CARLTON star Eddie Betts says he's sick and tired of the constant battle he has with racists, adding it regularly makes him question why he plays football.

Betts spoke on Fox Footy on Tuesday night, and said: "It's just tiring, just fighting, fighting, fighting every year. The last six years over in Adelaide, I've been racially abused every year, online, I had a banana thrown at me and quite frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of it."

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Betts recently took to Instagram to call out another racist social post directed at him that included a picture of a monkey.

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"It was tough. I found out that tweet came out and then I actually wasn't going to post it ... I thought 'what's gonna happen, do I have to deal with it again ... the stress'.

"It just drains you. You kind of think 'Why am I playing footy?', and then I think to myself 'I need to let people know what I'm going through'.

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"With everything that going on in the world, over in America, 'Black Lives Matter' and this stuff is still happening in Australia to Aboriginal people in Australia, it's draining.

"I needed people to understand that I need to set up barriers every day when I leave the house thinking I'm going to get racially abused when I'm driving, when I go to the supermarket.

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"All I want to do is rock up to training, play, enjoy the game of footy but before then I've gotta set up barriers for myself because I get racially abused.

"Sometimes on social media they set up fake accounts and you can't catch them, you can't call them out. It'll happen next week again, and I'm tired of it."

Betts said his priority now was to create an environment where young Indigenous footballers could come into the AFL and feel safe and know they won't be racially abused.

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"If I have to cop most of this racial abuse coming my way to set the standards in the future so these young Aboriginal kids can come and play footy and enjoy it without being racially abused, I'm happy to cop the brunt.

"At the moment, I'm just getting sick and tired of it ... it hurts, it hurts myself, it hurts my family and I'm sick of fighting."

The Black Lives Matter cause has gathered steam throughout Australia in the past month and within the AFL.

Players have 'taken a knee' before games, and Collingwood recently launched an investigation into the treatment of former player Heritier Lumumba.

"Until we make changes, I don't know how it's going to stop ... maybe you start charging these people and catching them out and getting the law involved," Betts said.

"Like I said, it's tiring and we're sick of fighting but I tell you what, I'm going to keep fighting, I'm going to keep standing up for it, I'm going to keep fighting for what I believe in.

"I've always said to myself, 'I've done nothing wrong, why can't you just come and enjoy the game of footy?'.

"I hope in future we'll make change and they won't have to cop it if they want to play AFL footy."

Betts recalled a story about his grandfather who died "alone" in a prison cell with health issues.

"We've got 432 deaths in custody here in Australia and that was since 1991.

"My grandfather Eddie Betts ... was sick in Port Lincoln. He went to the doctors. The doctors turned him away, he had chest pain, they thought he was drunk, they rang the police on him, they took him to the cells.

"He died alone in the cells by himself at age 49, my grandfather Eddie Betts."

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan recently said: "The very reason players and officials took a knee on the weekend was to show support to all the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players and to demonstrate as a collective that racism has no place in football or our community. Racism is abhorrent and causes great harm and trauma, it is not a minor matter.

"On a weekend where we had an opportunity to listen and to learn from our players on the impact that racism has on them, their families and friends, this has again demonstrated why we need to continue to do everything we can to oppose racism wherever and whenever it occurs."