Race & Racism

In preparation for this week hosting IndigenousX to talk about Black Rainbow and why I started it and why I have persevered challenged me to look inward for first time in a very long time.  I will share some horrific personal experiences, not all of them, in an attempt to provide perhaps some context for what drives me and why I believe what Black Rainbow is trying to do is so vitally important.

‘Indigenous despair is not a matter of good fortune or bad; it is an enabling apparatus to the colonial project, cleverly disguised behind an agenda of benevolence and good intentions.’

In this last year, events including Indigenous youth being assaulted in detention, the killing of young Elijah Doherty and the treatment of refugees on Manus Island, have highlighted Australian race relations are not as they should be. Having recently been elected unopposed to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Australia has a fundamental obligation to ensure that it acts as a world leader in regards to human rights.

“Systemic and shocking failures”; “Regular, repeated and distressing mistreatment”; “Ignored at the highest levels”: these are the findings of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, which on Friday released their report describing a brutal and barbaric injustice system for kids.

The visit of the founders of Black Lives Matter to accept the Sydney peace prize should be leveraged by First Nations, indeed by all people of colour in Australia plus our allies and advocates, as a mechanism to have our agendas infiltrate mainstream forums at an international level and work towards redressing the raft of issues that affect us.

Last week was a pretty big week in Australian politics. Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the Queensland election, the Australian Workers’ Union (Bill Shorten’s former union) was raided by the Australian federal police.

‘Most Australians, and our international visitors, first learn about Indigenous people through conversations that are often grounded in disadvantage’ 

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has today released its 2016 Causes of Death data which includes annual national suicide information. Analysis provided by Mindframe revealed that 162 (119 male, 43 female) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people died by suicide, which is slightly higher than the 152 recorded in 2015.

The small township of Bourke in far western New South Wales is a small speck of dust swimming in a vast ocean of ruby red dirt and is home to the Barkindji people since time immemorial.

On September 13 the United Nations will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Australia was initially opposed to the Declaration, but now supports it. Bidding for seat on the UN Human Rights Council, our government also promotes itself as a model human rights citizen.

As a light skinned Koori, when you first meet me you probably won’t realise I’m Indigenous. Throughout my life that’s led to some interesting situations, especially as a journalist reporting on Indigenous issues for nearly five years now.

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a Whovian. Even when the original series of Doctor Who came to an end in 1989, I continued adding to my collection of memorabilia, reading the novels and hoping that one day, the show might come back.

To celebrate the 115th birthday of Albert (Elea) Namatjira, Google has published a doodle painted by his granddaughter, Gloria Pannka, but for all the acclaim that the Western Arrernte artist was showered with during his lifetime, Namatjira still found himself being regarded as less than the average white man.

After hearing last Friday’s news, I was left reeling with a frenetic bundle of nerve endings and emotions. When I spoke to Luke, he instantly picked up on it.

Growing up, I was a huge comic book fan, but I often wondered why there weren’t many Aboriginal comic book heroes (or villains). I knew of Gateway from Marvel’s X-Men comics, and Condoman from health promotion posters and … Well, that’s about it actually.

Growing up with a last name associated with Aboriginal activism, my identity is often decided for me. In some ways it becomes a validation of my Aboriginality.

I was three at the time, so I don’t remember any of it, but the impacts on my life are profound. 27 May 1967 is widely understood as the day Australia stood as a nation almost unanimously in support of Aboriginal people and their right to be citizens of this country.

Australia ‘has systematically implemented policies that are born of a rhetoric suggesting that the state is somehow protecting Aboriginal children better than their families’.