Latrell Mitchell reveals racist abuse nearly ended his NRL career in same way Adam Goodes left AFL
Latrell Mitchell has been subjected to disgusting abuse since he was eight-years-old. The Souths star says he nearly followed the path of AFL legend Adam Goodes by quitting the NRL as a result of it. Now, he’s making a stand.
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Among the hideous messages sent to Latrell Mitchell last year was a picture of a jerry can with the words: “Found a photo of your best mate thought you might want it?”
Mitchell refused to stand for it. Called it out. Shone a light on this insipid online behaviour hoping to shame it into oblivion.
That was last September.
By December, when Mitchell was in the midst of the most talked about club switch in Australian sport, from the Sydney Roosters to South Sydney Rabbitohs, the messages only grew in frequency and aberration.
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“Honestly, I was that close to giving up,” Mitchell said.
“I thought, why don’t I just go get a nine-to-five job and not be in the spotlight?”
Mitchell thought about AFL legend Adam Goodes.
“Adam Goodes retired in a disappointing way, getting booed every game,” Mitchell said.
“There’s only so much a player can take before it’s enough.
“For him to stand up for what he believes in, and then get booed off, is very disappointing, and he had no choice. It affected his ability to play.
“Mental health is a major issue in the world at the moment, and Indigenous men have the highest suicide rate in the world, so that’s crazy.
“I’ve had my demons and dark times with all this racism stuff. There’s only so much a person can take before enough is enough.
“I thought if I give up now, I’m giving these people what they want – there are a lot of people who want me to fail, and I’m not the type of person to give up.
“Adam Goodes did so much for the game of AFL, and that time he just had to step away, he thought ‘I’ve done what I can’.”
At just 22, one of the most talented athletes in Australia should have been celebrating a one-year, $800,000 deal with the Bunnies that would put him in the heart of Redfern, Sydney’s Aboriginal heartland, where a mural of club legend Greg Inglis proudly greets locals.
Instead, the noxious comments he endured daily took him right back to that day at the football field in Taree, when at just eight years old, as Mitchell ran the ball, he heard: “Tackle the black c---”.
“My dad said, ‘Take your shirt off, let’s go, we’re not playing in this game’. I was eight years old, it was an Australian lady that said that to me,” Mitchell said.
“Racism isn’t just a topic for this week, Black Lives Matter isn’t just a trend, this is something that’s happened all my life.”
And, Mitchell adds: “All my pop’s life too.
“Back in the 1960s my pop had to fight for the right to vote.
“All of a sudden, I can use my platform in the game to educate and hopefully help us move forward.
“I’m not going to be able to change everyone’s opinion, there are some older people who will be set in their ways, but maybe I can change a 12-year-old’s opinion.
“People aren’t born racist, it’s taught.”
So Mitchell will continue to make a stand against racism.
“It wasn’t me that was personally taking it, it was my mum and dad, that’s what hurt and what was breaking me,” he said.
“This is how people have to think about it; if that stuff was being said about their mum and dad they would be cut as well.
“Some people use race as a defensive mechanism because they’re threatened by trying to understand.
“I’ve been naming and shaming people because it’s important. Wayne Bennett said a quote, ‘The standard you walk by is the standard you accept’, and that resonated with me.
“My dad’s reaction that day in Taree, that comes back to that quote about standards. And my old man never took any crap.
“It’s still going on. But I’ve worked up a tolerance to not put my energy into those negative comments when I can focus on myself and my family.
“My family is the biggest factor that got me through that period.
“I’m a dad now, I’ve had to man up, that’s where I’ve got a lot of my resilience from, from being a dad.
“By standing up to that and being out there, hopefully my kids’ generation will look at that and say ‘I’m glad he stood up for what he believed in, I’m going to do the same thing’.
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“My kids are going to see me as a role model and say, ‘I want to be like dad’. How I react has a knock-on effect, that’s how I took it.”
Mitchell is opening up about his experience and those of his people on the eve of the NRL’s Indigenous Round.
The now 23-year-old fullback will make his return from suspension in Thursday night’s grudge match against St George Illawarra Dragons, with both teams to play in jerseys with Indigenous designs.
“I’m grateful for the way we express ourselves and how the NRL have taken it on board,” Mitchell said.
“It’s getting bigger each year, the NRL are putting it out there and all of us get the opportunity through this week to teach our teammates and pick each other up.”
However, Mitchell is adamant more can be done by league officials to bring through the next generation of superstars.
“There’s no pathway for Indigenous kids to come through and play rugby league, and if we’re not comfortable, us black fellas will stay in our shell, if the avenues aren’t visible, we go deeper and deeper inside ourselves and say we’re not good enough,” Mitchell said.
“I was strong enough to say, ‘I’m going to prove everyone wrong’.
“But not everyone has that inside themselves.
“How many Latrell Mitchell’s are there? There’s only one, there’s me, but there are a lot players who are better than me who never got the opportunity or had the resilience because they didn’t know which direction to head.
“We need to put something in place for Indigenous people to have that pathway, let’s go to the Aboriginal Knockout and pick 10 kids and train them up, bring them to games and training sessions and get them around us.
“A lot of kids would get so much out of that, especially from the remote areas; Dubbo, Wellington, Wingham, Taree.
“There’s so much talent in our own backyard. We take up 30 per cent of the NRL’s population, a quarter of the representative teams, and we’re only two per cent of Australia’s general population.”
That two per cent still struggles under a weight of inequality, whether it be health, access to jobs and education, or dealing with an over-representation in prison and black deaths in custody.
Mitchell will fight to change this every week.
But in this week, he wants people to respect his simple message.
“It’s about acknowledging and uniting,” Mitchell said.
“Let’s embrace each other.
“I just want to be the best me I can be, be proud of who I am, and have no regrets.
“I want to play a role for black fellas and non-Indigenous people to unite and play the game we love and move forward.”