Former rugby league star Dean Widders says racist abuse, like that directed at Rabbitohs fullback Latrell Mitchell last week, puts Indigenous people "back in the old times again".
Speaking on NITV rugby league program Over The Black Dot on Wednesday, the 266-gamer reflected on the incident.
At the halftime break in the sides' round two clash at BluBet Stadium, a young fan is alleged to have shouted racist comments towards Mitchell as he entered the sheds.
Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou called for lifetime bans for anyone committing similar acts in his post match press conference.
NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo faced the media the following morning to call vilification in the game "abhorrent".
The fan was removed from the ground shortly after the incident.
Co-host and former league-union duel international Timana Tahu revealed it was only earlier that day he had attended a cultural awareness session at the NRL.
Tahu admitted when he walked into the league's offices the next morning he felt a "sinking feeling" at hearing the news.
Widders said the ongoing examples of this kind of behaviour speaks to a bigger issue, both within contemporary Australia and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people still forced to grapple with racism.
"The big thing in Australia (is) we don't understand racism," Widders said.
"Our culture is undervalued, our traumas underestimated, and you'll always see people downplay racism all the time in this country."
"Racism comes back and it just strikes you back to back in the old times, again - that we haven't gone anywhere and things are never gonna change and the things that I battled through, the things that my grandparents and my ancestors battled through. Well, my grandkids and my great grandkids are gonna battle for the same thing, and that's frustrating as a Blackfella."
Tahu reflected on his experiences over a decade ago.
In 2010 he walked out on the NSW State of Origin camp after Blues coach Andrew Johns called Queensland star Greg Inglis a "black c**t".
He said the impacts of racism can take indirect effect, even as backlash for those taking a stand.
Fears Mitchell could exit the game as a result of such attacks have been flagged by fellow players.
"The pressures of him (Latrell Mitchell) thinking about leaving the game, that's what I worry about. Because that's what I wanted to do in 2010," Tahu said.
"I felt like me and my family got hammered, my family got attacked. My kids at the time, we had death threats. I had to pull my kids out of school. We had to go into hiding.
"It felt like the victim became the offender."
He said the media coverage and wording used to describe these kinds of episodes has significant influence on public opinion, something he thinks has shifted away from dismissive terminology in the past.
Widders added that those kinds of experiences can force a person to ask themselves "should I have thicker skin and should I be tougher?".
He said they have "finally" stopped being underplayed.
The pair later discussed the positive environments created for players at Indigenous All Stars camps.
