Anthony Mundine: I won’t stand for ‘white supremacist song’
OUTSPOKEN boxer Anthony Mundine has confirmed he will sit down when the national anthem is played before his fight against Jeff Horn next month.
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OUTSPOKEN boxer Anthony Mundine has confirmed he will sit down when the national anthem is played before his fight against Jeff Horn next month.
Mundine reaffirmed his belief that Australia’s anthem is a “white supremacist song” and in a move similar to NFL and basketball players in the United States, will silently protest it while it’s sung at a national sporting event.
Mundine fights Horn on November 30 at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium and had asked his rival’s promoters not to play the anthem. In response, Horn’s promoters Duco Events say they will play it three times, before two Australian title fights and the main event.
“If I had it my way, the anthem would not be sung, they’d play Yothu Yindi’s Treaty, give us something, what are you going to give our people?” Mundine told The Daily Telegraph.
“You want to play a white supremacist song, but you’re not going to play something for us. And you condition us to think that it’s our song, our way - that ain’t our way, that’s your way to separate and say you’re superior.
“That song was a theme song for the White Australia policy, which was that no one was allowed into the country except white fellas.
“They brought Asians and Polynesians here to work, but they governed them, but black fellas were considered fauna, not even considered human beings, but animals.”
Mundine said Advance Australia Fair refers to ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people.
“Advance Australia Fair means ‘Advance Australia white’, that’s the fair, but they make it out like it means a fair go,” Mundine said.
“It’s not a fair go, it’s fair as in colour, as in white. That’s why they did the Stolen Generation, to place these half-caste kids with white families to breed the blackness out of them.”
Mundine’s grandmother was part of the Stolen Generation, taken from her Aboriginal family when she was too young to remember and placed with a white family.
“If you tell the truth and educate the people maybe we can make change, maybe they will change the anthem,” Mundine said.
“We are a multicultural society now, but you’ve got to recognise the first nation people.
“And I won’t stand for it. If it is played in the ring, I will not be standing, period.”
Asked if he would instead kneel like former NFL player Colin Kaepernick and others, Mundine replied: “No I’m not going to kneel, I’ll get a chair and sit down.
“Why would I kneel, that takes energy, I’ll just get a chair and relax.”