AFL players consider how to show support for Black Lives Matter
As the code returns, reminders of a troubled history also emerge, and the game’s biggest club is rocked by a former player’s claims of ‘a racism culture’.
North Melbourne and the Giants are considering forming a circle and taking a knee at Sunday’s game out of respect for the Black Lives Matter movement, as players across the AFL plan similar gestures when the game returns to action across the weekend.
All clubs are understood to be discussing ways to acknowledge the human rights movement, with talk that players could wear black T-shirts in the warm-up as a mark of respect and most expected to take a knee at some point.
The details are still being worked out but the AFL has given its endorsement.
‘You can’t stand up – sit down’
Before training on Thursday the Giants watched a video from the ABC earlier this week where actor Meyne Wyatt delivered a searing monologue from his play City of Gold.
The actor’s performance included references to the treatment of dual Brownlow medallist Adam Goodes, who was driven from the game by racist abuse in the last years of his career.
“You can’t stand up, you have to sit down. Ask the brother-boy Adam Goodes,” Wyatt says in the piece.
“A kid says some racist shit — not ignorant — racist. Calling a black fella an ape?
“C’mon man we was flora and fauna before 1967, nah actually we didn’t even exist at all.
“This was a learning moment. He taught that kid a lesson.
“Didn’t like that? A black man standing up for himself? Nah, they didn’t like that.
“‘Shut up, boy, you stay in your lane. Any time you touch a ball, we’re gonna boo your arse’.”
“So he showed them a scary black, throwing imaginary spears and shit.
“Did they like that? They didn’t like that. Every arena and stadium booed him.
“‘It’s because of the way the flog plays football’.” Bullshit. No one booed him the way they booed him until he stood up and said something about race.
“The second he stood up, everybody came out of the woodworks to give him shit. And he’s supposed to sit there and take it? I’ll tell you right now, Adam Goodes has taken it, his whole life he’s taken it. I’ve taken it.”
Collingwood faces uneasy questions
Magpies coach Nathan Buckley says he’s keen to reach out to Heritier Lumumba following his allegations of racism he says he was subjected to during his career with the club.
Lumumba took to social media this week to detail his experiences during 10 years at the Magpies, claiming he endured a “culture of racist jokes” and took magic mushrooms to cope with the situation.
The 33-year-old, who retired from football in 2016 after repeated concussion problems, also accused Buckley of failing to adequately support him. Lumumba said neither the AFL nor Collingwood had the capacity or desire to address the issues he raised, branding them both “negligent”. After Collingwood’s draw with Richmond in the AFL season re-opener on Thursday night, Buckley said he’d not spoken to Lumumba since the former defender was traded to Melbourne at the end of 2014.
However, Buckley is keen to welcome Lumumba back to the club. “I’m not comfortable with the fact that Heritier feels like he’s been belittled and diminished in our environment,” Buckley said.
“I haven’t spoken to ‘H’ since 2014. I’d love to speak to him again. “I would love to have him come to his old football club and to see what we have become, and the culture of acceptance, a celebration of difference no matter your colour, your religion or whatever your upbringing has been.” Lumumba this week also reiterated the claim that he was called “Chimp” by Collingwood teammates, which was publicly backed up by Andrew Krakouer in 2017.
While not specifically addressing that claim, Buckley said Collingwood had “been able to grow as an environment” in the time that has passed since Lumumba left. “We were growing when he was there and he was a big part of it, and we’re still growing,” Buckley said.
“But I’m really proud of the club that we are now and I would love to share that with him because he’s been a big part of that.
“I’ll continue to try to reach out to listen to him to see if there’s something that we can do about how he has felt about his experiences at the club.”
Goodes mural appears in Sydney
A three-storey high mural of Goodes was being painted on the wall of a Sydney business on Thursday as players from his former sport considered their course of action.
At Thursday night’s first return match at the MCG, Collingwood and Richmond players, and the umpire, showed their sympathy by taking a knee before the opening bounce. They also wore black T-shirts during the warm-up.
Taking a knee during the national anthem came to prominence in American football in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers kicked off the protest against police violence and racism.
Kaepernick was blackballed by the NFL clubs and the protests were condemned by Donald Trump, who called on owners to sack the protesters. The league commissioner Roger Goodell recently admitted the sport had been wrong in the way it handled the issue and apologised.
The AFL, which offered an apology to Goodes last year and arranged for clubs to watch a documentary about the racial vilification he suffered, has backed the demonstrations of support by players.
“The players and the clubs have been talking,” chief executive Gillon McLachlan said. “I do know that they will recognise it is a very important issue for our players, our club and for the AFL frankly. We are getting on with the football but at some point I am sure there will be recognition and acknowledgment and we need to support that.
“Racism needs to be stamped out.
“The players and clubs will work out what they do and we will be supportive.”
GWS Giants vow to take a stand
Giants veteran Heath Shaw said the players had watched Wyatt’s video at a football department meeting on Thursday morning and discussed the implications before Sunday’s game in Sydney.
“We watched a little clip this morning that Leon and Zac Williams brought forward to the whole group. Our club is very much aware of the politics around that multicultural sphere, especially being in the west of Sydney. Our club is at the forefront, we have some indigenous players in our team who are very dedicated to the cause and do a lot of work outside the club. It’s there and you have to understand that.
“This morning the learnings from the video is that you can never know too much, you can keep on learning throughout this process. It’s been thrust to the front of everyone’s mind at the moment, AFL has come a long way in that regard but we’ve still got a lot to learn.
“Leon found it and Zac (Williams) saw it and he thought it would be a good idea to show the whole group, it’s hard hitting. I think it was really good for the players to see that amongst everything that is going on at the moment. “
Williams’ grandfather was a member of the stolen generation and is an elder in the Waradjuri tribe from Narrandera area where the player was raised.
The BLM movement is being acknowledged in a variety of sports and Shaw said Australian rules football was no different.
“It is talked about in the locker rooms, you know what is happening overseas and what is happening here as well,” he said. “We understand that. As a football community and as a community in general we have got to keep getting better.
“It’s being discussed with Giants and North Melbourne, Zac Williams is at the forefront and I think Jed Anderson from the Kangaroos are in talks about doing something on Sunday before the game.”
Additional reporting: AAP
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