From Someone Who Would Know.

For this post, I asked for the help of an ex-high school teacher of mine, Philip Hall, who has lived in the remote community of Borroloola in Australia’s Northern Territory for a number of years as a teacher. In asking him about his experiences in working with Indigenous communities and if there were any stories he could share about racism, I did not expect the story I got, but it’s one that shows a systemic racism so ingrained yet totally ignored that it brings a whole new understanding to the issue of telling someone they “shouldn’t play the race card”. This is because it doesn’t argue with racist people, it doesn’t contradict them, try to set them right or explain how wrong they are. What it does do is give an insight into the lives of remote Indigenous communities that many people, including myself, have a complete lack of understanding of because quite simply, we have not lived that experience, and probably never will. Here is an excerpt:

“More than a dozen young adults have passed away by suicide or violent death during my time of residency in Borroloola. Substance abuse is rife – especially of tobacco, ganja and alcohol – and too many young people have criminal convictions for petty violence and property misdemeanors. But the town has poor access to mental health care with specialist services usually provided in Katherine (700 km distance) or Darwin (960 km). Borroloola is ‘out of sight and out of mind’: a place where immense community need is too often met with disengaged and inconsistent government service. Borroloola’s health clinic, I am told by indigenous family, is infamous for making indigenous clients wait while non-indigenous people are prioritised.”

A long road to help

The closest mental health clinic is 700km away. SEVEN HUNDRED KILOMETRES. It is straight facts such as these that illustrate the inarguable disadvantage experienced by remote, indigenous communities that make telling people to “get over it” and “stop being a sook” when it comes to racism, inexcusable. The “Out of site and out of mind” mindset is something that has been prevalent in the media over the past few months, and something people obviously wanted to maintain with high profile people such as Adam Goodes and Miranda Tapsell making stands against racism and expressing the desire to help indigenous communities, and being absolutely shut down and abused for it. These people, would rather have the issues not talked about and therefore dismiss them as something other than racism because it is the easiest way to deal with it. And that brings me to the next excerpt from the essay:

“Borroloola is located on Yanyuwa Country. The town is also shared with members of the Garawa, Mara and Gudanji peoples, now, after more than a hundred years of massacre and dispossession. Borroloola’s indigenous people have been forced to hold much of their shocking frontier contact history locked away inside of themselves.”

Again, a demonstration of just how difficult it can be to understand the depth of another person’s cultural heritage. Dealing with a heritage that is surrounded by massacre and dispossession and having to lock this away inside is something the white population of Australia will never have to deal with. So telling someone they should be grateful for the opportunities Australia has given them and to stop complaining about racism (which is a sentiment repeated over and over in the Adam Goodes debate), again, is something so unfair and something that shows such a lack of empathy and understanding of other cultures that means it is inherently racist. Many people, myself included, do not think of these problems when we are talking about racist issues because it is so far removed from our lives that it doesn’t seem relevant. But maybe, when we are entering into discussions about race, we should start considering the history, the things people have had to deal with and the things they still deal with today, before we dismiss it and call it irrelevant, attention seeking, being a sook or one of the many things it has been called. These stories show that racism is not a black and white issue but about culture and history and the ignoring of the past that makes people like Adam Goodes need to remind us of it. The flat rejection of it by so many shows that someone needs to.

P.F.

Essay: http://cordite.org.au/essays/my-intervention-in-cowdy/

Phillip Hall is an essayist and poet working as an editor with Verity La’s ‘Emerging Indigenous Writers’ Project’. In 2014 he published Sweetened in Coals. He is currently working on a collection of place-based poetry called Fume. This project celebrates, and responds to, Indigenous Culture in the Northern Territory’s Gulf of Carpentaria. In November 2015 Black Rune Press will publish a chapbook of Phillip’s collaborative work with Diwurruwurru: The Borroloola Poetry Club.

Dismissal.

It’s comforting to see that there is so much content circulating online surrounding race, and in particular surrounding the complexity of racism issues and how easy it is for white people to dismiss their racism as something else. This at least shows that racism issues such as the ones surfacing over the past year aren’t exclusive to Australia, as they have definitely seemed. One of the most difficult things about the discussions of racism online are a simple lack of understanding towards the sufferance of other people, and a tendency to dismiss racist claims because they are too uncomfortable and confronting to admit to. This is encapsulated so perfectly in a YouTube video made by Everyday Feminism and Vlogger Celia Edell that it’s tempting to just drop the whole transcript down here, say “discuss” and walk away. Because what else can I say that hasn’t already been said by so many people? The problem is, the people that need to be, aren’t listening, and it’s very difficult to find a way to make them do so. Could we go back to the simple, primary school saying “Think about what it’s like to walk in their shoes.” It really is as simple as that, as Celia says in her video:

“White people don’t bare the social burden of race, so we don’t have to think about it all the time in order to move through society. We can sort of forget about our racial identity and it doesn’t really come up as much. When people of color bring up race, it’s easy for white people to dismiss it, like “Oh, that’s irrelevant here. You’re playing the race card.” Or, “Oh, that’s a personal issue, not a race thing….But, this is really to dismiss their reality as a racialized person, whose race is always present and relevant to them. Instead, correct yourself. Think, just because this is not an issue of race for me, it does not mean it’s not a racial issue for someone else.”

The key: Race is not always present and relevant to white people. So what would give someone the right to tell another when and when not something is an issue of race? How can someone possibly say to another person “that’s irrelevant, stop playing the race card” when the “race card” is something they have never, ever, ever……..ever, had to deal with in their life, as opposed to someone who has possibly dealt with it every single day of their life? It really is, understandably, a difficult thing to comprehend, but it is something worth thinking about every time we go to deny something as a racial issue. Before you go to rebut someone in an online argument by saying “it’s a personality thing, not a race thing” just stop, and try and think of something that’s been a big part of your life, but not necessarily for anyone elses, whether it be a parent that has passed away, or a friend that is ill and think how it would feel for someone to tell you to “stop playing the sympathy card” when you tell your story about it. Because that’s what happens an overwhelming amount when Indigenous Australians have come out and shared their story with racism and the grief and trauma it has caused them throughout their life. And that needs to change.

P.F.