Disgruntled Collingwood premier player Heritier Lumumba gave Scott Pendlebury permission to call him the “chimpanzee”.
Foxfooty.com.au can show Pendlebury was instructed by Lumumba that it would be okay to refer to him by a nickname that he has since brought out and admonished.
It’s unclear whether Lumumba allowed Pendlebury – and possibly other teammates – to use the nickname to fit in and deal with a discriminatory culture.
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The club’s current investigation into the matter is expected to shed light on why Lumumba volunteered for teammates to refer to him as a “chimpanzee” and how frequently he was nicknamed over a period of eight years.
Lumumba and Pendlebury were not available for comment.
Since Lumumba’s claims went public, Pendlebury has been the only high-profile person in Collingwood not to speak about it.
Foxfooty.com.au does not suggest that the Captain of Collingwood Lumumba called a “chimpanzee”, only that he was given permission to do so.
Former trainer Mick Malthouse and current trainer Nathan Buckley said they never heard the term used while President Eddie McGuire was narrating Nines Footy classified On June 24th there were “nuances” in the story that he knew nothing about before.
Contacted by foxfooty.com.auMcGuire chose not to comment, but it is understood that one of those “nuances” involved teammates who thought it was okay to use the nickname because Lumumba gave them the green light.
“We want to find out what’s going on,” McGuire said Footy classified End of June.
“I’ve talked to some people and found different things. The nuances I had no idea about. “
In a nine-point social media post earlier this year, Lumumba explained how he was nicknamed the “chimpanzee” for eight years from 2005 to 2013. He said there was a culture of racist jokes during this period.
“I spoke out against McGuire’s racism on May 29, 2013 and was ostracized internally for it, particularly by Buckley, who said,” You threw the president under the bus. “They saw what I did wrong and didn’t apologize for it. As a result, I was treated differently for the worse,” he wrote.
Lumumba also said the nickname and “playgroup jokes” stopped after a team meeting on June 27, 2013.
His claims were supported by former teammates Chris Dawes and Brent Macaffer, while Paul Roos recalled a meeting with Lumumba where the player told his future coach that he was being called “Chimp” in Collingwood.
After his retirement in 2016, Macaffer had a job in the social department at the Pies. He was made a lifetime member in February 2019, despite an abrupt resignation from his social position, which surprised some at the Holden Center.
Macaffer told Channel 9: “I just remember he had the nickname. I don’t know how it came about originally. I can vouch for nothing malicious. “
Lumumba was extremely critical of the independent investigation led by Professor Larissa Behrendt.
Behrendt is a Eualeyai / Kamillaroi woman and Research Director at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology in Sydney.
Earlier this year, she was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her service to Indigenous Education, Law and the Arts.
“It became increasingly clear that in Heritier’s day we could not understand his experience. See and hear what he saw and heard, “said Peter Murphy, director of Collingwood, in July.
“This lack of cultural security that he and others spoke of recently is of great concern.
“We want to understand these experiences of racism and make sure they have no place in the current Collingwood environment.
“We assume that Larissa Behrendt’s work will result in a full and open presentation of these experiences and create a roadmap for the future of Collingwood.”
The study of Collingwood’s culture is ongoing and so far Lumumba has refused to be a part of it.
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