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1/ Here's how Waleed Aly, Peter Helliar and The Project undermined Heritier Lumumba when he came forward with his experiences of racism while playing for Collingwood. It’s important because this ended public discussion around Heritier’s case. #RacisminAustralia
2/ The Project had an opportunity to use their platform to stand with a Black player who had survived years of racism. Instead, they followed Collingwood’s playbook and effectively killed his story. This is a long thread. Like LONG. Receipts and all.
3/ Recap. Heritier was a player at Collingwood for 10 years starting at the age of 18. 199 games including a premiership. During his time there, he was given nicknames like ‘chimp’ and ‘slave.’ There was no support within the club or the league to deal with this culture.
4/ When Heritier later spoke out against his club president, Eddy McGuire, for his racist comments comparing Adam Goodes to King Kong, he was ostracised within the club, changed teams and eventually retired. Nathan Buckley accused him of throwing McGuire ‘under the bus.’
5/ Jeff Daniels, award-winning director of ‘10 Conditions of Love,’ a film about exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer, made ‘Fair Game,’ a documentary about Heritier’s experience, which aired on SBS. https://bit.ly/2Ykh9c0
6/ Four of Heritier’s former teammates came forward publicly, on the record, to confirm Heritier’s experience of racism at the club. 3 Aboriginal players - Leon Davis, Andrew Krakouer, and Chris Egan, as well as Shae McMnamara, a white American.
7/ It’s important that Tier, as a matter of principle, was not out to name and shame players. He was making a critique of the culture of the AFL and CFC. All he wanted was acknowledgement and a future where support would be in place for people who suffered the same way.
8/ Here’s Nathan Buckley smirking his way through a press conference while he makes insinuations about Heritier’s mental health and denies knowing about the racism at Collingwood. Maybe I’m overreacting. You be the judge.
9/ A few news outlets covered the story, and Heritier wrote an in-depth opinion piece for the Guardian about his experience. https://bit.ly/2MHOk3A
10/ The AFL’s Chief Executive said the real issue was Heritier’s ‘state of mind,’ ie his mental health, as well as falsely claiming the AFL had met with him to hear his concerns. This was not true, as shown in their own leaked emails: https://bit.ly/3dOUNpA
11/ Behind the scenes, Collingwood was backgrounding journalists on ‘concerns’ about Heritier’s ‘mental health.’ McGuire lied to one presenter off-air, saying that Heritier had come to him to personally apologise for his comments. Tier was actually in LA at the time.
12/ The Project agreed to cover the story. I thought this was a good thing - Waleed Aly is a well-known fan of AFL, and no stranger to racism. I’d seen him give a lecture on Michael Long. He was outspoken about Adam Goodes in 2013.
13/ The final TV package was around 10 minutes. But the actual interview went for an hour and a half. I know because I was in the room with Heritier and Waleed. The conversation started out fine, but soon turned into a gruelling, circular cross-examination.
14/ The questions were bizarre. For example, if Heritier was telling the truth, why wouldn’t more players admit to a culture of racism at the club? Imagine staking a victim's credibility on why none of their abusers had publicly admitted to their behaviour.
15/ Waleed claimed early on that he didn’t have ‘Collingwood’s side of the story.’ This is simply not true. I found out later that CFC had direct conversations with Waleed where they attacked Heritier’s credibility, claiming that he had mental health issues and an axe to grind.
16/ It was obvious later that this had a clear impact on the interview and the way The Project presented the story. An hour and a half of this brought Heritier to tears. Still, we hoped that Waleed was just being extra rigorous and the final edit would be good. It wasn’t.
17/ The final package made no mention whatsoever of the AFL’s top executive being caught out in a total lie about the league meeting with Heritier. You might think that this was an important point to make.
18/ The interview package was bad enough, but the editorialising on the panel afterwards was worse. Again, Helliar attacked Heritier’s credibility because 'nobody' at the club would confirm his claim about a nickname. Andrew Krakouer had done so publicly.
19/ So Heritier’s claims about racism, detailed in both a feature-length documentary by an award-winning filmmaker and a published op-ed in the Guardian, didn’t pass the rigorous journalistic standards of *checks notes*... Peter Helliar and The Project.
20/ Not sure whether Peter Helliar, who performed for years in character as the larrikin Collingwood supporter ‘Strauchanie,’ was the best person to objectively judge whether Heritier’s claims about racism at CFC were true or not.
21/ Even Waleed had to correct himself and Helliar. He admitted that Andrew Krakouer had confirmed the nickname, but dismissed this because he was apparently a ‘rare person.’ What? The way the testimony of an Aboriginal man was waved away was just stunning.
22/ Waleed repeated that he didn’t have Collingwood’s story, and mused about whether or not Heritier just didn’t understand that the AFL and CFC were maybe nicer than he realised. Yes, the same club and league that had been lying about him and calling him crazy.
23/ This wasn’t ‘not going on record’ or ‘not having the other side of the story.’ This was collusion. This was the biggest infotainment show in the country doing free damage control for the AFL and CFC by recycling tropes about Heritier being an angry, untrustworthy Black man.
24/ To call this poor journalism is too kind. It was unethical and dishonest. This was two powerful institutions, the AFL and Collingwood, gently leaning on their TV friends to manage a situation for them. It killed what could have been a real conversation about racism.
25/ Heritier is one of the most honest and genuine people I know. He gave his life to that game and that club, and had nothing to gain by coming forward after retirement. All he wanted was to make the game better for those who came after him. He deserved better.
