News Hawthorn Racism Review - No player name speculation - opposition posters tread very carefully

[Strapping Young Lad]

Wrong. Hawks did what they had to do by the rules of the AFL.

Correct. For reference below, once the HFC had the report outlining serious allegations they were duty bound by the AFL’s protocol to hand over the report to the AFL integrity unit.

I will pin this post, as it seems to be a constant query.

 

[Leather Poisoning]

Yes, we need to consider the source. An organisation who thrives on this kind of thing. Present evidence, and maybe I'll listen. All I've heard are allegations. It's all the rage right now to scream racism without proof, and for some reason everyone assumes it's true.

AH mate - I'll assume what you're meaning by "this sort of thing" is a type of journalistic sensationalism.

I think that's really the wrong take here.

This article relays eye-witness testimony. I'm not sure what higher level of proof is required.

I'm all for hearing both sides of the story - but the only alternative views that I can imagine here are "it didn't happen" (in which case it's a matter of people literally making up scandalous lies) or "it wasn't meant to have that effect" (which is slightly less damaging but still).

I'm trying to imagine a perspective from Clarkson, Fagan or the club that would make me feel that nothing has wrong has happened here, or that it's a misunderstanding - but I can't come up with one.

 

[Randy Campbell]

Once again the club has left me feeling blissfully ignorant.

 

[Hodgey09]

Grew up in Hawthorn, raised by a Hawthorn supporting father and the club was a constant source of family joy and bonding.

Today I’m ashamed to be a Hawthorn fan and feel utterly disgusted with what has allegedly happened and just hope any victims of these going’s on are okay.

Any guilty party deserves everything coming at them.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

AH mate - I'll assume what you're meaning by "this sort of thing" is a type of journalistic sensationalism.

I think that's really the wrong take here.

This article relays eye-witness testimony. I'm not sure what higher level of proof is required.

I'm all for hearing both sides of the story - but the only alternative views that I can imagine here are "it didn't happen" (in which case it's a matter of people literally making up scandalous lies) or "it wasn't meant to have that effect" (which is slightly less damaging but still).

I'm trying to imagine a perspective from Clarkson, Fagan or the club that would make me feel that nothing has wrong has happened here, or that it's a misunderstanding - but I can't come up with one.

You're talking to a bloke who had a tantrum on here when we renamed Waverley and had another cry on the weekend about welcome to country pre-game - pretty clear why he has the take he has today.

 

[edster]

Is it possible that these players were having trouble with their spouse and in trying to help, the people accused crossed the line. I find it hard to believe even if they have proven to have done the wrong thing that it was out of malice.

There is a line that employers do not cross unless the employee clearly ask for it. Even if "Ian" asks for help as a employee/manager I would tread carefully regardless of race/religion/gender etc. There are further help that should be provided by club like welfare managers instead of the leadership group or coaches.

Coaches job at the end of the day is there manage the on field side of things. Some times the misconception of what is a coaches role is very blurred due to personal beliefs, morals and culture. It is very important for ceo, presidents and coaches to stay within their lanes and hold everyone accountable for their own actions.

Players should feel safe enough to say to coach A. I am having trouble at home, maybe it is why I am not performing to my own expectation. "Coach A" should offer help by firstly listen and help the player to seek advice from a professional within or outside, instead of taking matters into their own hands and therefore create the mess they are in now.

 

[Hawkas1988]

Just shattered reading that. You can't help but feel ashamed to be a HFC supporter right now.

Whatever comes our way we must cop it, apologise and do whatever we can to repair the hurt we have caused. No excuses.

Sent from my SM-G977B using Tapatalk

 

[smish]

Just finished reading the article.

Like an above poster I was raised by a Hawthorn supporting father and my favourite childhood memories involve the club and the joy it's brought us.

Today I'm absolutely heartbroken, devastated, ashamed. This tarnishes the joy I experienced as a young man.

I love this club, with a family man like Sam at the helm and quality young individuals I'm optimistic we can foster a revered culture.

 

[hardway]

Disappointed in what some individuals have been accused of. I’m not ashamed of being a Hawks supporter.

 

[Aristarchus]

Pardon the intrusion.

I work for an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation and have worked predominantly with Aboriginal people (with both professionals and clients) for around 15 years.

Just a couple of observations:

Kennett
There is simply no sense of 'pisstake'/dressing-down humour in the Aboriginal communities I've worked in. I've spent hundreds of hours in the community with Aboriginal men and they can laugh constantly from the start of the day until the end, but rarely at the expense of each other. There are deep cultural reasons for this that I'm not in a position to explain. The only time I've seen this occur is when two parties are extremely angry with one another and about to 'do battle' - the intention being to inflict pain on the other and their family.

Couple this with the collective sense of 'shame' in Aboriginal and mocking someone's appearance (torn jeans) in front of another Aboriginal person. The death nail would have been the use of loose change, offering money for that person to improve their appearance. Finally, the fact it came from a powerful White male would hold deep-seated colonial trauma. It's bizarre, because I've seen an extreme range of behaviours and terms used by Aboriginal people about each other and the non-Indigenous community, but the personal takedowns just do not seem to be in the vernacular (at the base level).

Kennett meant it as an off-hand joke, there was no malice and I believe that he would've said 3 million times in his life to a range of people. But that's the perspective I imagine may have been taken.

Pregnancy
Reading between the lines, I imagine that the relationship of 'Ian' and 'Amy' was deemed to be conflictual (possible DV, trauma, domestic arguments) and at some point the club felt the player's partner was the primary issue and that they needed to step in and resolve it. I imagine the player was extremely talented and had the potential to take the club to new heights - or they simply would have allowed the player time away and delisted them at season's end.

This is a mistake non-Indigenous people in power make time and time again - I've witnessed this heavily in the Child Protection and Justice system. A problem is identified, and a solution is actioned based on the decision of powerful non-Indigenous people (justified in the best interests of the afflicted party).

Again, the road to hell here is paved with good intentions - we as non-Indigenous people think of binary solutions that create exponential/logarithmic outcomes (i.e. cutting off the issue leads to X10 performance from our product). The binary thinking comes from a 'that party is the issue, and they must be stopped. Terminate, remove and cut-off is the way to address this. From there, our product will now meet another party who is a better influence. Their performance will multiply and we will consider this a success'.

An Aboriginal community response is much more layered - it involves a great deal of deep and reflective listening (dadirri), it involves a lot more family members and input, and the solutions are rarely linear and will unlikely align with a simple model of product success/failure. One thing I will say, is that every solution will likely include more family contact, connection and engagement. Not less. We as non-Aboriginal people are the experts at subtraction and removal (imprisonment, removal into care, removal of freedoms and liberties) which is what has been applied here.

Moral of the Story? I don't know if one, two or any of those people deserve to be sacked or cut off forever - none of your staff are individually morally corrupted. This is a deep-seated, systemic issue that's been in place since 1788. It involves hundreds of years of differently evolved thought and values between two cultures that couldn't be more different. All we need is more education and understanding to work through this over the coming generations. For God sake the majority of Aboriginal players in your State come from distances that would be considered from one end of Europe to the other, find ways of bringing in culture and Aboriginal people that are specific to their needs - it's 2022. And when things get really hairy, let them be the ones to form the circle, to start and finish their Yarns as their custom dictates.

I genuinely hope your club doesn't swing the axe here - try something that doesn't remove, subtract or eliminate. Trust me - It's been done.

Thank you for taking the time to post. Feel like I have learned a lot.

 

[josephine666]

I am having trouble believing the allegations in the ABC article. Obviously I don't know what was in the report and there is no denying there have been several racist incidents at Hawthorn which demonstrate the need for much better cultural awareness and change, but some of the anecdotes in the article I find unbelievable.

Could some of the allegations simply be a very different interpretation of what was being said? Hodge this morning on receiving a message from the club as a youngster "is it the right thing for me to go back and see family and friends in Colac because of catching up and my diet wasn’t great and is it the best thing for my football". That message could be interpreted very differently by another 18 year old from a very different cultural background. Other allegations such as pressure to have an abortion just seem too bizarre to be factual. Of course this is just my opinion, but I can only make it based on what I have observed from the outside and how players (indigenous or otherwise) have talked so positively about how Hawthorn (and Clarko) have been to them and their families during their careers.

I remember when we were looking to give a certain indigenous player a life-line by drafting him about a decade ago. It was well known he had a drug problem and why other clubs wouldn't go near him, but we obviously thought the Hawthorn system could help. Well, we were wrong, he was with us for only 6 months and sadly he left and went back to a life of meth and the associated crimes to feed the addiction. I was surprised to read an article and quote from that player that he got his meth addiction while AT the Hawks. I know this wasn't true, I imagine the journalist knew this wasn't true either, but they still printed the story. I wonder if this person was interviewed. Maybe the SIM story was nothing to do with contacting family but was an attempt to stop him contacting his dealer. That would make a bit more sense to me.

 

[Blackhawk42]

Just shattered reading that. You can't help but feel ashamed to be a HFC supporter right now.

Whatever comes our way we must cop it, apologise and do whatever we can to repair the hurt we have caused. No excuses.

Sent from my SM-G977B using Tapatalk

I'm ashamed that the individuals are so heavily involved in the successful era of the Hawthorn football club.

Am I ashamed in general at the Hawthorn football club? No. That isn't fair on Sam and the current playing group. Or the people involved back then who had no idea what had taken place.

 

[Sixpence]

I'm all for hearing both sides of the story - but the only alternative views that I can imagine here are "it didn't happen" (in which case it's a matter of people literally making up scandalous lies) or "it wasn't meant to have that effect" (which is slightly less damaging but still).

Another, more likely, one is "I said this, but they've taken it as this". Which simply comes down to miscommunication. Doesn't mean the victim shouldn't feel aggrieved, but may mean whoever said it doesn't deserve to be lynched.

My mum is great at this, takes a comment, rephrases it to something that sounds similar but has a completely different and far more negative meaning.

It really stresses why we need to hear both sides.

 

[threesixpio]

Reeves statements are a bit better

 

[Cheersquad71]

Not an enlightening media conference. Gave the impression the board knows something serious has happened without the slightest clue about why or how to respond. Being ‘disappointed’ that some past players ‘feel‘ this way is a far cry from acknowledging that the key leadership of the club as far as the players were concerned appear to have acted in an egregiously damaging and racist way.

 

[danielG]

Pardon the intrusion.

I work for an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation and have worked predominantly with Aboriginal people (with both professionals and clients) for around 15 years.

Just a couple of observations:

Kennett
There is simply no sense of 'pisstake'/dressing-down humour in the Aboriginal communities I've worked in. I've spent hundreds of hours in the community with Aboriginal men and they can laugh constantly from the start of the day until the end, but rarely at the expense of each other. There are deep cultural reasons for this that I'm not in a position to explain. The only time I've seen this occur is when two parties are extremely angry with one another and about to 'do battle' - the intention being to inflict pain on the other and their family.

Couple this with the collective sense of 'shame' in Aboriginal culture and mocking someone's appearance (torn jeans) in front of another Aboriginal person. The death nail would have been the use of loose change, offering money for that person to improve their appearance. Finally, the fact it came from a powerful White male would hold deep-seated colonial trauma. It's bizarre, because I've seen an extreme range of behaviours and terms used by Aboriginal people about each other and the non-Indigenous community, but the personal takedowns just do not seem to be in the vernacular (at the base level).

Kennett meant it as an off-hand joke, there was no malice and I believe that he would've said 3 million times in his life to a range of people. But that's the perspective I imagine may have been taken.

Pregnancy
Reading between the lines, I imagine that the relationship of 'Ian' and 'Amy' was deemed to be conflictual (possible DV, trauma, domestic arguments) and at some point the club felt the player's partner was the primary issue and that they needed to step in and resolve it. I imagine the player was extremely talented and had the potential to take the club to new heights - or they simply would have allowed the player time away and delisted them at season's end.

This is a mistake non-Indigenous people in power make time and time again - I've witnessed this heavily in the Child Protection and Justice system. A problem is identified, and a solution is actioned based on the decision of powerful non-Indigenous people (justified in the best interests of the afflicted party).

Again, the road to hell here is paved with good intentions - we as non-Indigenous people think of binary solutions that create exponential/logarithmic outcomes (i.e. cutting off the issue leads to X10 performance from our product). The binary thinking comes from a 'that party is the issue, and they must be stopped. Terminate, remove and cut-off is the way to address this. From there, our product will now meet another party who is a better influence. Their performance will multiply and we will consider this a success'.

An Aboriginal community response is much more layered - it involves a great deal of deep and reflective listening (dadirri), it involves a lot more family members and input, and the solutions are rarely linear and will unlikely align with a simple model of product success/failure. One thing I will say, is that every solution will likely include more family contact, connection and engagement. Not less. We as non-Aboriginal people are the experts at subtraction and removal (imprisonment, removal into care, removal of freedoms and liberties) which is what has been applied here.

Moral of the Story? I don't know if one, two or any of those people deserve to be sacked or cut off forever - none of your staff are individually morally corrupted. This is a deep-seated, systemic issue that's been in place since 1788. It involves hundreds of years of differently evolved thought and values between two cultures that couldn't be more different. All we need is more education and understanding to work through this over the coming generations. For God sake the majority of Aboriginal players in your State come from distances that would be considered from one end of Europe to the other, find ways of bringing in culture and Aboriginal people that are specific to their needs - it's 2022. And when things get really hairy, let them be the ones to form the circle, to start and finish their Yarns as their custom dictates.

I genuinely hope your club doesn't swing the axe here - try something that doesn't remove, subtract or eliminate. Trust me - It's been done.

Brilliantly put. I’m more educated for having read that.. thank you.

 

[Lickmesocks]

Is it possible that these players were having trouble with their spouse and in trying to help, the people accused crossed the line. I find it hard to believe even if they have proven to have done the wrong thing that it was out of malice.

Yes very possible. Player X could of been in a meeting where the coach’s are asking him if anything was wrong and then decided to try and sort out the issue themselves and perhaps now only realising the hurt and ramifications that were caused by these actions.

We need to hear from the people being accused.

 

[Leather Poisoning]

Another, more likely, one is "I said this, but they've taken it as this". Which simply comes down to miscommunication. Doesn't mean the victim shouldn't feel aggrieved, but may mean whoever said it doesn't deserve to be lynched.

My mum is great at this, takes a comment, rephrases it to something that sounds similar but has a completely different and far more negative meaning.

It really stresses why we need to hear both sides.

Yep - and I would be open to that possibility if not for the examples of the player sitting there next to his partner with the coach telling her "this won't be a pleasant conversation"

These anecdotes are too detailed to be a matter of interpretation in my view. Why Clarkson would be anywhere near a player in the middle of them leaving their partner is completely bizarre and intrusive and wrong.

 

[hk89]

Just horrible. Like reading a report on the stolen generation. Hard to imagine what those involved at the club were thinking at the time. Will wait to hear both sides of the story, but hard to see how you can explain away three very similar sets of witness reports. Puts some of the negative feelings Cyril recently expressed into a bit more context too.

 

[TylerDurden]

Yep - and I would be open to that possibility if not for the examples of the player sitting there next to his partner with the coach telling her "this won't be a pleasant conversation"

These anecdotes are too detailed to be a matter of interpretation in my view. Why Clarkson would be anywhere near a player in the middle of them leaving their partner is completely bizarre and intrusive and wrong.

It's cult leader like behaviour.
It almost doesn't read right.

 

[Hawk Vision]

I have worked at a high level at another club, and often when there is smoke there is fire. However let the AFL do it’s job, there will be more to this. Football clubs are bizarre places. At this point they’re allegations, horrible ones though I agree, we should all be disappointed, but Hawthorn is an exceptional football club and in my view (and only my view) we may want to reserve judgement until all the facts are clear.

 

[RX Hawk]

AH mate - I'll assume what you're meaning by "this sort of thing" is a type of journalistic sensationalism.

I think that's really the wrong take here.

This article relays eye-witness testimony. I'm not sure what higher level of proof is required.

I'm all for hearing both sides of the story - but the only alternative views that I can imagine here are "it didn't happen" (in which case it's a matter of people literally making up scandalous lies) or "it wasn't meant to have that effect" (which is slightly less damaging but still).

I'm trying to imagine a perspective from Clarkson, Fagan or the club that would make me feel that nothing has wrong has happened here, or that it's a misunderstanding - but I can't come up with one.

Well said mate. My worry is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Not one at least 3 players have come forward and that may give the courage needed for others to come up with more. Even Cyril - I don't think we all know the full story and even he may open up more. Forget Club - forget this family club BS and let's think of all the victims and how they feel and the trauma they had to under go. Yes I have heard only one side of the story but there is no smoke without a fire and it's burning our club right now.

 

[Bruno Oresar]

Another, more likely, one is "I said this, but they've taken it as this". Which simply comes down to miscommunication. Doesn't mean the victim shouldn't feel aggrieved, but may mean whoever said it doesn't deserve to be lynched.

My mum is great at this, takes a comment, rephrases it to something that sounds similar but has a completely different and far more negative meaning.

It really stresses why we need to hear both sides.

We don’t live in a world where both sides are relevant anymore.

 

[HairyO]

The article clearly states that Clarkson and Fagan were approached to comment and did not respond prior to publication. The article indicates that Hawthorn chose not to respond to the questions put to it by the journalist, and the article sets out a statement from Hawthorn which I believe is the statement Hawthorn published on its website earlier today.

Having sought comment from Clarkson, Fagan and the Hawthorn Football Club, and once the internal checks have been completed, there was no reason for the ABC to hold back on the publication of the story.

And given there was no reply from those accused they open themselves up to defamation lawsuits down the track.

They would have known full-well that the accused were not going to respond.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

We don’t live in a world where both sides are relevant anymore.

Curious if you were playing the 'now now, let's wait until James Hird and the *34 have their day in courts shall we' card when it came to the doping regime?

 

[Spanish Sahara]

Interesting that Kennett won't be doing it. Feel for Nank - first press conference is this absolute dumpster fire of a situation.

Kennett is overseas at the moment so probably understandable why he isn't.