Through a long lens: racism, protest, memory and sovereignty in Australian sport

ABSTRACT

Protests against racism in Australian sport have a long history, with many notable actors, agents and incidents. Of these, the on-field protest against racial abuse in Australian rules football by an Aboriginal player, Nicky Winmar, produced Australia’s most famous image of race and sport. While the moment was captured in 1993, it has reverberated throughout the intervening three decades, and the image of Winmar lifting his jersey to point proudly to his chest retains powerful currency. The Winmar protest is both an Australian precursor to the Black Lives Matter movement and remains a potent touchstone in the current debates around the topic. And while Winmar’s stance remains a moral compass point towards racism-free sport, it also highlights continuing tensions around race, racism and memory. We explore these dimensions through a discussion of the intersection of the global Black Lives Matter movement with Australia, a revisiting of Winmar’s 1993 protest and its representations, reverberations and relevance, and an analysis of the meanings and issues surrounding the placement of a statue commemorating Winmar in Perth, Western Australia. These episodes occurred against the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter movement, revealing intersections with, and unique dimensions of, racial issues in Australian sport.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Baarka is a Malyangapa Barkindji woman and rapper: Janine Israel, ‘“Unapologetically Truthful and Unapologetically Blak”: Australia Bows Down to Barkaa’, Guardian (Australia), November 29, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/29/unapologetically-truthful-and-unapologetically-blak-australia-bows-down-to-barkaa. Her song, Our Lives Matter (2020) is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzJmRbncyVQ.

2 Sam Goodwin, ‘“Absolute Joke”: Uproar over “Disgusting” Response to AFL Protests’, YahooSport, June 13, 2020, https://au.sports.yahoo.com/afl-2020-anger-disgusting-response-kneeling-protest-212904773.html.

3 Sean Gorman, Barry Judd, Keir Reeves, Gary Osmond, Matthew Klugman, and Gavan McCarthy, ‘Aboriginal Rules: The Black History of Australian Football’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 32, no. 16 (2015): 1947–62.

4 Matthew Klugman and Gary Osmond, Black and Proud: The Story of an Iconic AFL Photo (Sydney: NewSouth, 2013).

5 ‘Nicky Winmar Pays His Respects for the George Floyd Family’, YouTube, June 20, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6zV43_8xQY&t=26s.

6 Dain TePoel and John Nauright, ‘Black Lives Matter in the Sports World’, Sport in Society 24, no. 5 (2021): 694.

7 John Bale and Mike Cronin, eds., Sport and Postcolonialism (Oxford: Berg, 2003), 2.

8 Sam Newman tweet, June 12, 2020. Emphasis in the original.

9 Caroline Wilson, ‘Black Lives Matter: It Really is that Simple’, Age, June 26, 2020, https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/black-lives-matter-it-really-is-that-simple-20200626-p556ij.html.

10 Michael Warner, ‘Winmar Warns AFL It May Scare off Indigenous Players’, Australian, June 16, 2020, https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/winmar-warns-afl-it-may-scare-off-indigenous-players/news-story/b86dabb3405b88507ff0e6372521e993.

11 Douglas Smith, ‘Nicky Winmar Suing Sam Newman and Co-Hosts for Attempt to Revise Historical Moment’, NITV, June 26, 2020, https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/06/26/nicky-winmar-suing-sam-newman-and-co-hosts-attempt-revise-historical-moment.

12 Ibid.

13 Podcast embedded in Jackson Barron and Thomas Duff, ‘Sam Newman Defends His Role in Nicky Winmar Saga … ’, Daily Mail Australia, July 7, 2020, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8497433/Sam-Newman-defends-role-Nicky-Winmar-saga-claimed-iconic-photo-WASNT-racism.html.

14 Smith, ‘Nicky Winmar Suing Sam Newman’.

15 Wilson, ‘Black Lives Matter’.

16 Daniel Hurst, ‘Morrison Says Australia Should Not Import Black Lives Matter Protests After Deaths-in-Custody Rally’, Guardian (Australia), June 4, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/04/morrison-says-australia-should-not-import-black-lives-matter-protests-after-deaths-in-custody-rally; Katharine Murphy, ‘Scott Morrison: Black Lives Matter Protesters Should be Charged if They Defy Advice and March’, Guardian (Australia), June 11, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/11/scott-morrison-if-black-lives-matter-protesters-defy-advice-and-march-they-should-be-charged.

17 Adam B. Evans, Sine Agergaard, Paul Ian Campbell, Kevin Hylton, and Verena Lenneis, ‘“Black Lives Matter”: Sport, Race and Ethnicity in Challenging Times’, European Journal for Sport and Society 17, no. 4 (2020): 289.

18 Yadira Perez Hazel, ‘Bla(c)k Lives Matter in Australia’, Transition 126, no. 1 (2018): 61.

19 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, National Report Volume 1, 1.3 the Disproportionate Numbers of Aboriginal People in Custody, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/rciadic/national/vol1/12.html.

20 Aileen Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), Chapter 1.

21 B. Hunter and D. Carmody, ‘Estimating the Aboriginal Population of Early Colonial Australia: The Role of Chickenpox Reconsidered’, Australian Economic History Review 55 (2015): 112–38; Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788–1930, https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/introduction.php.

22 Lyndall Ryan, William Pascoe, Jennifer Debenham, Stephanie Gilbert, Jonathan Richards, Robyn Smith, Chris Owen, Robert J. Anders, Mark Brown, Daniel Price, Jack Newley, Kaine Usher, Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia (Newcastle: University of Newcastle, 2017–2020), https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/. Funded by ARC: DP 140100399.

23 These, and ensuing details (unless otherwise noted), are from Klugman and Osmond, Black and Proud.

24 Klugman and Osmond, Black and Proud, 33.

25 Ibid., 16.

26 Lawrie Jordan, ‘Looking at Sport’, Mail (Adelaide), October 24, 1953, 4S; Ken Moses, ‘Why Keep it Quiet’, Argus (Melbourne), October 17, 1953, 44.

27 Peter Read, The Stolen Generations: The Removal of Aboriginal Children in New South Wales 1883 to 1969 (Sydney: New South Wales Department of Aboriginal Affairs, 2006 [1982]).

28 Matthew Klugman, ‘Loves, Suffering and Identification: The Passions of Australian Football League Fans’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 26, no. 1 (2009): 21–44.

29 Peter H. Russell, Recognising Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-settler Colonialism (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2006).

30 Klugman and Osmond, Black and Proud, 108.

31 Greg Lyons, ‘Racial Prejudice at the Footy’, Legal Services Bulletin (1978–79): 105–8; Michael Gawenda, ‘Blacks in the Big League’, Age (Melbourne), April 26, 1982, 11; Sean Mundy and Jon Murrie, ‘Tiddy Urges SANFL to Curb On-Field Racism’, Adelaide Advertiser, October 9, 1989, 1.

32 Caroline Wilson, ‘Racism on the Field – AFL’s Shameful Secret’, Sunday Age, August 25, 1991, 6.

33 Klugman and Osmond, Black and Proud, 5.

34 Mike Sheahan, ‘Worsfold Regrets He Used Racist Remarks’, Sunday Age, April 25, 1993, 3.

35 Klugman and Osmond, Black and Proud.

36 This analysis is informed by Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive, 17.

37 For a discussion of gap between rhetoric and reality in the context of other sporting bodies, representing what Parry and colleagues term an ‘organisational cultural lag’ between what sporting organisations offer and the wider culture wants on social justice issues, see: Keith D. Parry, Ryan Storr, Emma J. Kavanagh and Eric Anderson, ‘Conceptualising Organisational Cultural Lag: Marriage Equality and Australian Sport’, Journal of Sociology 57, no. 4 (2021): 986–1008.

38 For recent analyses of this, see: Ashlee Morgan and Violetta Wilk, ‘Sport Organizations and Reconciliation in Australia’, Sport in Society (2021). doi:10.1080/17430437.2021.1934451; ‘The AFL Should Walk Its Talk on Racism’, Age (Melbourne), August 15, 2021, https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-afl-should-walk-its-talk-on-racism-20210813-p58imt.html.

39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON8VK4fP9ZA. Cited in Hazel, ‘Bla(c)k Lives Matter in Australia’, 61; Chelsea J. Bond, Lisa J. Whop, David Singh and Helena Kajlich, ‘Now We Say Black Lives Matter but … the Fact of the Matter Is, We Just Black Matter to Them’, Medical Journal of Australia 213, no. 6 (September 2020): 248–50.

40 ‘2017 Black Lives Matter’, Sydney Peace Foundation, https://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/peace-prize-recipients/black-lives-matter/.

41 Australian Government, Australian Law Reform Commission, Pathways to Justice – An Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples – Final Report, 22, https://www.alrc.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/final_report_133_amended1.pdf.

42 Thalia Anthony, ‘FactCheck Q&A: Are Indigenous Australians the Most Incarcerated People on Earth?’, Conversation, June 16, 2017, https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-are-indigenous-australians-the-most-incarcerated-people-on-earth-78528.

43 Sharlene Leroy-Dyer, ‘Across the World: Black Lives Matter’, Advocate 27, no. 2 (July 2020): 10.

44 Hazel, ‘Bla(c)k Lives Matter in Australia’, 67; Bond et al., ‘Now We Say Black Lives Matter; L. Geia, et al., ‘A Unified Call to Action from Australian Nursing and Midwifery Leaders: Ensuring that Black Lives Matter’, Contemporary Nurse 56, no. 4 (2020): 297–308; Kathomi Gatwiri, Darlene Rotumah, and Elizabeth Rix, ‘BlackLivesMatter in Healthcare: Racism and Implications for Health Inequity among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in Australia’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 9 (2021): 4399, https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4399; Marcia Langton, ‘Why the Black Lives Matter Protests Must Continue’, Conversation, August 5, 2020, https://theconversation.com/why-the-black-lives-matter-protests-must-continue-an-urgent-appeal-by-marcia-langton-143914.

45 Patty Mills, June 5, 2020, https://twitter.com/Patty_Mills. Emphasis in the original.

46 Konrad Marshall, ‘Let’s Dance’, Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend Section, October 2, 2021, 11.

47 Matthew Klugman and Gary Osmond, ‘The AFL Has Failed Adam Goodes with Its Reluctance to Condemn Booing as Racist’, Age (Melbourne), July 29, 2015, http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-afl-has-failed-adam-goodes-with-its-reluctance-to-condemn-booing-as-racist-20150729-gimmns.html#ixzz3hFZCSc9o5; Barry Judd and Nikita Vanderbyl, ‘Model Black Man: Footballer Adam Goodes and Contemporary Aboriginal Masculinities in Australia’, in Fashionable Masculinities: Queers, Pimp Daddies, and Lumbersexuals, ed. Vicki Karaminas, Adam Geczy and Pamela Church Gibson (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021).

48 Larissa Behrendt and Lindon Coombes, ‘Do Better – Independent Review into Collingwood Football Club’s Responses to Incidents of Racism and Cultural Safety in the Workplace’, Australian Football League, 2021, https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/document/2021/02/01/0bd7a62e-7508-4a7e-9cb0-37c375507415/Do_Better.pdf.

49 Laura McBride, ‘Always Was, Always Will Be, Aboriginal Land’, Australian Museum, July 9, 2021, https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/always-will-be-aboriginal-land/. NAIDOC takes its name from the original organising group, the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee.

50 Sean Gorman, ‘Big Time Unna?: Noongars Transform Aussie Rules’, Griffith REVIEW, no. 47 (2015): [71]–79, 2015, 74.

51 Konrad Marshall, ‘Noongar Warriors’, Age [Melbourne] Good Weekend, July 2, 2016, 10–14. (p. 10) [https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2016/the-noongar-warriors/].

52 Gorman, ‘Big Time Unna?’, 74.

53 Warwick Green, ‘Nicky Winmar Statue to be Placed in Perth, not Victoria’, Age (Melbourne), February 11, 2018, https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/nicky-winmar-statue-to-be-placed-in-perth-not-victoria-20180211-p4yzy4.html.

54 Warwick Green, ‘Political Football: Winmar Statue yet to find a Home’, Age (Melbourne), September 16, 2018, https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/political-football-winmar-statue-yet-to-find-a-home-20180916-p50433.html.

55 Green, ‘Nicky Winmar Statue’; Green, ‘Political Football’.

56 John Townsend, ‘The Tuesday WAFL: Why Optus Stadium Isn’t the Right Fit for Nicky Winmar Statue’, West Australian, June 12, 2018, https://thewest.com.au/sport/wafl/the-tuesday-wafl-why-optus-stadium-isnt-the-right-fit-for-nicky-winmar-statue-ng-b88863658z.

57 Daniel Cherney, ‘Indigenous Past Players Group Baffled by Winmar Statue Uncertainty’, Age (Melbourne), September 17, 2018, https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/indigenous-past-players-group-baffled-by-winmar-statue-uncertainty-20180917-p504b5.html.

58 Sean Gorman, ‘Why Optus Stadium is the Right Fit for Nicky Winmar statue’, Guardian, June 14, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jun/14/why-optus-stadium-is-the-right-fit-for-nicky-winmar-statue.

59 Emma Young and Marta Pascual Juanola, ‘Crowd Goes Wild as Nicky Winmar Statue is Unveiled at Optus Stadium’, BrisbaneTimes.com.au, July 6, 2019.

60 Tony Buti, ‘Buti's Call: Winmar's Iconic Gesture the Most Important in AFL History’, WAtoday, July 2, 2019, https://www.watoday.com.au/sport/afl/buti-s-call-winmar-s-iconic-gesture-the-most-important-in-afl-history-20190701-p5231s.html.

61 Green, ‘Political Football’.

62 Steve Butler, ‘It’s the World to Me’, West Australian, July 6, 2019, 18.

63 Courtney Walsh and Andrew Burrell, ‘Moment of Black Power Takes Pride of Place’, Australian, July 6, 2019, 7.

64 Matthew Klugman, ‘On the Eve of an AFLM Grand Final Like no Other, can the Shadow of the Pandemic Make Us Strive for Something Better?’, Conversation, September, 24, 2021, https://theconversation.com/on-the-eve-of-an-aflm-grand-final-like-no-other-can-the-shadow-of-the-pandemic-make-us-strive-for-something-better-167792.

65 Aileen Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive, xx–xxi.

66 Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive, xx.

67 Ibid., xii.

68 Gregory Phillips and Matthew Klugman, ‘The AFL Has Moved the Grand Final from Melbourne for the First Time – but It has a Far More Pressing Issue’, Conversation, September 3, 2020, https://theconversation.com/the-afl-has-moved-the-grand-final-from-melbourne-for-the-first-time-but-it-has-a-far-more-pressing-issue-145184.

69 National Australian Museum, ‘Australia’s Defining Moments Digital Classroom’, https://www.nma.gov.au/learn/digital-classroom.

70 National Australian Museum, ‘Nicky Winmar’s Stand’, https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/nicky-winmars-stand.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gary Osmond

Gary Osmond is a historian with an interest in images of race and sport. He co-authored the book Black and Proud: The Story of an Iconic AFL Photo (NewSouth, 2013), which won a NSW Premier's Literary Award in 2015. Associate Professor Osmond is an ARC Future Fellow in sports history in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland.

Matthew Klugman

Matthew Klugman is a historian with an interest in images of race and sport. He co-authored the book Black and Proud: The Story of an Iconic AFL Photo (NewSouth, 2013), which won a NSW Premier's Literary Award in 2015. Dr Klugman is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Health and Sport, and a member of the Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network at Victoria University.