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Eddie Gone

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dalyc Scorpio



Joined: 02 Mar 2005


PostPosted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:33 pm
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Fatui Attata wrote:
Lumumba has said over and over (a la Piesnchess groundhog day posts) that he wasn't taken seriously by the club when he claimed he'd been racially discriminated. Of course he has lost all faith & trust in CFC, and personally, it's disgraceful.

Please folks, don't turn on him. It just ends up proving the report is spot on.

All we have to do is accept what he is saying...the whole club...right down to us. To listen with compassion and understanding.

But at the moment, things are looking very dodgy with a majority of the attitudes on here.


If he really wanted to the club to do better he would have joined the fight. Instead he’s trying to burn the house down.

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Magpietothemax Taurus

magpietothemax


Joined: 28 Apr 2013


PostPosted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:48 pm
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There is no doubt in my mind that Heritier experienced racism, probably homophobia as well... Blaming him is in reality defence of the ancien regime. I don't think it is racism among our players: it is rather a failure to adequately deal with it by the administration of our club. A gross failure of leadership. The fact that the president was permitted to allude to Adam Goodes as King Kong, mock an amputee who flipped the coin, and appeared to approve the drowning of a woman whom he disagreed with, etc etc, with impunity, is an indictment of the administration and leadership of our club. It is likewise an indictment of the AFL, who said nothing, and allowed Eddie to escape any sanction for his repulsive statements.
I am forever grateful to Eddie for saving our club financially. For that reason, he has a special place in our history. Likewise, he had a major role in getting Malthouse, which ulitmately led to our only Premiership in the last 31 years. That is where it ends. Since then, his influence has only been harmful for our club. Philanthropy towards indigenous people does not somehow cancel out the racist comments that he has made publicly, regardless of his intentions.
I reject all attempts to blame Heritier, or to project an image of him as an image of an unstable, disoriented, hateful enemy of CFC. He is a Premiership legend. Tragically, he also feels aggrieved by his experiences with us.
The apology of our players through an Open Letter, was bitter sweet. Bitter, because these young men have nothing to apologise for. Sweet, because they have been galvanised, and feel the need to cast off the slough of racism that has engulfed our club due to the failure of our administration to adequately deal with Eddie.
I actually feel that this experience, the drafting and production of an open letter, will greatly strengthen the unity and the solidarity of our team. Credit to these young men: they have indicated their will to go forward, and represent Collingwood Football Club to the very best of their ability. I think there are many potential positives from the current situation.
I hope that we can match their determination and desire to do the right thing, with a change in the leadership structure of our club capable of harnessing their positive energy.

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Damien Aquarius

Me Noah & Flynn @ the G


Joined: 21 Jan 1999
Location: Croydon Vic

PostPosted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:14 pm
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Homophobia? Why would he. He was always bragging about his ability with the ladies.
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Magpietothemax Taurus

magpietothemax


Joined: 28 Apr 2013


PostPosted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:23 pm
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Heritier Lumumba Set To Quit Collingwood Over Alleged Homophobic Culture
By Cam

In a developing situation that, in a perfect world, should serve as an agent of change for the entire AFL, but in reality will, sadly, probably end up doing very little, star defender Heritier Lumumba looks set to quit the Collingwood Football Club after talks between himself and the club over mediation over a homophobic slur within the club collapsed.


"Lumumba had lodged an official complaint to club officials, including senior coach Nathan Buckley, after an advertising poster in the players’ rooms which featured images of star players Scott Pendulbury and Dayne Beams was defaced with the slur “Off to Mardi Gras, boys?” Lumumba allegedly threatened to resign from the club if officials did not come down hard on those responsible."
https://www.pedestrian.tv/sport/heritier-lumumba-set-to-quit-collingwood-over-alleged-homophobic-culture/
I also remember hearing about this from other sources at the time.

By the way, hetereosexuals can also feel outraged by homophobia.

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David Libra

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Joined: 27 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:29 am
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5 from the wing on debut wrote:
David wrote:
What do you find so hard to believe about that?


It’s theoretically possible to accept that argument. Until you take into account the Footy Record player profile. That alone is enough to challenge the veracity of his statements. He had the opportunity not to mention that nickname, but he volunteered it when he did not need to do so. He supported it by naming the animal that he would like to be. That was in circumstances where he knew that he was publishing the information at a Carlton v Collingwood game. In the court of public opinion that is enough to sink him. Add to that the comments made by Simon Buckley.

If you believe what H is saying I have some shares in a bridge that I would like to sell to you.


I think you're opting for a simplistic approach when a much more nuanced one has already been offered. Lumumba is saying now and said from the beginning that he went along with the nickname for years, as one might well do as an outsider in a majority-white environment. That he played along with the nickname and even self-identified with it for a time doesn't erase what it represents about the culture or the hurt he may have felt about it over time – if not initially, then later as his understanding of such issues developed.

I think responses like yours and many others' in this thread demonstrate a lack of imaginative empathy on the part of many people struggling to grapple with this issue. This is why I think we have some posters wanting individual players named and shamed: they want this to be a simple case of villains and victims, with the villains cruelly shouting racist taunts while the target cowers in the corner. And yes, of course situations like that exist in the real world. But racism is usually much more complicated than that; if you're going to address cultural issues, simply identifying individual perpetrators and punishing them is unlikely to make the problem go away.

This is what "systemic racism" means: it is something deeper than just the interaction between two people, something that exists in the structure and environment around them. And how a person from a minority background responds to that – by reacting aggressively, by shrinking into themselves and alienating themselves from the group, by laughing it off and even laughing along, or by calling it out and trying to set an example – doesn't tell us much about the nature of the culture itself, only that people are different and handle things differently. It doesn't actually change the fact that the systemic problem is there, nor how much of a problem it is.

If this were just about a single nickname, then maybe you could make the case that this was all in Lumumba's head, and that if he'd never decided one day that it was offensive – as if calling a black man a kind of ape could ever not be, as if anyone lives in that kind of cultural vacuum – and made a big deal about it, then everything would have been okay. But as he's repeatedly said, that nickname was simply one example he encountered within a broader culture of casual racism, sexism and homophobia, and he learned the hard way that when you try to challenge a culture like that from within, you become the problem.

So for all those who feel that he is bitter and has an axe to grind, don't forget that the real story of Lumumba's alienation from the club was not the moment he called a team meeting to say he no longer wanted to be referred to by a nickname with racist connotations, but what came after: the joke from Buckley that made him feel undermined and humiliated in front of his peer group; the closing of ranks around the president and the coach; his own freezing out from leadership positions and eventually the club itself; the barely disguised hostility with which the club treated him when he went public in 2017; even at the very last, the club and its president not finding it within themselves to offer anything but the most mealy-mouthed apology for any of this after their own commissioned report vindicated much of what he'd been saying about the club's lack of processes for internal accountability.

There are people on here who I'm sure have had fantasies of standing up to bullies on their own or someone else's behalf, even if they've never had the courage to do that in their own lives. That's the kind of dynamic we usually think of in this scenario: for instance, standing your ground against an aggressive racist yelling insults. You probably don't really care what that person thinks of you; you just want to show them that you're not going to be pushed around any more. But imagine how much more courage it takes to stand up not against a bad guy, but against a culture: asking your friends and co-workers – people whom you like, and whose respect and companionship you want – to change the ways of talking and behaving that feel natural and comfortable to them, and to risk making yourself an outcast in the process. That's even scarier in some ways. So to do something that courageous and have your worst fears come true must be pretty devastating. For standing up for his principles, he did become the bad guy. And we see that in the way that the majority of Collingwood supporters talk about him now.

I think we ought to resist playing into that reaction by painting Lumumba as the troublemaker, or by digging up past dirt on him that shows that he also sometimes participated in this same kind of culture, or by finding supposed proof that he actually liked the nickname and was responsible for it, or by impugning his motives or sanity or whatever else. I'm not saying that he's an unblemished hero or that he's never done or said anything wrong throughout this period; he's a fallible human being like anyone else. But what I do feel sure of is that what he was trying to do in confronting macho club culture was very brave, and that he was punished for it by a club that was seemingly far more interested in preserving existing hierarchies than in receiving criticism humbly and openly. Him talking about his experiences and saying what he would like to be changed now doesn't make your life any worse; you can always choose not to listen if you like. Even if he does end up suing the club and winning, I see that as entirely being between him, them and the law; it has nothing really to do with us as supporters or what happens on field in the years to come. But I think we would do well to listen to what he's actually saying – not what you vaguely remember him saying, or what some other person reckons he said – because it's a lot more nuanced and constructive than some think it is ... or would like it to be.

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Magpietothemax Taurus

magpietothemax


Joined: 28 Apr 2013


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 2:12 am
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^Such an empathetic and sensitive post, David. And i think, for those reasons, a very accurate summation of the reality that Heritier confronted.
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Ronnie McKeowns boots 

Ronnie Mckeowns boots


Joined: 27 Jul 2020


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 9:07 am
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Top post David
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WhyPhilWhy? 

WhyPhilWhy?


Joined: 09 Oct 2001
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 10:44 am
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Just because he chose to use the nickname (if he in fact did), doesn't mean it wasn't racist.

And it's not beyond reason that he chose to "embrace" it to fit in with the team culture and not make his position in it any more uncomfortable.

How often have we all bowed to peer pressure over something we knew to be, at least, "not right"?
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Redlight 



Joined: 11 Jun 2009


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:03 pm
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We have to acknowledge that there are big gaps in the narrative that we cannot know. We all fill in those gaps in a way that fits our own beliefs and the personal agendas that we all have, even if we’re unaware of them.

Some fill in those gaps by attributing the highest of motives to Lumumba’s actions and, I think feel uncomfortable about questioning him, as if criticising Lumumba is supporting racism.

I can’t help but look at his behaviour, almost from the start, as odd and a little self-aggrandising. His florid descriptions of himself, meeting the Dalai Lama, wanting to meet Obama etc, and I suspect that he has adopted a ‘community leader’ persona that gives him a sense of greater purpose and self-worth. I think his attitude toward the club has hardened as that role has become more and more central to his view of himself and that he’s reinterpreting events in that new light.

There may be systematic failings, as there would be in nearly every club and organisation in this country. However, I do not believe, even for a moment, that McGuire and Buckley are racist, which is implicit in many of Lumumba's recent comments.
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Redlight 



Joined: 11 Jun 2009


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:13 pm
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WhyPhilWhy? wrote:

...
And it's not beyond reason that he chose to "embrace" it to fit in with the team culture and not make his position in it any more uncomfortable.
...


True, but that explanation is available to everyone in that circumstance. If H, for instance, embraced the nickname and seemed comfortable with it, then who are his teammates to challenge/question it? They too are trying to fit in with the team.

Lumumba's view of what was acceptable changed over time and surely we should allow that same kind of 'evolution of thought' to everyone concerned.
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PyreneesPie Pisces

PyreneesPie


Joined: 22 Aug 2014


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:24 pm
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Magpietothemax wrote:
^Such an empathetic and sensitive post, David. And i think, for those reasons, a very accurate summation of the reality that Heritier confronted.


Yes, I surely agree with this MTTM. David's post certainly places us squarely in Heritier's reality and is an exceptionally powerful piece of writing. Thank you David.

I guess what's bothering me about the whole situation is certainly not that Heritier's stance is unwarranted, but the manner in which he has and is projecting it.

Respect, empathy and understanding needs to be reciprocated and be a two-way street for true progress and reconciliation to be made, so that racism is purged from within our club and throughout society.

In Heritier's 2013 Copeland speech, Heritier said how Bucks had been his mentor right from the start of his football career. Yet he chose to repay that support by directly raging at and verbally abusing his mentor. Yes, I can understand the enormous frustration and anger that Heritier must have felt at the time, but has he ever been able to appreciate how his behaviour has hurt and exasaperated others too?
Can he appreciate that aggressive abuse of the head coach gave the club little option but to send him away for a time to cool off under the cover of "personal issues" (the sexual abuse Heritier referred to at that time involved family members).
Can he understand how the joking and blokey environment amongst the players could have been their way of trying to fit in and gain acceptance too?
Has he or could he accept that in retrospect, he could have handled it differently and created a better outcome for himself and his cause? It doesn't seem so.

I grant that it would be fantasy stuff, but how healing would it be for Heritier to soften a little and say "I didn't always behave in the most beneficial way. I was extremely frustrated and angry by discriminatory elements within the club and also stressed by events in my personal life at the time. I apologize for any hurt I may have caused". Then the club responds by issuing an unreserved and heart felt apology for all that he endured, assumes responsibility and vows to never let happen again.

Yes, the overarching element in this situation is certainly systemic racism and that is indeed utterly deplorable. However, there is also a basic human factor which runs through it as well - that is the basic wish of all individuals, whatever the colour of their skin, to be treated with respect and understanding. Heritier certainly hasn't been treated with due sensitivity and respect, but I'm not sure that he has always displayed this either.
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PyreneesPie Pisces

PyreneesPie


Joined: 22 Aug 2014


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:26 pm
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Redlight wrote:
We have to acknowledge that there are big gaps in the narrative that we cannot know. We all fill in those gaps in a way that fits our own beliefs and the personal agendas that we all have, even if we’re unaware of them.

Some fill in those gaps by attributing the highest of motives to Lumumba’s actions and, I think feel uncomfortable about questioning him, as if criticising Lumumba is supporting racism.

I can’t help but look at his behaviour, almost from the start, as odd and a little self-aggrandising.


I believe we may have similar thoughts about this Redlight. Wink You posted as I was writing.
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5 from the wing on debut 



Joined: 27 May 2016


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:43 pm
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David wrote:
5 from the wing on debut wrote:
David wrote:
What do you find so hard to believe about that?


It’s theoretically possible to accept that argument. Until you take into account the Footy Record player profile. That alone is enough to challenge the veracity of his statements. He had the opportunity not to mention that nickname, but he volunteered it when he did not need to do so. He supported it by naming the animal that he would like to be. That was in circumstances where he knew that he was publishing the information at a Carlton v Collingwood game. In the court of public opinion that is enough to sink him. Add to that the comments made by Simon Buckley.

If you believe what H is saying I have some shares in a bridge that I would like to sell to you.


I think you're opting for a simplistic approach when a much more nuanced one has already been offered. Lumumba is saying now and said from the beginning that he went along with the nickname for years, as one might well do as an outsider in a majority-white environment. That he played along with the nickname and even self-identified with it for a time doesn't erase what it represents about the culture or the hurt he may have felt about it over time – if not initially, then later as his understanding of such issues developed.

I think responses like yours and many others' in this thread demonstrate a lack of imaginative empathy on the part of many people struggling to grapple with this issue. This is why I think we have some posters wanting individual players named and shamed: they want this to be a simple case of villains and victims, with the villains cruelly shouting racist taunts while the target cowers in the corner. And yes, of course situations like that exist in the real world. But racism is usually much more complicated than that; if you're going to address cultural issues, simply identifying individual perpetrators and punishing them is unlikely to make the problem go away.

This is what "systemic racism" means: it is something deeper than just the interaction between two people, something that exists in the structure and environment around them. And how a person from a minority background responds to that – by reacting aggressively, by shrinking into themselves and alienating themselves from the group, by laughing it off and even laughing along, or by calling it out and trying to set an example – doesn't tell us much about the nature of the culture itself, only that people are different and handle things differently. It doesn't actually change the fact that the systemic problem is there, nor how much of a problem it is.

If this were just about a single nickname, then maybe you could make the case that this was all in Lumumba's head, and that if he'd never decided one day that it was offensive – as if calling a black man a kind of ape could ever not be, as if anyone lives in that kind of cultural vacuum – and made a big deal about it, then everything would have been okay. But as he's repeatedly said, that nickname was simply one example he encountered within a broader culture of casual racism, sexism and homophobia, and he learned the hard way that when you try to challenge a culture like that from within, you become the problem.

So for all those who feel that he is bitter and has an axe to grind, don't forget that the real story of Lumumba's alienation from the club was not the moment he called a team meeting to say he no longer wanted to be referred to by a nickname with racist connotations, but what came after: the joke from Buckley that made him feel undermined and humiliated in front of his peer group; the closing of ranks around the president and the coach; his own freezing out from leadership positions and eventually the club itself; the barely disguised hostility with which the club treated him when he went public in 2017; even at the very last, the club and its president not finding it within themselves to offer anything but the most mealy-mouthed apology for any of this after their own commissioned report vindicated much of what he'd been saying about the club's lack of processes for internal accountability.

There are people on here who I'm sure have had fantasies of standing up to bullies on their own or someone else's behalf, even if they've never had the courage to do that in their own lives. That's the kind of dynamic we usually think of in this scenario: for instance, standing your ground against an aggressive racist yelling insults. You probably don't really care what that person thinks of you; you just want to show them that you're not going to be pushed around any more. But imagine how much more courage it takes to stand up not against a bad guy, but against a culture: asking your friends and co-workers – people whom you like, and whose respect and companionship you want – to change the ways of talking and behaving that feel natural and comfortable to them, and to risk making yourself an outcast in the process. That's even scarier in some ways. So to do something that courageous and have your worst fears come true must be pretty devastating. For standing up for his principles, he did become the bad guy. And we see that in the way that the majority of Collingwood supporters talk about him now.

I think we ought to resist playing into that reaction by painting Lumumba as the troublemaker, or by digging up past dirt on him that shows that he also sometimes participated in this same kind of culture, or by finding supposed proof that he actually liked the nickname and was responsible for it, or by impugning his motives or sanity or whatever else. I'm not saying that he's an unblemished hero or that he's never done or said anything wrong throughout this period; he's a fallible human being like anyone else. But what I do feel sure of is that what he was trying to do in confronting macho club culture was very brave, and that he was punished for it by a club that was seemingly far more interested in preserving existing hierarchies than in receiving criticism humbly and openly. Him talking about his experiences and saying what he would like to be changed now doesn't make your life any worse; you can always choose not to listen if you like. Even if he does end up suing the club and winning, I see that as entirely being between him, them and the law; it has nothing really to do with us as supporters or what happens on field in the years to come. But I think we would do well to listen to what he's actually saying – not what you vaguely remember him saying, or what some other person reckons he said – because it's a lot more nuanced and constructive than some think it is ... or would like it to be.


There’s nothing that you have said that I had not considered before I posted what I did.

It seems to me that the nickname issue was resolved satisfactorily at the time, then other events occurred. The offence that he took when NB said to him that he had thrown Eddie under the bus. The offence that he took when NB asked him if the Les name was ok with him. The offence that he took when he demanded an investigation into the identity of the authors of the poster, and the club refused.The version of events that I heard is that he was seeking the authors be suspended from the club.

What happened then was what happens in any group of people when almost every one else believes a person is a pain in the arse and a troublemaker. They exclude them, and push them out. I expect that H could never understand why someone as important as he was, that was solving the world’s problems, was not treated with reverence when he was telling people how they should be living their lives and what they should be thinking. He didn’t just do that with team mates either, for whatever reason at one stage he delivered a lecture to law students. He told them how important he was, what they should be thinking and how they should be living their lives as well.
I won’t use the one word adjective that many of them then used to describe him.
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PyreneesPie Pisces

PyreneesPie


Joined: 22 Aug 2014


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 2:13 pm
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^ Didn't this lecture to law students take place within the club headquarters?
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K 



Joined: 09 Sep 2011


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 2:39 pm
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Niall & Gleeson:

A big week in football - the inside story on how Eddie exited the Magpies

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/a-big-week-in-football-how-eddie-exited-the-magpies-20210212-p5720t.html

"The Collingwood board was due to meet the next day, Wednesday. Had Eddie not stood down voluntarily at that meeting, it was doubtful he would have left the meeting as the Collingwood president.

Conversely, sources familiar with the situation believe that some individuals on a heavily corporate board with reputations to protect would have considered stepping down themselves if Eddie did not quit then.
...

But the view of key figures within the AFL and some Collingwood insiders is that this episode – which stretched over eight days – was the last straw, and that McGuire’s demise began eight years ago, not eight days ago...

The prevailing view from Collingwood insiders, past and present, is that Eddie’s exit was due to an accumulation of mis-steps since 2013 and that over his 22 years in the position he had a rap sheet of incidents – mainly ill-chosen comments – that embarrassed Collingwood and forced others into defensive measures."
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