Heritier Lumumba On The AFL, Thriving While Black, Racism, And Change
Heritier Lumumba shares how racism shaped his time in the AFL, and how he's reclaimed his Blackness since.
When asked about whether or not his former AFL club Collingwood can change, Heritier Lumumba takes a moment to consider his answer. The response he gives is global, influenced by his new home in South Los Angeles, California.
“I see change as a never-ending moment. So, it is changing,” he says, while talking to me and my co-host of Triple R’s Vocal Minority, Bez Zewdie. “Whether it’s at the pace that we want to be, well, I don’t know. Whether it’s the direction or the way we want to change, I don’t know. But there is something happening.”
Lumumba has watched the pandemic turn the US, including California, on its head. He’s seen Black people take to the streets, demanding a better future. For him, it’s no longer about seeking justice from a club that covered up and refused to act on the racist abuse he suffered inside and outside it.
“The industry needs to improve its standards. All I was asking for was the bare minimum,” Lumumba says. “One of the most disturbing things for me is [when] I think of all the institutions within Australia, I think of all of the workplaces that exist.
“I’m going through something that’s visible. There’s far worse things out there.”
Collingwood is nearing the publication date of its review into his treatment there, which is said to be released at an ambiguous time in the near future. Lumumba refused to participate. He said he had nothing more to give a club that tried to smear him by lying about the racist abuse he received, and tried to paint him as someone who was mentally unwell and had an axe to grind as a scapegoat.
“I’m going through something that’s visible. There’s far worse things out there.”
“Collingwood knows the truth of what happened,” he says. “Yes, there was racism in the organisation. Yes, there is racism in society. To suggest that I didn’t experience it … was an indicator of their lack of good faith.
“The good faith went out of it when lies were made up about me. It would have been very easy just to say, ‘yeah we could have been better, we messed up’.
“It didn’t have to roll into what it is now but unfortunately, that’s just the way it works and it is what it is.”
Lumumba’s experience at the hands of Collingwood, other players, the media, and fans has cemented his belief in the prevalence of racism in every level of society.
He was called a chimp and a slave, among other things. People refused to acknowledge his real name when he reclaimed it in 2013. But to him, this was no different to what he experienced as a child.
“At the time it was just my reality, you know, I’m just like, ‘I don’t know anything else’,” Lumumba says. “Racism was around from as early as I can remember. I’ve been traumatised from it in some of my earliest childhood memories.
“This is just the world I live in, you know, you’re gonna find it every single place you go, especially when it’s places where the institutions are dominated by white people.
“That’s just the reality. No matter where I go, the racism is there.”
It’s a difficult realisation to come to terms with, but Lumumba has found power in his Blackness, his community, and reconnecting with his Afro-Brazillian roots.
“That’s just the reality. No matter where I go, the racism is there.”
“[I’ve been on a] journey of discovering who I am or discovering and connecting my origins, because I knew I wasn’t being told the full story,” he says. “In my off-seasons I would travel. I’d go to Brazil. I’d go to Cuba. I would spend time in Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and Tobago.
“I was really fortunate that I was able to travel in the off-season and I’d always pick somewhere in the African diaspora or continent, and I just learned a lot about myself seeing myself in different contexts. Quite often, I think when you’re in spaces or places that are overwhelmingly white it affects the way you carry yourself.”
His advice to Black people in Australia: Reclaim your names and heritage, surround yourself with symbols and people that make you feel strong and connected to your Blackness.
“Your name is a vibration. Every time you repeat it, it’s an affirmation. If the picture tells a thousand words, then a symbol is a thousand pictures,” he says. “Your name is a symbol, and if you can arrange symbols around your life of who you are and things that bring you strength, whether it’s from your own culture or from things that are culturally significant to you, like images of people and whatnot, and even your own name, then that has the ability to just raise your consciousness immediately.”
You can listen to the full interview on the Triple R’s Vocal Minority, available online here.