List Mgmt. Ben Amarfio - has resigned as our CEO - Thank you Ben

[Snake_Baker]

You people are ****ed now. I am going all the way to THE TOP!

Dear Ben Amarfio,

I am being socio-politically villified by the following posters at bigfooty.com

1) Chadwiko
2) Arden
3) SimpkinOnTheDockOfTheBay (yeah, I laughed too)
4) Thewlis Dish
5) north_lad

Could you please conduct an investigation and have them removed from the NMFC membership list. We don't need those "types" around here.

Kind regards, your friend

Snake Baker

 

[Devington]

That incident when playing footy as a kid is unbelievable. Bloody hell.

It's completely believable. Humans are, were, and always will be primarily ruled by our lizard brain whether we want to or not. The outgroup will always trigger negative responses, whether that be based on their skin color, ideology, age, sexuality or anything else you can think of.

 

[LB2Snake]

It's completely believable. Humans are, were, and always will be primarily ruled by our lizard brain whether we want to or not. The outgroup will always trigger negative responses, whether that be based on their skin color, ideology, age, sexuality or anything else you can think of.

Sadly, you are correct. It's still pretty inconceivable that it happened though. I grey up in the outer eastern suburbs and I never remember seeing anything like that, not abuse like that.
Racial prejudice, sure, but outwardly expressed like that, from little old ladies....gezuz!

 

[Rod Stroker]

North Melbne CEO Ben Amarfio opens up about the lifetime of racial abuse he has suffered
Ben Amarfio was 16 and had just broken his wrist when two elderly women told him to, ‘Go back to the jungle’. It is one horrible example in what has been a lifetime of racial abuse that has followed the North Melbourne CEO.
Michael Warner, Herald Sun
Subscriber only
|
June 19, 2020 12:50pm

FOXSPORTS1:42 'Brave' Lumumba receives support from ex-teammate

AFL: Former Magpies player Tony Armstrong has come to the defence of former teammate Heritier Lumumba following his racism claims against Collingwood.

Ben Amarfio is 16 and trudging off a northern suburbs footy ground with a busted wrist.
He’s writhing in pain and heading to the bench in the hands of a trainer.
As he crosses the boundary, two hard-bitten women in their 70s hang over the fence and spit out the words that will haunt him for life.

“Go back to the jungle you f---ing dirty n-----. That’s where you belong. You deserve that broken wrist,” Amarfio recalls.
“After years of abuse, even I was surprised by that.
“When you’re a kid, you just don’t expect to cop it from grandmothers as well.”
As racism rears its ugly head in the football world yet again, North Melbourne’s newly installed chief executive choked back tears as he opened up on his own lifetime of pain.
As a man with black skin, Amarfio knows only too well the harsh reality of racism in Australia.
But it was not always as blatant as it was playing A-grade under 17s in the Essendon District Football League all those years ago.


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Ben Amarfio is joined by Paul Ahern, Matt McGuinness, Aiden Bonar, Majak Daw, Jed Anderson, Tarryn Thomas, Marley Williams, Kyron Hayden, Jy Simpkin and Aaron Hall as North Melbourne takes a stand against racism. Picture: Jake Nowakowski
Even as a younger boy, the son of a Ghanaian father (a professional boxer coincidently brought to Australia by former Kangaroos chairman Ron Casey in the 1960s) and Armenian mother, he felt the sting of prejudice growing up in outer-suburban Melbourne playing local footy and cricket.
“Back in those days the hygiene wasn’t what it is today — and you’d pass the cordial bottle around and everyone would take a swig from it … ” Amarfio recalled as his voice trailed off and he began to cry.
“And then, I’d swig from the bottle and the next kid wouldn’t want to touch it …
“So mate, stuff like that happened all the time.
“When I reflect, s---, it’s been tough sometimes.”
Amarfio said he was still confronted with the scourge of casual racism — the subtle side-step, the disdainful look and physical avoidance.
“I was walking down a major high street one day and a mother had her two young children on either side of her,” he said.
“I was walking towards her — and I was dressed smartly, so there were no cues for her to be alarmed — and she hurriedly clutched her children and pulled them under her arm, away from me.

“They look at you, they look you up and down and literally pull their children out of your way and visibly take a sidestep.”
The Roos boss said he had encountered “hundreds of those types of instances”.
“And I’m sure other black people have experienced the same,” Amarfio said as his voice broke again.
“I was getting a sandwich one day at a cafe in the Docklands. The server would place people’s change into their outstretched cupped hands. I put my hand out to accept my change, but instead of placing the change into my cupped hand, they put the change on the counter and pushed the money towards me and stepped back.
“Mate, that’s the sort of stuff that still happens.”
But his mother, Lily, taught him how to confront racism and persuade people to change their behaviour.
“I was in grade one and I used to come home after primary school crying every day because of the racial abuse and taunting,” Amarfio said.
“I remember my mother dragged me by the hand one day and she said, ‘I’m fed up with this’.
“She took me to the principal’s office and she said, ‘I want to see the boys who are picking on my son’.
“They lined up about four of the kids who had been giving me a hard time. She asked every kid, ‘Do you have a pet dog at home? And every kid said, ‘Yep’. She asked if they loved their pet dog. And every kid said, ‘Yep’. And she said, ‘Right, and what is the colour of your pet dog? What sort of dog is it?’

Ben Amarfio has been exposed to racism all his life. Picture: AAP Images
“One was a sandy-coloured labrador, one was a tan coloured bulldog, one was a little spotty-coloured dog and she said, ‘Right, do you care what colour your dog is?’
“And the kids were like, ‘No. We don’t care what colour they are’. And then she said, ‘Well why do you give my son a hard time just because he’s got different coloured skin to you?’.
“To five and six-year-old kids, that really resonated because they could see in a very simple way that she was right.
“I was standing there when she did that. And the kid who was my worst tormentor and used to give me the most s--- everyday eventually ended up being my best mate through primary school.
“I know my experiences aren’t unique. I feel for the many others who have had it worse than me.”
Appalled by this week’s racial attack on Carlton’s Eddie Betts and inspired by his mother’s philosophy of dealing with racism front on, Amarfio and 12 of his Kangaroos players of diverse backgrounds have penned a club statement.
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It talks about the faiths and cultures that make up the Australian community and the “punch to the gut” that is everyday racism by the “ignorant few”.
“Football and footballers can play such a crucial role here because of the standing the game has in our community,” Amarfio said.
“If people can see that this is what their role models are doing and saying, then maybe they will think there is some substance to it and something they should be taking notice of.
“And for me, racism and prejudice stems largely from ignorance and fear. That’s the root of it and so you’ve got to deal with the root of it.
“We’ve got to break down the ignorance and fear.
“That’s how we’ll change it.”
NORTH MELBOURNE STATEMENT ON RACISM
North Melbourne is a diverse club. Many faiths and many cultures. White, brown and black brothers and sisters all cohabitating in an inner-city club that is our home away from home.
But sometimes, and it only needs to happen once, when we step outside of our footy clubs, homes or venture online, we are exposed to the harsh reality of prejudice and racism.
As young boys and girls, black kids are often told: ‘Don’t worry, we are all one. We are all the same. We are all brothers and sisters.’ But once you experience that not everyone has the same understanding, it hits you, like a punch to the gut.
We are proud of our heritage. Our work mates are from all corners of the world and our players are white, Indigenous Australian, African, Fijian, Maori and Papuan. We’ve all heard the poisonous nicknames which get thrown around by the ignorant few.
Sometimes it’s overt. More often than not it’s subtle or casual. Regardless, the effects are long lasting, compound over time and cut just as deep.
We often ask, why is this? Why do some wish to label and divide?
For those who still seek to see differences instead of commonality, we remind them that our blood is red, just like yours. Our brains are composed of neurons, just like yours. Our hearts beat the same as yours do. We have hopes and dreams, just like you.
We also have feelings and we are hurt when you treat us as something lesser simply because of our heritage, or the colour of our skin. All we ask is that you judge us by our character and behaviour, instead of our colour, and that you kneel with us, not on us.
- Ben Amarfio, Jed Anderson, Jy Simpkin, Aiden Bonar, Matt McGuinness, Majak Daw, Tarryn Thomas, Marley Williams, Aaron Hall, Paul Ahern, Kyron Hayden, Kaitlyn Ashmore and Mia King

Really poor form from the HUN that they are forcing people to have to pay to read an article like that.

 

[Wonderdog]

You people are f’ed now. I am going all the way to THE TOP!

Dear Ben Amarfio,

I am being socio-politically villified by the following posters at bigfooty.com

1) Chadwiko
2) Arden
3) SimpkinOnTheDockOfTheBay (yeah, I laughed too)
4) Thewlis Dish
5) north_lad

Could you please conduct an investigation and have them removed from the NMFC membership list. We don't need those "types" around here.

Kind regards, your friend

Snake Baker

Are you being vilified because of the colour of your skin or your expressed opinions. You can control one but not the other.

 

[The Nostradamus]

 

[Snake_Baker]

Are you being vilified because of the colour of your skin or your expressed opinions. You can control one but not the other.

Or what? Endure more cyberbullying because I don't step in line with the pack? I think I'll survive.

 

[The Warlord]

I keep reading about how a poster who doesn't like JMac should go down to training and front him.

If people think all this race stuff is overblown, they should go front Amarfio and tell him.

Or front Jed Anderson and tell him how Aboriginal people don't face any discrimination and also are super backward primitives who never even invented the wheel.

Or tell Aidan Bonar to his face how black people don't get targeted by police and he's just a virtue signalling snowflake.

That'd make for some grouse content for the club socials.

 

[Snake_Baker]

I keep reading about how a poster who doesn't like JMac should go down to training and front him.

If people think all this race stuff is overblown, they should go front Amarfio and tell him.

Or front Jed Anderson and tell him how Aboriginal people don't face any discrimination and also are super backward primitives who never even invented the wheel.

Or tell Aidan Bonar to his face how black people don't get targeted by police and he's just a virtue signalling snowflake.

That'd make for some grouse content for the club socials.

Why hide behind them? You're the one whining and you know where to find me.

Your intolerance of anything outside your echo chamber is pathetic. You're a classic example of the exact reason I rail against all this bullshit.

 

[The Warlord]

Lol, so you're not going to front them.

Righto.

 

[ferball]

Lol, so you're not going to front them.

Righto.

He won't.

 

[SpiderBurton22]

Big blow hard, full of piss and wind.

Railing against SJW's one internet post at a time.

 

[north_lad]

You people are f’ed now. I am going all the way to THE TOP!

Dear Ben Amarfio,

I am being socio-politically villified by the following posters at bigfooty.com

1) Chadwiko
2) Arden
3) SimpkinOnTheDockOfTheBay (yeah, I laughed too)
4) Thewlis Dish
5) north_lad

Could you please conduct an investigation and have them removed from the NMFC membership list. We don't need those "types" around here.

Kind regards, your friend

Snake Baker

I thought you weren't going to renew your membership because the club was run by pussies or some s**t

 

[year of the roo]

Someone said some bad things to me 30+ years ago too.

I got over it.

lol. No you didn't.

 

[7577969923]

When you see the fragility of some white men on this issue and how they can't cope with someone like Ben Amarfio sharing his story of enduring racial prejudice in his life, you can only imagine how badly they would cope if they were the ones subject to prejudice and abuse purely on the basis of a biological trait beyond their control.
If anyone thinks to have their opinions criticised and racial prejudice are equivalent then is highly likely they are beyond reason on this subject.

 

[Snake_Baker]

lol. No you didn't.

Phew.

I was worried there for a minute, as it's not like you to ever dip out on a good pile on.

 

[Snake_Baker]

I thought

I don't believe you.

Shall we do it again?

Here goes.................. ................"I got over it"

 

[ferball]

Why hide behind them? You're the one whining and you know where to find me.

Your intolerance of anything outside your echo chamber is pathetic. You're a classic example of the exact reason I rail against all this bullshit.

Specifically why is this bullshit and what about the CEOs experience is so good that you don't object to it?

 

[Waussie]

Powerful image

 

[Snake_Baker]

Do you folks ever wonder if you're a tad unstable?

 

[kaboom kid]

I'm rather flattered by the emotional investment on your behalf.

May your righteousness spill out of your ears and cover the whole world in rainbow colored rivers of toffee.

Cheers.

Too right. I reckon there's a clear uptick in our performance since Ben Brown announced the Gender Equality Action Plan. Ben Amarfio's statement should see us secure a top 4 finish with ease.

 

[tazaa]

That incident when playing footy as a kid is unbelievable. Bloody hell.

Play in the same league as Amarfio did and whether someone gets called a bogan or a wog or a junkie on the field and tempers may flare, people of color will always have it ten times worse.
Can only imagine what Ben went through and as someone who has had dark colored teammates in the past, quite simply they need to work extra hard in order for you to like them, or to become mates and it’s just because of their skin color and how they’re viewed in the locker room. It’s wrong.
On a lesser scale same goes for anyone of asian descent, european and middle eastern descent. But never as hard as a person of color. Pigmentation is everything and good on the Boss for sharing. Will do a world of good.

 

[ferball]

Play in the same league as Amarfio did and whether someone gets called a bogan or a wog or a junkie on the field and tempers may flare, people of color will always have it ten times worse.
Can only imagine what Ben went through and as someone who has had dark colored teammates in the past, quite simply they need to work extra hard in order for you to like them, or to become mates and it’s just because of their skin color and how they’re viewed in the locker room. It’s wrong.
On a lesser scale same goes for anyone of asian decent, european and middle eastern decent. But never as hard as a person of color. Pigmentation is everything and good on the Boss for sharing. Will do a world of good.

I bet he didn't get many frees.

 

[DesertRoo]

Hey does anyone know the story with Ben and Ron Casey??

 

[Snake_Baker]

Lol, so you're not going to front them.

Righto.

Lol, so you're not going to front them me.

Righto.

Continue to play the hero here for your adoring audience, because we both know you don't have the intestinal fortitude to do it in the real world.

You're as piss weak as them.