Klugman Matthew - Black and Proud : the Story of an Iconic AFL Photo

BLACK AND PROUD

The story of an iconic AFL photo

BLACK AND PROUD

Matthew Klugman and Gary Osmond

A NewSouth book

Published by

NewSouth Publishing

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

University of New South Wales

Sydney NSW 2052

AUSTRALIA

newsouthpublishing.com

Matthew Klugman and Gary Osmond 2013

First published 2013

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author: Klugman, Matthew, 1975, author.

Title: Black and Proud: The story of an iconic AFL photo / Matthew Klugman and Gary Osmond.

ISBN: 9781742234052 (paperback)

9781742241661 (ePub/Kindle)

9781742246673 (ePDF)

Notes: Includes index.

Subjects: Winmar, Nicky Pictorial works. / Australian Football League. / St. Kilda Football Club. / Collingwood Football Club. / Football fans Social aspects Australia. / Athletes, Aboriginal Australian. / Australian football Tournaments. / Discrimination in sports Australia. / Race discrimination Australia.

Other Authors/Contributors: Osmond, Gary, author.

Dewey Number: 796.336

Design Di Quick

Cover design Xou Creative

Cover image Wayne Ludbey/Fairfax Syndication

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The authors welcome information in this regard.

Contents

I didnt think so many people cared

I still cant believe it

I felt nauseous

Id make a racist comment every week if I thought it would help

Time for a statement

It was definitely a racial thing and its really important!

As long as they conduct themselves like white people

Ive had enough of this shit.
I dont have to take it.

A symbol of pride

Sport has the power to change the world to inspire

to unite people in a way that little else can.

Nelson Mandela

That was the AFLs Rosa Parks moment.

Steve Hawke

Kids at the Rumbalara Football & Netball Club in Shepparton, Victoria, re-enact Nicky Winmars gesture, 2008.

We use the word Indigenous to include both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people collectively, and prefer Aboriginal over Aborigine except where cited in the original source. We also employ the collective terms used by specific Indigenous peoples such as Koori, Noongar, Nunga and Yolngu. Many of the insults detailed in this book are deeply offensive but we think it is vital to engage with the painful, as well as inspiring, aspects of our history.

Prologue

Life had hardened Charlie McAdam. Taken screaming and kicking from his mother before his seventh birthday, he survived the infamous Moola Bulla station that was supposed to civilise him, stealing swill from pigs to ease his hunger and enduring floggings that left him unable to walk. By the age of thirteen Charlie was working as a stockman, and after that he experienced the bruises and fears of someone boxing for money, not love. Hed been paid to break in horses and steers, empty out toilets, drive trucks, reinforce pipes and assist Aboriginal people in need of legal aid. Yet even in his late fifties the crowd at Victoria Park made eyes that had seen so much pain run wet with tears.

It happened on 17 April 1993. Charlie was at Collingwoods home ground for the first time to see his son, Gilbert, play for St Kilda. Victoria Park had a deserved reputation as the most feral real estate in all of football. Tens of thousands of men, women and children would cram into the ground, packing the outer like matches in a box. Kids perched on milk crates or craned to catch the on-field action around the legs of men who pissed in beer cans rather than force a path to the toilets through the crush and congestion. At the grounds Yarra end, where visiting supporters congregated for comfort and safety amid the sea of black-and-white fanatics, it was a rare day when the lavatories were not overflowing by half time and the air ripe with the stink of urine. Victoria Park was that sort of place.

When the game began, the Pies barrackers roared in unison, baying for blood. Thoughts of ancient Romes Colosseum sprang readily to mind, and few blood-hungry Collingwood fanatics would have objected to the comparison. It was footy at its most tribal. And on this day the battle rage of the Magpie horde was directed most often at St Kildas two Aboriginal players, Gilbert McAdam and Nicky Winmar.

Wedged among Collingwood barrackers in the notorious outer, Charlie saw Gilbert and Nicky carve up the Pies. Gilbert kicked four of the Saints first five goals, Nicky continually drove the Saints forward, and both were excelling at the hard things, tackling and pressuring the Magpie players with fierce intensity. But Charlies pleasure in their deeds was repeatedly crushed by the rude, racist invective filling the air around him.

Cries of petrol sniffers, abos, coons were flung like daggers from behind the fence, an aural accompaniment to the reek of the outers clogged toilets and every bit as foul. Shoot him! He is only a black, screamed one Magpies supporter. Others regularly branded Winmar and McAdam as niggers and boongs or gibbered like monkeys. The atmosphere was poisonous with hate, the racial insults relentless. Black was used as if it were a grave insult. There are many foul slurs and epithets in the thick lexicon of abuse reserved for Indigenous Australians. Few were not uttered that day.

Charlie McAdam didnt want to believe what he was witnessing. This was 1993, International Year of the Worlds Indigenous People, but the clock at Victoria Park was stuck on an earlier, uglier time. Paul Keating had called for change with his famous Redfern Address just a few months before. The Northern Territory station where Charlie was once head stockman had been given back to its traditional owners several days later. There was a broad social movement against racism in Australia, and these advances reflected its growing strength. Yet the white faces in the crowd did not seem surprised, let alone offended, by the abuse directed at McAdams son and Winmar. The racism and venom appeared part and parcel of just another day at the footy.

Charlie McAdam couldnt block it out, turn the deaf ear. He had stared into racisms face from his earliest years, but this was too much. It should have been a fathers proudest moment, watching his boy give the Pies a lesson in the footy arts of crumbing, baulking, snapping and tackling. But it was too much to bear, even for him. He left the game with tears streaming down his face. I just couldnt stomach it, Charlie explained later. I was so upset and disappointed. I just couldnt stand this abuse.