Jessica Halloran: Why Mundine won’t stand for national anthem
SCHOOLYARD abuse, traffic stops and racial vilification. Anthony Mundine has spent his life fighting, in and out of the ring, but he’s still determined to inspire, says JESS HALLORAN.
Boxing/MMA
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WHEN Anthony Mundine was a little boy he was constantly racially taunted.
He was called a “black c...” playing junior cricket. In the primary school yard “a coon, Abo and a nigger” most days.
“All those names,” Mundine says. “Ever since I was young, I’ve been racially vilified, racially profiled.”
Mundine refuses to stand for the Australian national anthem — an anthem for “white supremacists” he says — and now he’s explaining how the racial abuse he’s suffered has brought him to this point.
When he hit his teens, Mundine was picked up by rugby league club St George and the colour of his skin meant he was treated “differently” in the community.
At 17, with the support of a Dragons-loving car dealer, he had a new Magna and he headed to Waterloo to show it off to some of his mates.
“There was about 10 of us Aboriginal boys in three different cars,” he says.
They met on a Waterloo street and the group were tossing up whether to cruise down together to Bondi. All the sudden he heard a blaze of police sirens. He recalls police cars started screeching around the corner, the cops getting out.
“They drew their guns, screamed ‘get on the ground’; it was like a movie,” Mundine says.
“We were on the street, face down, hands behind our backs with guns drawn. I was s....ing myself.”
They were taken to the police station. They were pressed about whether they had “stolen cars”. It wasn’t the last time he’d be, as he put it, “racially profiled”.
“It happened to me all throughout my teenage years,” Mundine says.
Finally, making “big money” on a new contract for St George, he bought himself a BMW.
“You remember when the James Bond movie came out and he was driving a Z3?” Mundine said.
“I got a mad contract. I spoilt myself. I bought one.”
He was driving down a street in Redfern when the cops pulled him and his cousin over and asked him if it was his car.
He was pulled over two more times by police on that same day.
“Three times,” Mundine said.
“Three times,” he says, again, to emphasis it.
On the final time Mundine by his own admission “went off”.
“They put us in the paddy wagon,” Mundine said.
“Swear to God,” he adds, exasperated as he remembers it all.
“I can’t count how many times I have been racially vilified,” Mundine says.
“All the way up to the pro ranks when I was called a black c... by Barry Ward.”
Mundine says he’s called out racism all through his career because he was raised as an activist by his mum Lyn. Her mother and Anthony’s other grandmother Ilene McGuiness were part of the Stolen Generation.
He was raised to speak up and stand your ground. Which brings us back to the national anthem.
“If you research the whole anthem, they talk about how they are going to defend their shores. It’s a white supremacist song and people don’t know that because they are not educated on it.”
He says he is proud of Harper Nielsen, the nine-year-old who wouldn’t stand for the national anthem in school assembly out of respect to indigenous Australians and was given detention last September.
“I take my hat off to Harper,” Mundine says,
Mundine has been slammed as racist himself for not standing.
“People say I am a racist but I don’t care what you are; black, brown, white, I take you on your heart, your character, the way you hold yourself,” Mundine says.
“But when there is an injustice and blatant oppression then I have to speak up for those issues or else there won’t be change.”
When his boxing career ends on November 30 against Jeff Horn he says his legacy will be this: being an inspirational pioneer and activist for Aboriginal athletes and people.
Speaking out about the non-selection Aboriginal players in NRL rep teams and racial vilification.
“My words, my fight back then paved the way for the new generation … they heard what I was standing for and up against; the injustice.”
At 43 Mundine is not weary.
“I feel the best I have ever felt,” he says.
“I feel like I could go another five years if I wanted to,” Mundine says.
“But my desire is not there. If this is my last one I want to go out in a blaze of glory.”
After boxing his goal is to “inspire” people. He has hopes of helping and inspiring others in the next phase of his life.
He owns boarding houses in Surry Hills and Redfern for people in need and wants to set them up as a “type of Ronald McDonald House for indigenous people”.
For all the good that Mundine demonstrates - he is remains one of the most hated in some people’s books.
How does he feel about that?
“I don’t really care,” Mundine says.
“If that’s your opinion. That’s your opinion. At the end of the day, for what I have done, I might be the most hated, but I am the best ever.
“Ain’t no one can say they’ve walked my walk.”
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