The club is bigger than the individual. You can't. [19] This has led to calls for The Project, and hosts Waleed Aly and Peter Helliar, to apologise on-air. "Players past and present privately threaten retribution. "I read the words 'BLACK LIVES MATTER', surrounding me at every angle imaginable, and my mind turned to my family in the Democratic Republic of Congo," Hritier Lumumba says. Theres always next week. Support, instead, flocked to the president. One journalist invented provocative quotes and attributed them to Lumumba, used damaging information he'd shared off the record, then ignored Lumumba's phone calls when he wanted to discuss the misinformation and the subsequent fallout that enveloped him. Following an indiscreet press conference "I get the impression that everyone thinks he's a basket case," the coach said at one point he was hailed by the football press for "a Buckley masterclass". I should have believed you. Well never really know what its like. Theres always a new hero, a new villain, a new outrage. On one hand, it begged the question as to what faults Behrendt was expected to find. Many naturally wondered: would those have been the same players who kept voting Lumumba into the club's leadership group? By June 26, Lumumba had reached his limit. In the suffocating world at Collingwood, he says a teammate frequently used the word "ni***r" at the top of his voice. In reality, he says it was his only option to shield himself against significant personal attacks. Another bought a black dog and named it after Lumumba. "[13] Lumumba felt that he was undermined by Aly and claimed that Aly was indifferent to racism. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Certain layers of context are essential to understanding how Lumumba's confrontation of McGuire led to his exile from Collingwood and estrangement from the game. Trouble, however, was brewing. "The outcome of my psilocybin experience was a profound realisation of my obligation to confront the issues at the root of my symptoms.". "See ya later," chortled Tony Shaw on Fox Footy. In 2006 he showed more improvement and was elevated to the senior list again during the year, this time due to the absence of Sean Rusling, playing a total of nine games. In time, he says he would also be called "black c***" and "slave" in the name of humour. In June, Mr McGuire said the investigation would be done "forensically but we're not looking to prosecute". 'The report clearly states that during Eddie's tenure as CFC president, the club's racism resulted in ''profound and enduring harm'' to many individuals, families, & communities. Former Collingwood player Hritier Lumumba used to be known as Harry O'Brien. "The entirety of my life's experiences has been defined by me being African, for better and for worse. At first he just nods along, briefly glancing towards his father for approval. But we can listen. The AFL press of Lumumba's early career mostly saw him and his burgeoning social conscience as a welcome novelty in the homogenised pool of clich-peddling players and coaches. Adam Goodes: Rival fans racism made me quit AFL. In those days, he was known as Harry instead. He said he had faced a "culture of racist jokes and ideas" at the club. Journalists who had once welcomed his openness now sneered at Lumumba's "broken family", simultaneously prying for their darkest secrets. Lumumba says one TV reporter engaged him in a long and meandering conversation, then presented an edited interview that made it sound like Lumumba had not returned from a concussion an injury that would end his career because he was still mourning the death of Muhammad Ali. "Every roll call it was difficult for the teachers to pronounce my name. The third was the AFL and the AFLPA's capacity to effectively deal with racism, something Lumumba doubted after observing their handling of other players' complaint, particularly those of Gold Coast's Joel Wilkinson. [17] Former Melbourne coach Paul Roos also confirmed hearing Lumumba's account and was "shocked" when Lumumba told him of the culture at Collingwood and what he had endured. 2023 BBC. Consider Lumumba's status in Collingwood's pecking order. "Within that paradigm, being black combined with challenging the pre-existing culture would have meant really going against the grain. When Lumumba's son hears them, he loses his inhibitions and wanders across to join the circle. 'He was all for it when he was winning flags and playing well. He all of a sudden 10 years later wants to be a humanitarian (sic),' he said of Lumumba. "They bit their tongue and that's what they have to live with for the rest of their life," McNamara told Seven News in June. "We come from the same people, and it feels like I'm with family here. Pictures: Getty Images. For years, Collingwood hoped, or assumed, that Hritier Lumumba would simply go away. Impressed by Lumumba's passion, Hatzoglou forwarded the email to AFL colleagues, but it was leaked to Herald Sun chief football writer Mike Sheahan, who was soon on the phone to a startled Lumumba. I know that if the Collingwood Football Club is to go to the next level as a football club, it must stand on the right side of history. Normally eager to affirm the league's progressive bona fides, chief executive Gillon McLachlan has been wishy-washy on Lumumba's case. Lumumba's surname was changed to "O'Brien" when he was 9 years old and was given the nickname "Harry" shortly after, becoming known as "Harry O'Brien". To be unable to express oneself naturally is excruciatingly painful. In 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard recognised Lumumba as one of the People of Australia ambassadors. He played in numbers 43, 30 and his final number 8. In the years since, his story has made a sham of Collingwood's self-made image of solidarity. "We are looking forward to the arrival of Professor Behrendt's report and the opportunity it presents to inform Collingwood's future," a Collingwood spokesman replied. "What that did was make me very much about following orders and instructions. Lumumba added that he has gone on the public record stating that he adopted a 'go along to get along' approach to 'cope' with the club's culture between 2004 and 2013. Yet word got out, as word has a way of doing at Collingwood, that Lumumba's future was clouded. After Fair Game aired, McLachlan was on the front foot. I could never pinpoint exactly what he actually wanted from Collingwood. One night, he says he was ambushed by two security guards at Collingwood's training facility and had his parking pass forcibly removed from his hands, trapping him in the carpark until a teammate returned from home to let him out. Yet Lumumba's experiences have been corroborated by six of his teammates. 902. I said it was a proud day for Collingwood and I shouldn't have,' he said. Lumumba says it was eventually used by the club to silence him. Lumumba still had two years to run on his Collingwood contract as the 2014 season dawned. It made him think a year further back, to the bewildering period when concussion forced him into AFL retirement. A lot of the criticism came with a sneering tone. He later spoke out about his experience of racism at Collingwood, which he said included being given a nickname that is a racial slur for black people. It was, in other words, many of the things its footballing namesake was not. Allegations about Lumumba's bad habits have been made. "No-one spoke to me in relation to this article," Pendlebury tweeted in response. He said he would not return until Buckley apologised. The United States of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor is no African-American's idea of utopia. There were the newspapermen who talked over him every time he opened his mouth. "But the way I see it, the isolation I felt and the prejudice that pervades white Australia is far more detrimental to my wellbeing. Maintaining the connection to traditions is one defence against the ongoing genocide that is being waged against Afro-Brazilians as a whole.". Only once could he coax a group of teammates down Smith Street, with its hodgepodge of dive bars and art galleries. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. We learn, we strive to get better. My name is a symbol of black power and revolution, and ties me to the spirit of great men such as Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Patrice Lumumba, the father of Congolese independence, who was martyred in the name of Pan-Africanism.". Many players say they no longer have a relationship with him. "They are sacred for their power to establish a direct connection to our ancestors. I discovered there's been great success in using it as a treatment for mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress.". He'd devoured Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, and been struck by his and Obama's common experiences. @iamlumumba . Former Australian Rules footballer Hritier Lumumba is suing his former club and league over racism he says he endured in his playing career. In October, 2014, when Lumumba made his final appearance as a Collingwood player at the club's Copeland Trophy presentation, much was made of a "bizarre" speech he gave about the true meaning of his name "the prince, the one who will hold the last laugh, and is gifted". Club staff continued to confide in him about their difficulties with the homophobia around them, including an offensive poster allegedly made by a player and hung in a common area. [9], In 2017, the documentary Fair Game was released about Heritier's life and his stories of racism while playing professional football. "Side by side they stick together, to uphold the Magpies name" goes the team song. He didnt play by our rules. He had previously recounted experiences to club and league management. We met a fierce man determined to maintain his connection to his ancestors, a man who at first tried to assimilate, who was then put in the too-hard basket, and who was finally actively briefed against by his former club. It's considered the most important physical evidence of enslaved Africans' arrival on the American continent.". Crises loomed. The standouts were SBS journalist Ahmed Yussuf, who could empathise from his own experiences as an African-Australian; Jo Chandler, for her sincerity and for not coming from the sports world; and the late Trevor Grant, by then an ex-football journalist. "It felt like vultures circling around a carcass," Lumumba says. "He means so much to black people because he fought and sacrificed for us. ", Adam Goodes: Rival fans racism made me quit AFL. "I was able to freely express myself through dance, percussion and singing without the overbearing presence of the white gaze. It produced the kind of form that would eventually secure him another top-five finish in the club's best and fairest award. As an awkward silence fell over the room, Lumumba says Buckley turned to him and asked whether the joke was OK with him. He kicked a goal in a 26-point win for his new club. Lumumba had been among his harshest critics; on live television, he had schooled McGuire in the basics of racism. My mother was a tireless campaigner for what our community calls 'cultural resistance' the act of fighting oppression through culture. One thing is certain: nobody lived the Collingwood ideal more earnestly than Hritier Lumumba, taking to heart the club's origin story as a beacon of hope to the impoverished underclasses of Collingwood the gritty inner-northern suburb in which Lumumba alone among Pies players chose to make his home. He calls it his "go along to get along" phase. Until December 2013, the football world had known him as Harry O'Brien, an AFL star with a social conscience and big ideas. When Lumumba complained, he says the club did nothing. Key points: Buckley says he had been "dismissive" of Lumumba's claims about his experiences of racism at the Magpies Read about our approach to external linking. Lumumba says only a few reporters treated him with dignity and respect. [1][25][26], Lumumba became the AFL's first multicultural ambassador and worked to engage migrant communities through football. When Lumumba was 23, Malthouse labelled him a "future captain". In fact, five minutes later, McGuire called Lumumba angrily. In June, it was announced that Lumumba's time at Collingwood would finally be subjected to something more rigorous than media analysis a 'review' commissioned by Collingwood itself and carried out by Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman Larissa Behrendt, professor of law and director of research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney. It meant all things 'team': solidarity, fraternity, supporting your mate. 84. News that US President Barack Obama would soon visit Australia prompted Lumumba to fire off an email to Nick Hatzoglou, then head of the AFL's multicultural programs. Read Australias most-read columnist, the cartoons of the newspaper that bears our countrys name, or wade through social media for five minutes and tell me this is just a football problem. Collingwood and the AFL are yet to respond to the lawsuit. It was clear that their sole intention was to protect their brand.". 'We commissioned this report not to pay lip services to a worldwide tragedy, but to lay the foundations for our game, our people and our community.'. "I want to meet Obama too," said a reader letter in the Herald Sun. Reporters lapped up his praise of the Anzac spirit and grateful, English-speaking migrants. Why didn't he put a stop it there and then? This is my real stuff, and the club's been fantastic in supporting me and protecting me and they've tried to do that.". I believe my core values and beliefs about who I am and the cultural significance of my background help sustain me in my darkest moments.". Theres a generation of young sportspeople who are no longer swimming in their lane, who are no longer willing to do all the heavy lifting on race. "They painted me with the centuries-old stereotype of the crazy black man, when in fact it is them who suffer from the psychosis of white supremacy. Mr McGuire later apologised for his comments. As far as Collingwood, Lumumba and Buckley go, this entire issue seems unresolvable. Charlotte Karp For Daily Mail Australia
I'm extremely disappointed with Eddie's comments and do not care what position he holds, I disagree with what came out his mouth this morning on radio. 'It affected me in a myriad of ways, whether it was physically, mentally and spiritually,' he said. Hritier Lumumba is a former AFL footballer. Pies football strategist Rodney Eade declared: "The club is bigger than any individual. Theres nothing to be gained from any of this. On the 2011 Pert incident, Lumumba claims the CEO got "heavily intoxicated" in Sydney and made "inappropriate comments" in front of players' wives and partners that "referenced their sex lives, which made the partners uncomfortable". US foreign policy has caused death and destruction to tens of millions of black lives in the Congo, and despite the insurmountable pain that has been inflicted on Congolese, they have never stopped fighting for their own liberation.". On another, it presented a paradoxical vulnerability for Collingwood: what happened if Behrendt, reliant on those driving the supposedly improved atmosphere at the club, still uncovered examples of the toxic, discriminatory and bullying culture Lumumba laid bare? Soon after McGuire's comments on Goodes landed with a calamitous thud, Lumumba tweeted: "It doesn't matter if you are a school teacher, a doctor or even the president of football club I will not tolerate racism, nor should we as a society. We pat ourselves on the back when we call out online abuse, or when spectators who throw bananas are ejected. In the 2012 post-season, Lumumba had travelled to Brazil again, seeking the counsel of his Jongueiro elders. But that's what was asked of an eight-year-old boy who would go on to become a nationally recognised AFL player and lost himself in the process. "It's a Kikongo word for leadership.". We celebrate what they bring to our game. In Lumumba's time, Collingwood coaches cherry-picked team mottos from the club's history. Dusted.". Lumumba, however, returned fire at the laid-back response delivered by McGuire following the report's findings. AFL Round-Up: Unprecedented Pies a joy to behold, Horne-Francis unleashes Port's intensity, Hannah Green comes up clutch to win LPGA's LA Championship in playoff, Motorsport governing body breaches international sporting code as F1 driver almost hits people in pit lane, Magpies snatch thrilling one-point win over Crows as Cats, Suns celebrate victories, Police investigating gangland shooting allegedly uncover separate murder plot, Pioneering Australian musician and The Dingoes frontman Broderick Smith dies aged 75, Ukrainian air defences shoot down 15 of 18 Russian missiles launched in dead of night, Football's a family affair for these WA sisters, who play alongside their mum, Buses, ferries proposed as Hobart stadium transport fix, Man on trial for alleged attempted murder at Canberra shops dubbed 'duplicitous' by own lawyer, Rice loving Asian elephant captured and relocated after killing six people in India, Canberra grassland earless dragon headed for extinction as ACT government criticises airport development plan. Ignored were the far more pointed comments preceding: "We find ourselves in a very interesting time, not only for this football club, but for this whole world. By
He developed anxiety, struggling to sleep; a three-day Gaia retreat during Collingwood's mid-season bye didn't halt his spiral. To sift through the hundreds of thousands of words written and spoken about Lumumba is to understand his conviction that the AFL, Collingwood and a co-dependent media combined to create the damaging public personas by which he is known: the egotist who craves attention; the shady opportunist looking for a pay-out; the crazy black man with an axe to grind. His career spanned over 12 years where he played 223 games and was a member of the Collingwood Football Club's 2010 premiership winning team. (Supplied: Renae Wootson/Milan Wiley) Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article abc.net.au/news/heritier-lumumba-strength-in-african-culture-collingwood-afl/12820942 And the betrayals were many. His response to the hyper-masculinity and white monoculture informing Collingwood's playing group was to disappear in the off-season and travel through the Americas, the Caribbean and the African continent, connecting with their people and cultures, forever wanting more. "We were being trained to give direct and immediate feedback to players and coaches around actions and behaviours that were in conflict with our values," Lumumba says. [20] Helliar has written an apology, "This report is heartbreaking. He was one of the few people in football, and surely the only one at Collingwood, to stand up to Eddie McGuire. All rights reserved. 'Eddie McGuire's inability to let go of the illusion he's constructed of himself does not serve the club, the code, or the community. Good journalism challenges you to confront your biases and prejudices, and I hopefully logged off a little more enlightened, if not a bit embarrassed. The cultural competency was and still is shocking. "Hritier Lumumba gave permission for Scott Pendlebury to call him 'Chimp' while at Collingwood," read a Fox Sports headline in August. Yet in the blink of an eye, Lumumba's profound connection was a public humiliation. So firmly did it lodge in the consciousness of players, Lumumba would eventually reference it in his farewell speech. Other media erroneously claimed Lumumba had presented Rudd with a list of demands. In one game, an opponent called Lumumba a "f***ing Golliwog" but he didn't feel confident enough to report the abuse. Collingwood did all it could. Lumumba was not quiet about letting his humiliation be known and immediately left the room, then paced laps of Collingwood's training ground to cool off. "The players whose partners were present were furious. It hammered home how this sport, and this country, is still unable to properly talk about things with real weight, particularly race and class. Lumumba's final act at Collingwood would be a stand on behalf of others. One headline read: Too Precious. Buckley, who is indigenous and played 26 games with the team, posted comments on a Facebook page belonging to former AFL player Shae McNamara. Hritier Lumumba says he endured a culture of racist abuse while playing for Collingwood, Hritier Lumumba said his experience improved when he joined Melbourne Football Club, Adam Goodes: Rival fans racism made me quit AFL. Will it change Collingwood and the AFL? He said that Collingwood coach, Nathan Buckley, told him to back off his accusations because it would throw the club president, Eddie McGuire, "under the bus". And the media has gone on being receptive. In the AFL arenas where Lumumba was heckled and abused. The story became a running gag. Publicly, Buckley said Lumumba and the only other black player on the team, Krakouer, could skip the next weekend's game with the club's support if it was "not within them" to play. In 2008, he came 5th in the Copeland Trophy count, Collingwood's best and fairest. The player slammed Buckley's claims that he didn't mind the nickname when he was winning, calling the argument 'flimsy' and using a 'reductionist framework to evaluate how racism manifests for individuals'. "When people are in positions of power, yet have not taken the necessary steps to unlearn and deprogram a history of racist indoctrination, the decisions they make are dangerous. "I've never heard it," McGuire said in June. 'It was not systemic racism, as such, we just didn't have the processes to deal with it that we do now. Some are drawn there by the unmistakable sound of traditional drums. Later, Lumumba's use of psilocybin became another cudgel for his critics. "The wharf where they first touched down is known as Cais do Valongo, about 50 metres from the hospital. Key points: Lumumba, Krakouer and Davis have been in 15 months of dialogue with Collingwood He claimed the Pies had no intention of acting in "good faith" I spent time looking into science-based research on the compound psilocybin (derived from 'magic mushrooms'). "There were tens of millions of people around the world who were mourning the death of Muhammad Ali," Lumumba says. Theres always a new hero, a new villain, a new outrage. He called the culture at Collingwood a "boys' club for racist and sexist jokes"[10] and stated that his teammates nicknamed him "chimp", a term with a strong history of connotations as a racial slur against black people. When Lumumba arrived on the AFL scene at the end of 2004, much was made of his Brazilian nationality but little of his African ethnicity. "Between playing samba in those early years, spending time in Footscray's version of 'Little Africa', as well as frequenting black spaces created by Melbourne's African diaspora, I formed a quilombo. Most of the major players in the controversy were no longer at the club. During a Collingwood press conference on Monday, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, 56, denied there was any 'systemic racism' at the team, and said that on his watch they 'built a fantastic club'. In rooms full of white footballers, white coaches and white journalists, who stared blankly or snickered when Lumumba held up a mirror to prejudices long accepted as part and parcel of the hairy-chested AFL culture prejudices he says were ingrained at Collingwood. In 2020, the Do Better report proved that CFC had still failed to meet the minimum legal requirements for human rights protection in a workplace." "The police have a well-documented history of brutally targeting black and brown people here. On 15 October 2014, after issues with the club and management, Lumumba and Collingwood agreed to part ways and he joined the Melbourne Football Club in a three-club deal with Mitch Clark going to Geelong and Travis Varcoe joining Collingwood. Privately, the pair were pressured into playing, as Krakouer later admitted: "I was urged by the coaches to fly to Brisbane and play against my wishes, because I was told it would be seen as a statement against Eddie and the club.". For Lumumba, there was no let-up.
"We grew up as black children who were outsiders in isolated capital cities; our fathers African; Barack was whitewashed to Barry, Hritier to Harry. Mr Lumumba was the AFL's first multicultural ambassador from 2006-2013, and said his experience improved after joining Melbourne Football Club in 2014. "One value was community that was through the whole club. It has a powerful vibration. Consider the burden on a black teenager within a powerful white institution. Mr Lumumba alleged the organisations had failed to protect him from abuse and took no action to stop or penalise players. In 2005, before he'd even established himself as a player, Lumumba became the AFL's inaugural multicultural ambassador, tackling with gusto his duty to broaden the game's appeal to migrant communities.
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