'Shameful': Héritier Lumumba condemns Eddie McGuire's response to Collingwood racism report
Star AFL player Héritier Lumumba – who over 10 years endured racist taunts while playing for the Collingwood Football Club – has said the club’s response to a scathing report that reveals systemic racism in its ranks is “offensive” but he feels vindicated by its findings.
Lumumba told Guardian Australia Collingwood’s response to the report was “shameful”.“Instead of addressing the findings in the report, they issued a whole [lot] of meaningless statements, refusing to show accountability for the past and dismissed addressing historical complaints as ‘semantics’,” Lumumba said.
“For [club president] Eddie McGuire to begin by saying ‘it’s a historic and proud day’ was offensive to me and no doubt others like me who have endured racism at the club.”
“This could have been a historic moment for the club to deal with systemic racism, but it just looks like business as usual. Eddie said the club is bravely ‘holding a mirror up to itself.’
“I think he’s scared to look in the mirror.”
The Do Better report, co-authored by respected Yuwalaraay academic, UTS distinguished professor Larissa Behrendt, found that while there had been progress on an individual level, Collingwood had failed to address systemic racism.
Collingwood was more likely to respond to media when dealing with racist incidents, and, instead of being proactive, doubled-down and acted defensively, the report found.
“Too often the reaction was defensive rather than proactive and this aggravated, rather than mitigated, the impact of that racism on the people who experienced it,” the report said.
“All of this comes back to the leadership of the Collingwood Football Club
– particularly its board – and the need for it to set the vision and values of the Club and to drive structural change.”
In response, McGuire on Monday disputed the report’s key finding of systemic racism at the club.
“There are plenty of things we look back on now and wish we could have done better – at the time we did them as well as we thought we could,” he told reporters.
“There was not systemic racism as such, we just didn’t have the processes in place as we look back now to do the job we would like to have done,” he said. “We’re not a mean-spirited club. We’re not a racist club.”
Although Lumumba was the impetus for the report, it was not an investigation into his allegations. Behrendt said “nothing in this review can be taken as exonerating the club from any alleged wrongdoing”.
Lumumba is suing the club alleging he was subjected to racism for more than 10 years, including being called racist nicknames like “chimp” and “slave”.
Lumumba says Collingwood continually dismissed his concerns and