Heritier Lumumba was at his home in Los Angeles, “wincing”, while he watched Collingwood football club’s press conference yesterday that followed leaked ‘Do Better’ report which found evidence of systemic racism within the club.
“Man, watching the press conference was extremely painful,” Lumumba told The Feed.
The tone of the press conference didn’t fit with what Lumumba believed to be a “damning report” that laid out the club’s systemic failings to deal with racism.
“It pointed out and illustrated that the responsibility of those failings falls on the board. And obviously, the chairman of the board, being Eddie McGuire,” he said.
‘I never went to his house before we went to Fox Footy on live TV. I never had dinner at his house’
In 2013 while playing for the club, Lumumba publicly criticised Eddie McGuire after the Collingwood president suggested live on radio that former Sydney player Adam Goodes could be used to promote the King Kong musical in Melbourne. Over the years, Heritier has been vocal about the way in which he was treated in the aftermath – and the personal impact this had on him.
One journalist asked Eddie McGuire about this during yesterday’s press conference: “Lumumba spoke out against your comments about Adam Goodes back in 2013, and he was accused of throwing you under the bus. Have you reflected on that now?”
McGuire replied saying, “All I know from that situation was I actually picked up Heritier, he came to my house, he had dinner with me, I drove him to Fox Footy, we did the show, I drove him home and we hugged each other at the end of it. And we said we’d work together going forward.”
However, Lumumba’s recollection of the evening is different from McGuire’s. He described the events after he publicly criticised McGuire as “one of the most traumatic days of his life.”
“For one, it wasn’t true. It wasn’t accurate,” Lumumba said.
“I never went to his house before we went to Fox Footy on live TV. I never had dinner at his house. In fact, I remember arriving at a studio by myself.
“I walked into the studio at Fox Footy and it was one of the most traumatic days of my life for one because I went through the whole ordeal of him yelling at me after I put out the tweet in support of Adam Goodes.”
Lumumba doesn’t remember being driven home or embracing McGuire after the Fox Footy TV appearance, however, doesn’t dispute it may have happened. Instead, he questions the way the evening was viewed by McGuire.
“We live in different realities when it comes to racism,” he said.
Lumumba has been vocal for years about his experiences at Collingwood, and he says the report’s examination of the club has made him feel vindicated.
But the outcome isn’t simple for Lumumba. Despite agreeing with the message in the report, he believes the only way forward is radical changes of the way the club operates.
“So there were mixed feelings. I requested the report, it got ignored,” he said.
Last year, Lumumba launched legal action against Collingwood on the grounds alleging he’d been subjected to racial abuse by Collingwood players and staff. It’s why Lumumba felt it was necessary that his legal team request access to the report.
But they weren’t able to gain access until it was made public on Monday after it was leaked to the Herald Sun.
“When the report was commissioned, the club released a press release that had my name on it, it said that this review is being commissioned to address the claims that Lumumba raised during his time at the football club,” he said.
‘I was publicly discredited on one of the largest platforms in Australian media’
Labor MP Peter Khalil tweeted today that the depiction of Lumumba in the media contributed to the “systemic racism” that the ‘Do Better’ report addresses at Collingwood.
Khalil highlighted The Project’s 2017 interview with Lumumba as an example of sections of the media not taking his allegations of racism during his time seriously. He appeared on the program to discuss his claims of racism – specifically that he had been given the nickname ‘chimp’ at the club.
“During the interview, Lumumba was trying to call out the truth. Instead of a serious engagement with his allegations, he was smashed up by a sleek and sophisticated PR effort aimed at discrediting his claims from the outset,” Khalil tweeted.
The Project’s Peter Helliar has come out on Twitter publicly apologising to Lumumba for not believing him before. Helliar said during the 2017 program: “It would be helpful if we had more details. Specifically with the nickname, like you said, we tried to reach out we can’t find anyone who would speak to us, who knew of that nickname over playing career of ten years.”
However former teammate Andrew Krakauer had come out publicly to support Lumumba’s claim prior to that interview.
Lumumba is still absorbing how he feels about Helliar’s apology but he says what he does know is that words alone aren’t enough. He did say that he encourages Helliar and others to continue the effort, and continue the journey of working towards the atonement.
“I mean, it’s clear now it’s irrefutable. So what choice does he have?” Lumumba said.
“Forgiveness is a process, and I think, before I can just take a tweet off face value, we have to understand that I was publicly discredited on one of the largest platforms in Australian media.
“That had serious damaging effects to me, that was again a severe trauma that took me a long time, I still am working on.”
‘I’m now in a place in my life, where I’m surrounded by a community that I feel loves me’
It’s been a long road for Lumumba to speak about his experiences at Collingwood. He said, there have been moments when he’s battled fatigue, but he’s in a much better place now. For the last two and half years he’s called Los Angeles home.
“When I started the challenge of racism, I was being punished. I was battling sleep issues because I was just so traumatised,” he said.
“I’m now in a place in my life, where I’m surrounded by a community that I feel loves me that empowers me that I feel I belong in.
“At some stage, it’s tiring. But this is very much on purpose with me..when you look at the horrors and the history of what our ancestors were subjected to, you realise that this is just a continuation of that struggle.”
