@iamlumumba . Racism issue much bigger than Collingwood: Hritier Lumumba 2023 BBC. 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. I felt this profound connection," Lumumba says. I feel empowered knowing that my name can connect them to their indigenous tongue's natural intonation. "I've never heard it," McGuire said in June. "I didn't get one message or email from the Collingwood Football club," he says. AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), abc.net.au/news/heritier-lumumba-strength-in-african-culture-collingwood-afl/12820942, Get breaking news alerts directly to your phone with our app, Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article, Jock Zonfrillo, celebrated chef and judge on MasterChef Australia, dies aged 46, MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo remembered for 'wicked sense of humour', Lauren Cranston jailed for eight years over one of Australia's biggest tax frauds, Tony Abbott mounts attack on Voice after a spat with parliamentary committee, 'They will forever know their dad was a hero': 1,000 mourners farewell slain NSW paramedic, Nurse driving home from shift among victims of triple-fatal crash involving allegedly stolen car, There are 11 First Nations MPs and senators. Theres nothing to be gained from any of this. Two LAPD squad cars were set alight and burned. Hritier Lumumba (formerly known as Harry O'Brien; [1] born 15 November 1986) is a Brazilian-born Australian former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Collingwood Football Club and Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He calls it his "go along to get along" phase. "No-one spoke to me in relation to this article," Pendlebury tweeted in response. , updated Why didn't he put a stop it there and then? 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.". The scathing report was made public, finding the club's attempts to deal with allegations of racism were either 'ineffective' or 'exacerbated' the situation. Yet Behrendt has no investigative powers. Lumumba had secured the fifth in what would end up eight consecutive top-10 finishes in the club best and fairest award, but he was still labelled "the poster boy for Collingwood's decline". '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. We pat ourselves on the back when we call out online abuse, or when spectators who throw bananas are ejected. 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". 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. "At the core of it, what is Australia? Nathan Buckley's full response to Heritier Lumumba | SEN Breakfast SEN Sports 20.7K subscribers Subscribe 169 Share 18K views 10 months ago Nathan Buckley responds to Heritier Lumumba's. Mr Lumumba said he had been ostracised by coaches and teammates after criticising club president Eddie McGuire for making racist remarks about Mr Goodes. Your mates come first. [16], Lumumba's accounts of racism were rejected by former coach Mick Malthouse, Buckley and McGuire, but they were affirmed by a number of players including Chris Dawes, Brent Macaffer, Leon Davis, Andrew Krakouer, Chris Egan and Shae McNamara. "The outcome of my psilocybin experience was a profound realisation of my obligation to confront the issues at the root of my symptoms.". For years. Key points: Buckley says he had been "dismissive" of Lumumba's claims about his experiences of racism at the Magpies That changed in late 2020, when the ABC published an in-depth interview, the results of months of research. "The documentary was effective, but I thought The Project would be an opportunity to finally put my story forward on a mainstream platform," Lumumba says. 'Within two months of me being at the club, I had already been exposed to a culture where racist ideas, in the form of jokes, stereotypes and direct abuse was prevalent,'Lumumba said. The Roman Empire was certainly an equal opportunity oppressor. The story became a running gag. A lot of the criticism came with a sneering tone. Hritier Lumumba is a former AFL footballer. The club is bigger than the individual. However, it is now very clear to me, that he and I have fundamental differences in our understanding of what racism/white supremacy is, and how it should be effectively dealt with. When Fair Game was released in 2017, The Age ran an article portraying a culture of fragile egos and moral cowardice. His 2013 pre-season training regime had been intense, but now he pushed his body to higher levels. He was estranged from the club. My mother was a tireless campaigner for what our community calls 'cultural resistance' the act of fighting oppression through culture. To Lumumba's relief, the "Chimp" nickname was banished. That moment has been ongoing. Deflect attention away from the underlying problem by evoking the 'crazy black' stereotype.". "[13] Lumumba felt that he was undermined by Aly and claimed that Aly was indifferent to racism. 4-min read. 11.4k Followers, 0 Following, 21 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Hritier LUMUMBA (@hlumumba) Yet by the time the McGuire controversy engulfed him, Lumumba had still not confronted his teammates as he'd hoped to. Hritier Lumumba reclaimed his name and found strength in African It made him think a year further back, to the bewildering period when concussion forced him into AFL retirement. You've just got to keep going forward with it.". '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.'. To @iamlumumba I am truly, unequivocally sorry. In Lumumba's time, Collingwood coaches cherry-picked team mottos from the club's history. The president regularly touched on these themes on breakfast radio, and no one batted an eyelid. Lumumba also thanked Collingwood Football Club members and supporters who reached out to him. And the media has gone on being receptive. When Lumumba complained, he says the club did nothing. Lumumba refused to toe the line. In December 2013, he changed his surname back to "Lumumba" and discontinued the use of the nickname "Harry", citing his journey of decolonisation as the reason for the change. 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. It means something to people here. 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. "One value was community that was through the whole club. "[Lumumba] needs to pull his head in," began one excoriation. But when Lumumba went there, you could sense the room raising a collective eyebrow. Those who escaped slavery formed communities throughout Rio's mountainous terrain, called quilombos places of refuge for Africans. Grant pressed a copy of Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America into Lumumba's hands and later wrote in The Age: "The highly paid image-makers project the AFL as a broad, enlightened church, free of the bigotry of the past. "His name is Yala," Lumumba says. [23] He was raised by his Australian stepfather and was 19 years old when he was reunited with his father, after spending 13 years apart. The resultant front page article seemed like something quirky on a slow news day all the better with news from AFL headquarters that chief executive Andrew Demetriou had escalated the request to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Doing so would not be in the best interests of white folks, either.". We learn, we strive to get better. For years, Collingwood hoped, or assumed, that Hritier Lumumba would simply go away. Leon Davis Says Heritier Lumumba's Experiences Of Racism At Collingwood In the years since, his story has made a sham of Collingwood's self-made image of solidarity. Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley admits he inadvertently became a part of the "systemic racism" at the club when he dismissed claims made by former Magpies player Hritier Lumumba in 2017. He was taunted by fans and targeted with physical attacks by opposition players. And it showed how censorious the footy media is, and how quickly theyll turn on you. Only once could he coax a group of teammates down Smith Street, with its hodgepodge of dive bars and art galleries. 'Just dealing with the stresses of being an AFL footballer is enough. He was 18 years old and adjusting to life on the Collingwood rookie list. 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. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Days earlier, the world had watched George Floyd take his last breaths. Charlotte Karp For Daily Mail Australia Fair Game? The audacity of Hritier Lumumba Now Lumumba was "erratic", "disgruntled", "troubled", "bizarre", "outspoken", "fragile", "rogue", a "sook" and a "destabilising influence" with "serious issues". Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, UK chip giant Arm files for blockbuster share sale, Adidas sued by investors over Kanye West deal, Pope urges Hungarians to 'open doors' to migrants, US bank makes last ditch bid to find rescuer. Watching from afar, Lumumba thought of Collingwood's common refrain after Fair Game's release, when key figures always claimed to be "reaching out" to him. I said it was a proud day for Collingwood and I shouldn't have,' he said. He knew himself by his birth name: Hritier Lumumba. He didnt play by our rules. McGuire accepted his penance, but behind closed doors at Collingwood, Lumumba says he was made to feel a pariah, undermined by the club and mauled by the press. "Most people who reported on my life were ill-equipped. 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. 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. Read about our approach to external linking. One thing that I have learned in my journey that I will hold to my heart for the rest of my life is that I know what side of history I stand on.". Adam Goodes: Rival fans racism made me quit AFL. When Lumumba's son hears them, he loses his inhibitions and wanders across to join the circle. 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". Since his debut in 2005, he achieved All-Australian honours and won an AFL premiership, playing mostly as a half back. He was instrumental in Collingwood's 2010 grand final replay win over St Kilda and kicked a long goal from the boundary line late in the game. "The players whose partners were present were furious. Collingwood premiership player Heritier Lumumba says he will not release further recordings, the day after sharing audio of what are claimed to be conversations with his former coach Nathan Buckley. Hritier Lumumba made us feel uncomfortable, and from that we have much to learn His issues with Collingwood and Nathan Buckley seem unresolvable but there are other voices emerging Jonathan Horn. Side by side they will stand, but will one man be missing? By 2014, Hritier Lumumba had become the opposite of a great bloke: "Too precious, too sensitive, too much work" said a Herald Sun headline. He was one of the few people in football, and surely the only one at Collingwood, to stand up to Eddie McGuire. But it was also the season that his problems with the media intensified. AFL 2022: Heritier Lumumba shares further clip in Buckley feud - Yahoo! Former AFL player Heritier Lumumba has shared further recordings of himself in conversation with former coach Nathan Buckley. 12:52 BST 07 Feb 2021 "Opioids are highly accessible and widely used in the AFL. "Harry O'Brien no longer: Magpie to change surname to Lumumba", "Magpies Harry O'Brien defender a leader in the making", "Clark a Cat, three-way deal sees Varcoe join Magpies", "Heritier Lumumba ready to return for Melbourne in 2017 after concussion ruined 2016", "Lumumba still not training as concussion lingers", "Heritier Lumumba retires from AFL following medical advice over concussion issues", "Lumumba slams Pies as 'racist, sexist boys' club', "Heritier Lumumba Collingwood, documentary, Eddie McGuire, Nathan Buckley", "Hritier Lumumba On White Fragility, White Supremacy, And Waleed Aly", "Waleed Aly 'indifferent' to racism: Heritier Lumumba", "Hritier Lumumba rejects Collingwood's offer to meet over club racism allegations", "Collingwood Crisis Deepens: Two More Players Confirm 'Chimp' Nickname For Hritier Lumumba", "AFL 2020: Lumumba, Heritier Lumumba racism claims Collingwood, Nathan Buckley, Paul Roos, Melbourne, Harry O'Brien, AFL racism", "Collingwood Football Club is guilty of systemic racism, review finds", "Calls row For The Project Hosts To Apologise To Heritier Lumumba On-Air For 'Disgraceful' Coverage", "Media personality apologises after interview with Heritier Lumumba resurfaces", "Former Channel 10 Exec Urges The Project To Explain Missing Hritier Lumumba Clips", "Harry reclaims his birth name: Heritier Lumumba", "Heritier Lumumba: How he shed the game and the name that once defined him", "O'hAilpin, Carlile sign up as multicultural ambassadors", "Gillard names Collingwood star local champion", "Humble Harry recognised for multiculturalism work", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hritier_Lumumba&oldid=1147495829, Collingwood Football Club Premiership players, Australian rules footballers from Western Australia, Australian people of Democratic Republic of the Congo descent, Brazilian people of Democratic Republic of the Congo descent, People educated at Rossmoyne Senior High School, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 31 March 2023, at 10:08. Collingwood had positioned itself as a more progressive organisation. He was a unique figure in the game, unafraid of standing apart. Most of the major players in the controversy were no longer at the club. Officially, the Pies cited a floating bone in Lumumba's ankle as the reason for his omission from the team. "Central to this, we have all been subjected to centuries of anti-African indoctrination," Lumumba says. Later, he would hear the same words from the mouths of club staff. He is the first Brazilian-born player who played an AFL match.[2]. Side by side we stand. 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. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? When he said the last line, Lumumba knew the opposite was true. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. "Hritier Lumumba gave permission for Scott Pendlebury to call him 'Chimp' while at Collingwood," read a Fox Sports headline in August. Harry O'Brien was not my name, and it was a constant reminder that white Australian culture had colonised my identity. Theres always a new hero, a new villain, a new outrage. "I always had the mentality that I could upset the club in some way and lose my spot," Lumumba says. Pies football strategist Rodney Eade declared: "The club is bigger than any individual. 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. "You have to wonder if [his] issue is not with Buckley, but with himself maybe the apology should be [Lumumba] to Buckley, and not the other way round. He sounded like a disgruntled former employee. He reclaimed his name. Heritier Lumumba, who is of Congolese and Brazilian heritage, says he was called "chimp" by some team mates at Collingwood over the first nine of his 10 years at one of the most iconic clubs in. And the betrayals were many. "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. "There were tens of millions of people around the world who were mourning the death of Muhammad Ali," Lumumba says. The contrast between Lumumba's life at Collingwood and the black culture and thought that surrounds him now could not be more stark. Former Collingwood FC player, Heritier Lumumba, has described watching a press conference of club leaders responding to an unofficially released report into culture inside the organisation as . As Greg Baum wrote in The Age yesterday, in Lumumbas voice, there is the remnant of real affection. I've spoken to some people and I've found different things, the nuances that I had no idea [about]. By day eight of the saga, Lumumba was weighed down by the club's betrayals and the media's relentless character assassinations. [19] This has led to calls for The Project, and hosts Waleed Aly and Peter Helliar, to apologise on-air. He developed anxiety, struggling to sleep; a three-day Gaia retreat during Collingwood's mid-season bye didn't halt his spiral. "A large percentage of African-Americans descend from the Kongo Kingdom," he says. That causes a lot of damage and halts the progression of society. Hritier Lumumba on Twitter Former Collingwood player Hritier Lumumba says he, Leon Davis and Andrew Krakouer have terminated all communications with the Collingwood Football Club. Hard-working and athletically gifted, Lumumba shadowed his teammate and early football mentor Nathan Buckley, developing habits that would eventually make him the hardest trainer at Collingwood. Buckley is a decent man. Perhaps you imagine the years 2030, 2040 and 2050, when 21 old footballers a little greyer, perhaps a little wider will dust off their AFL premiership medals and reunite, reminding themselves of the things they did and didn't do in the name of the Collingwood Football Club. I will do better. "Their lives are amongst the least valued on earth. 84. This is my real stuff, and the club's been fantastic in supporting me and protecting me and they've tried to do that.". Six days later, in another team meeting, a crass joke was made by a member of the coaching staff about one of Lumumba's teammates looking like a lesbian. I've been racially discriminated against in the US in ways that I hadn't in Australia, and I'm still adjusting to the racism here. But what they found confronting about Collingwood, Lumumba found comforting a sense of community and an acceptance of differences. He arrived at Collingwood's training facility, spotted TV reporters and knew why they were there. Hritier Lumumba (formerly known as Harry O'Brien;[1] born 15 November 1986) is a Brazilian-born Australian former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Collingwood Football Club and Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). "In Brazil, a black youth is killed every 23 minutes. On one hand, it begged the question as to what faults Behrendt was expected to find. 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. "The entirety of my life's experiences has been defined by me being African, for better and for worse. In this country, and in football, we pride ourselves on our self-deprecation. "This is what the Australian media does to people of African descent," Lumumba says. In telling his story, former Collingwood premiership player Hritier Lumumba hammered home how far Australian rules still has to go in talking about race and class. The club comes first." How Heritier Lumumba shed the game and the name that once defined him Lumumba blew the whistle on Collingwood for 'systemic' racism, sparking an investigation and subsequent allegations of racial discrimination within the club. Lumumba published a book in 2014 called It's Cool to be Conscious, that includes personal stories from his life, both on and off the field. 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." Publicly, McGuire accepted the criticism. What stock should be placed in the moralising of men whose idea of fun was to call their colleagues poofters, homos, slaves and chimps? Other media erroneously claimed Lumumba had presented Rudd with a list of demands. Crises loomed. "We come from the same people, and it feels like I'm with family here. Journalists who had once welcomed his openness now sneered at Lumumba's "broken family", simultaneously prying for their darkest secrets. Mr Lumumba, 33, played in the Australian Football League (AFL) from 2005-2015, mostly for club Collingwood. You could almost hear them snickering into their napkins: turn it up Harry, or whatever it is you call yourself now, this is the Copeland Trophy, not the United Nations. 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. ", Adam Goodes: Rival fans racism made me quit AFL. In the suffocating world at Collingwood, he says a teammate frequently used the word "ni***r" at the top of his voice. To me, Eddie's comments are reflective of common attitudes that we as a society face.". The first and most obvious was the catalogue of personal abuses he says he'd weathered at Collingwood racist nicknames, discrimination and jokes that he says proliferated within the club's environment. He'd devoured Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, and been struck by his and Obama's common experiences. In December 2013, Lumumba didn't change his name, he corrected it. As a white Australian, it can be bewildering. 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. Ex-Collingwood player Heritier Lumumba says we need to move - YouTube [6], Lumumba missed the round one match against Greater Western Sydney in 2016, before playing the next five matches; he missed the remainder of the season after suffering from concussion symptoms. "5/ This was Buckley's attitude in 2014 when I simply asked for people's basic human & workplace rights to be protected. 'It was painful to watch the club dig itself deeper into delusion and dishonesty at today's press conference,' Lumumba tweeted on Monday night. He was desperate for both to end. Happily distant from the AFL world, he now lives in a city where his name is a byword for moral conviction and strength indeed, one that boasts a mural of Patrice Lumumba. "Every roll call it was difficult for the teachers to pronounce my name. "This is the only way forward," he told himself. 'Releasing the burden': Hritier Lumumba says he is walking away from The seed had been sown long before 2013. He told senior football staff he'd rather retire on 199 games than play for another club. Living with it too is the AFL. A black AFL star and his former Collingwood teammate have traded online insults after he was accused of inventing his own racist nickname. "That interview killed all the momentum that had started to build around my story.". We celebrate what they bring to our game. Good journalism challenges you to confront your biases and prejudices, and I hopefully logged off a little more enlightened, if not a bit embarrassed. [11] He stood up to the racism and continues to do so. Back then, Lumumba kept it in a scrapbook with many like it, reinforcing that his childhood dream was coming true. 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.". Recent documentaries on Aboriginal player Adam Goodes - a two-time AFL best-and-fairest winner who retired after persistent abuse - have prompted calls for the sport to improve. Their prejudices and biases expose others to major harm. Lumumba's final act at Collingwood would be a stand on behalf of others. Trouble, however, was brewing. "[21] A few days later, the interview was no longer accessible on the program's Facebook account. "Side by side they stick together, to uphold the Magpies name" goes the team song. [citation needed]. In the last week, Lumumba released audio of heated conversations he had with Buckley back in 2014. He also could have been scratching for a living on the streets of Rio de Janeiro's notorious slums.". Lumumba was also soon among the most electrifying defenders in the game, peeling off his man and sprinting forward moments of athletic flair that are the lasting image of his football brilliance. Out of desperation to end the media barrage and unwilling to further inflame the story by placing the blame on Collingwood, he fronted the press and revealed "significant personal demons". He kicked a goal against the Kangaroos shortly after his debut, and did enough to be retained on the rookie list. You can't. 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. "There were far-reaching consequences to the way I was being portrayed in the media, not only in my professional life but in my personal life," Lumumba says. [Lumumba's] capacity to speak his mind with stunning clarity is so rare in football that it struggles to deal with it.". 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. The club has been conducting an internal investigation into the allegations since June. Back when Lumumba was only highlighting societal problems in the abstract, reporters called him "worldly", "deep thinking", "level-headed" and "well liked". One of the most beloved Hawthorn footballers told his story last month. As a player, he made strides as the type of team-first, lockdown defender his first coach Mick Malthouse cherished. He also freed himself from distractions, investing financially and philosophically in his training and recovery, significantly improving his performance. The more I celebrated the greatness of being black and being African, it caused a noticeable reaction from those around me.". Reclaiming it punctuated the year in which everything changed. In the days that followed, they would join the crowds on the streets of LA, demanding an end to the dehumanisation of black lives. Too much hard work. If I was being honest, it really wasnt too far removed from my own perception of him. The Sunday Age article announcing his arrival began: "Harry O'Brien could have been playing soccer for Brazil. In documents filed in the Supreme Court of Victoria, Mr Lumumba alleged the league and his former club had failed in their duty of care to provide players with a safe environment. Buckley, meanwhile, "emerged from a firestorm looking like the only calm, measured man in the room". In his football, support and mentorship came from the likes of Paul Licuria, James Clement, Marty Girvan, Scott Watters and David Buttifant.