Andrew Bolt: Why Eddie McGuire will never please the race warriors

Nothing Eddie McGuire will ever do will be enough to satisfy the more anti-racist-than-thou journalists.

Eddie McGuire should stop embarrassing himself. No matter how much he grovels, Collingwood’s president should realise it will never be enough for the race warriors.

On Monday, McGuire had to admit his club had trouble with racism in the past.

On Tuesday, he had to apologise for saying he was “proud” his club had learned from its mistakes.

What a farce this “scandal” is, and all based on a dodgy report that claimed, without giving evidence, that McGuire’s famous club is riddled with “systemic racism” that is “distinct and egregious”.

No one asked for proof for that damning claim in that “Do Better” report, written by two Sydney professors with radical race theories who were asked by Collingwood to check out complaints by former player Heritier Lumumba that it was racist.

Yet white journalists now compete to show they’re more anti-racist-than-thou by abusing McGuire. They demand he resign.

Nothing he says in his defence is good enough. Meanwhile, nothing that Lumumba says in attack may be questioned. Not by whites.

And so we had this bizarre moment on Tuesday, when ABC host Leigh Sales interviewed the Brazilian-born Lumumba.

“I am a white woman,” Sales said apologetically to the black Heritier.

“So I am asking the questions in this interview based on what comes into my mind on my personal experience. And so, that restricts the terrain that you can go on to with your answers.”

What? Is it now racist for white and blacks to treat each other as human beings, equally rational? Equally entitled to an opinion? Equally entitled to ask the other to prove what they say?

Ex-Collingwood player Heritier Lumumba accused the club of racist conduct. Picture: The Project.

Apparently so, because off Heritier went again.

McGuire was racist.

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan was racist.

Collingwood was racist.

Australian society was racist.

If you simply went to an Australian school, “you have been influenced by a foundation of prejudice”.

Who isn’t racist to a Lumumba?

He has even accused woke TV presenter Waleed Aly, a Muslim, of being the pawn of racist whites — of showing “indifference to ‘black’ pain’” because his “livelihood is determined by a ‘white’ power structure” that makes him “remain silent about the realities of ‘white supremacy’”.

In fact, just to deny you’re a racist makes you a racist to modern race warriors like Lumumba.

“When (McGuire) spoke about ‘we’re not a racist club’, that indicated to me that, yes, you are a racist club,” he told Sales.

Which may be why she didn’t question a thing he said.

She didn’t even pick him up when he said that as a Collingwood player, he’d thought the club — this club of “systemic racism” — “really supported me and loved me”.

Huh?

But then the relationship hit the wall after Lumumba, growing more politically “aware”, started calling the club racist and, he says, was made to suffer.

Hmm.

But Sales isn’t the only journalist with a determined incuriosity about the other side of the argument.

Eddie McGuire held a press conference after the report was leaked. Picture: Jake Nowakowski.

How many of those now attacking McGuire and Collingwood have dared notice that nowhere in the 35 pages of the Do Better report is proof that Collingwood has “systemic racism”?

True, Heritier claims he was called “chimp” by unnamed teammates.

In 2013, McGuire idiotically suggested that Aboriginal superstar Adam Goodes play King Kong in an ad.

But in the eight years since … nothing.

Nothing detailed in the report.

Don’t be surprised.

ABC commentator Tony Armstrong, himself a former Collingwood player and Indigenous, bravely told the ABC this week that he himself had not experienced racism at the club.

But who cares about evidence in a race war?

The Do Better report relies instead on the “vibe” — on how Collingwood seemed to some anonymous people.

There was, it said, a “perception (that) has led some to conclude that Collingwood has become synonymous with off-field and on-field racism”.

Just a “perception”?

Yes, how Collingwood seemed to some people (who, exactly?) seems to count more than what Collingwood actually does.

In fact, what hasn’t Collingwood done to fight racism and appease race warriors?

It appointed people identifying as Aboriginal, including a board member and new manager for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs.

It has a Reconciliation Action Plan, a program to put Aborigines in jobs, a campaign for the Aboriginal flag, a “cultural awareness program” and more.

But, as I said, when is enough enough to race activists?

They don’t want McGuire to apologise.

I doubt they even want McGuire to learn and grow.

They just want him gone.