#8 Heritier Lumumba

[September Zeros]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-01/family-sex-abuse-survivor-took-rage-out-on-partner/10155992

It may have been even harder than most of us imagined.

Certainly gives perspective on Lumumba reverting to his birth father's surname. 2013 his brother reveals abuse, Dec-2013 Heritier announces the name change. At the time he outlined wanting to acknowledge his father's heritage, but the timeline also fits this.

Adds allot of perspective ......

[luvdids]

Interesting timing, when she was 13 Harry would've been in Melbourne playing for Collingwood. I assume he must have known about his brother though.

Ridiculous assumption. Why would anyone assume that? Because child molesters do their molesting out in the open, so that the whole family know about it?

What a difficult life H & his family have had. I've always wished the best for H, now for the whole O'Brien family.

[David]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-01/family-sex-abuse-survivor-took-rage-out-on-partner/10155992

It may have been even harder than most of us imagined.

Certainly gives perspective on Lumumba reverting to his birth father's surname. 2013 his brother reveals abuse, Dec-2013 Heritier announces the name change. At the time he outlined wanting to acknowledge his father's heritage, but the timeline also fits this.

Adds allot of perspective ......

Adds a lot of perspective to the vile abuse and mockery directed at Lumumba by Collingwood supporters on these boards for years, no small amount of it surrounding his decision to change his name (which was mostly characterised as pretentious and a prima donna move). Hope some people are feeling pretty bad about that right now, though I wouldn't count on it.

[SwansWay]

Certainly gives perspective on Lumumba reverting to his birth father's surname. 2013 his brother reveals abuse, Dec-2013 Heritier announces the name change. At the time he outlined wanting to acknowledge his father's heritage, but the timeline also fits this.

Adds allot of perspective ......

Adds a lot of perspective to the vile abuse and mockery directed at Lumumba by Collingwood supporters on these boards for years, no small amount of it surrounding his decision to change his name (which was mostly characterised as pretentious and a prima donna move). Hope some people are feeling pretty bad about that right now, though I wouldn't count on it.

It's true that online vitriol has a way of ignoring nuance and jumping straight to the lowest form of personal attacks which is why I avoid social media which has reduced humanity to a simple for and against vote. Obviously this story adds perspective to his personal problems. I never doubted for a second that Harry wasn't dealing with demons. As a person who has suffered with severe clinical depression for most of my life, I completely sympathise. And even though I've had people to blame and sometimes I fall back into that mindset, I know deep down that from here on out, it's all on me and how I choose to deal with it. Either in a regressive way or productively. It's NEVER smooth sailing and fortunately most of us don't have to work our issues out in the public eye.

That being said, I'm sure there were many people who were primarily reacting to H's extreme ideological positions that continue the cycle of oversimplifying complex matters and political rhetoric is all about the narrowest possible interpretation of people or events. There were unfounded accusations of racism and I'm sure I can remember him calling out the "patriarchy" and fulminating against and flat out denouncing white men in general. It's important to remember that we can't blame people for an accident of birth such as the colour of one's skin or ethnicity no more than we ought to only celebrate anybody for that same reason. Judge people by the content of their character as Martin Luther King said.

Once somebody starts adopting the language of radical politics on either end of the spectrum, it tends to put moderate people offside in its divisiveness. I mean you're no longer speaking to a person so much as a cardboard cut-out effigy of a person who has been possessed by doctrinaire conceptions of how to redress issues that fall way beyond the scope of the simplistic ideology that claims a simple fix to all manner of complicated problems.

Nobody is perfect and I don't doubt that H's suffered trauma just like many of us have. So what I'm saying is it's possible for both things to be true at once. For H to be justified in feeling angry and out-of-line in how he chooses to deal with the problem. Being a victim of some form doesn't mean you are a victim in every instance.

No matter what, H is a Collingwood champion and I'm sure nobody will forget that. I haven't. It might have ended in acrimony between him and the club but hopefully time heals all wounds.

[RudeBoy]

A very good and well expressed opinion SwansWay.

I agree with about 90% of what you said. My only difference would be that sometimes 'radical' positions are needed to deal with extreme problems. Not everything in the world can be discussed/argued in moderate/polite terms. However, that said, your main point about simplistic slogans as often being unhelpful in dealing with complex issues is spot on.

[K]

...
There were unfounded accusations of racism...

At the risk of reviving a topic discussed at length in two locked threads, I'll say I'm not sure to what exactly you refer, but certain allegations about historical events were completely substantiated.

[SwansWay]

...
There were unfounded accusations of racism...

At the risk of reviving a topic discussed at length in two locked threads, I'll say I'm not sure to what exactly you refer, but certain events alleged to have taken place were completely substantiated.

Like calling Waleed Aly a white supremacist for one. That was a real head scratcher. You can lose credibility when making outrageous claims like that.

I'm not saying there weren't instances where something was said by someone in particular, but he painted racism with a pretty broad brush.

[RudeBoy]

...
There were unfounded accusations of racism...

At the risk of reviving a topic discussed at length in two locked threads, I'll say I'm not sure to what exactly you refer, but certain events alleged to have taken place were completely substantiated.

Like calling Waleed Aly a white supremacist for one. That was a real head scratcher. You can lose credibility when making outrageous claims like that.

I'm not saying there weren't instances where something was said by someone in particular, but he painted racism with a pretty broad brush.

He turned on the very people who did the most to support him. Very self indulgent and very sad.

[stui magpie]

Interesting timing, when she was 13 Harry would've been in Melbourne playing for Collingwood. I assume he must have known about his brother though.

Ridiculous assumption. Why would anyone assume that? Because child molesters do their molesting out in the open, so that the whole family know about it?

I explained my assumption in another post, it may well be incorrect but I don't think it's ridiculous

What a difficult life H & his family have had. I've always wished the best for H, now for the whole O'Brien family.

I'd agree with that. He may need some time to go through the cycle though.

[luvdids]

Interesting timing, when she was 13 Harry would've been in Melbourne playing for Collingwood. I assume he must have known about his brother though.

Ridiculous assumption. Why would anyone assume that? Because child molesters do their molesting out in the open, so that the whole family know about it?

I explained my assumption in another post, it may well be incorrect but I don't think it's ridiculous

^
They were closer in age and had grown up together in Brazil (I think) before coming to Australia. You'd think H would've noticed what was happening, that's all.

Is this the explanation? Still just an assumption - like the molesting was being done in the lounge room so H would've "noticed"??!

[Albert Parker]

Ridiculous assumption. Why would anyone assume that? Because child molesters do their molesting out in the open, so that the whole family know about it?

I explained my assumption in another post, it may well be incorrect but I don't think it's ridiculous

^
They were closer in age and had grown up together in Brazil (I think) before coming to Australia. You'd think H would've noticed what was happening, that's all.

Is this the explanation? Still just an assumption - like the molesting was being done in the lounge room so H would've "noticed"??!

I don't think that you can assume that H knew about his father's behaviours at the time. I think the changing of his name is as good a sign as any that he didn't know about it and was disgusted enough to take action when he finally found out.

Well put SwansWay, as well, in your earlier post. People are quick to take pot shots on social media and forums like this. The longer I live, the more empathetic I try to be and the more I realise the extent of mental illness that pervades in this society and how tortured some people are.

[stui magpie]

Ridiculous assumption. Why would anyone assume that? Because child molesters do their molesting out in the open, so that the whole family know about it?

I explained my assumption in another post, it may well be incorrect but I don't think it's ridiculous

^
They were closer in age and had grown up together in Brazil (I think) before coming to Australia. You'd think H would've noticed what was happening, that's all.

Is this the explanation? Still just an assumption - like the molesting was being done in the lounge room so H would've "noticed"??!

I said it was an assumption, I never pretended it was a fact. No I don't think the molesting was being done on the dining room table during family meals FFS, I was more thinking that there would have to be some change in behaviour by his brother that H should have picked up on if they were close. Maybe his brother was a really good actor or maybe H was too wrapped up in his own world to notice.

In hindsight, I seem to recall H was fairly cut up when his step dad suicided, so he may not have known details but if it came as a complete shock to find out I'd be extremely surprised.

[23 YIPPEE!!!]

Reports this is still on going and could end up in the courts harry has voiced his intentions on taking Collingwood to court

[WhyPhilWhy?]

Given the source of his pain, you might want to consider calling him by his preferred name...

[dalyc]

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/not ... 5ad4f.html