightmare minefield today.
We have replaced objective rationalisation with subjective feelings.
We are human beings, we are all deeply flawed, there needs to be far more generosity of spirit, stoicism, focus and kindness to generate excellence.
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Boooohoooo she shouted at me!