Anthony Mundine Research Paper

Anthony Mundine Biography
Anthony Mundine is an Aboriginal Australian professional boxer and former rugby league player and he is currently the WBC Silver Super Welterweight Champion. Before his move to boxing he was the highest paid player in the NRL. He was born in May 21, 1975, he is 1.8m tall and is the son to Tony and Lyn Mundine.
Anthony, or better known as ‘The Man’ Mundine grew up in Redfern, Sydney, An Aboriginal community within Sydney, where Anthony’s father’s gym is situated. Anthony took some of his teammate’s home with him to visit Redfern, so that they could bear witness to the poor conditions in which Aboriginal people had to live. Despite its poor condition and well-publicized street violence, Anthony claims that Redfern is

Poppa Mundine who was Anthony’s grandfather, who suffered from alcoholism. While Anthony, like his father, is personally dispised to drug use, he does not harshly judge his grandfather. Rather, he sees his grandfather’s problems with alcohol as a side-effect of having to deal with deaths in the family and racism. Eileen McGuinness who was Mundine’s second grandmother, who he describes as a member of the infamous ‘‘stolen generation’’. Another key role model for Anthony was Solomon Haumono, or ‘‘Solo’’ a childhood and lifelong friend of Anthony’s, whose father was also a professional boxer. Anthony describes Solo as a “soul brother”, “special pal”, as well as, and a “blood brother” which expresses just how close the two were. Anthony described Solo as an immensely “spiritual person” and claims he played a large role in converting him to Islam. Eventually Solo decided to resign from football to pursue his religious studies. Anthony was angered at the time, however he eventually began to respect Solo’s

Mundine also describes his emotional response to that day, and claims that the yearly celebrations of European settlement on Australia Day fill him with a “terrible feeling of emptiness and loneliness that only we, the Aborigines, know”. Mundine also expresses his tremendous outrage at, the confiscation of Aboriginal children, without their parent’s consent, and he complains about Prime Minister John Howard’s denial to make a formal apology to the race for government policies. Mundine relates his own personal and harsh experiences of racism. The claims that his Aboriginality was not a frequent issue for him before the young age of nine. When racism did arise, Mundine frequently resorted to force to quickly defend himself. Mundine explains that, while he became more docile in later life, he found violence was a very effective way of silencing racist comments in his youth. When Anthony resigned from the Rugby League, he gave the racist culture surrounding the sport as one of his many reasons. This includes being hurtfully described as a “black c***” by Barry Ward, for which Barry was fined $10,000. Anthony also believes that the harsh criticism he has received for being outspoken and controversial is clearly due to his