Cate Speaks

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Tag: racism

Whose lives matter?

June 5, 2020 / / 1 Comment

Content note for any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: this blog post contains the names of people who have died.

Content note for everyone else: This post is mostly me, as a white person, trying to grapple with racism, privilege, complicity, and what my responsibility is at this time (though there is a list of resources and content by Black, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors at the end that I can recommend with a clear conscience). I didn’t want my blog to be silent on racism, especially now, but I’ve almost certainly mucked it up, probably more than once, and for that, I apologise.

This is the sort of post which starts with me staring blankly at a screen, because saying nothing feels like complicity, but anything I do say feels inadequate. Because, dear God, America. I don’t even have words.

And… dear God, Australia. Because OK, true, we do at least have a health system and gun control, and our police force isn’t out shooting protesters in the street, so yay, points to us, but have you looked at how many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders die in police custody every year? Or how we treat asylum seekers? Or the charming way we have been treating Asian Australians, particularly since the start of this pandemic?

Which is to say, we might want to think twice before we shake our heads over the state of the USA, because it turns out there is enough racism to go around, and we definitely have our share.

(Also… if you don’t like the way police are treating protesters in the US, you might want to keep an eye on some of the legislation the government is trying to push through while we are distracted by the pandemic, because they would like to expand police and ASIO powers in a number of ways that are pretty concerning.)

This post isn’t going to be about the situation in the USA, because while I am absolutely in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter there, I feel as though these stories can best be told by those who are present.

I also feel, strongly, that our primary duty is to clean up our own backyard. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have come out strongly in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA, and have drawn parallels between the situation there and the treatment of Indigenous people here.

The parallels are not hard to draw.

We have plenty of work to do within our own borders.

I’m white. I’ve never been on the receiving end of racism, either institutionalised or individual, and it’s unlikely I ever will. So the story of racism is not mine to tell. As much as possible, here, I’m going to link to what Black people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are saying about the current situation. But I do want to talk a little bit about the work people like me need to be doing.

That last sentence makes me want to weep. Because this shouldn’t need to be stated in five hundred different ways all over Twitter.  Saying ‘All lives matter’ denies the difference in the way white and black lives are treated in the US, in Australia, and in so many countries around the world. It takes a statement that should not be revolutionary (but which, horribly, still is), and turns it into a meaningless platitude.

That rather gets to the heart of it, don’t you think?

And look, I understand the appeal of ‘All Lives Matter’. It is uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, to sit here as a well-meaning white person, feeling complicit and guilty and also vaguely resentful of this (because after all, *we* aren’t out there being great big racists, and how dare you suggest at we might be?), listening to these stories of abuse and harm caused by people who look like us. And  ‘All Lives Matter’ sounds so lovely and inclusive, and leaves all the uncomfortable race stuff out of the equation, and anyway, are white people even allowed to say Black Lives Matter, and isn’t it maybe a little bit racist if we do?

But I have a nasty feeling that the job of white people right now is precisely to be uncomfortable.

I don’t mean that in a nasty way.  I mean… it’s really, really uncomfortable and shocking and unpleasant to witness – even to read about – the way people of colour, and especially Black people, are treated by our society and our police force. It’s really, really tempting to look away, to not read books like Dark Emu or Talking to my Country, to avoid any close encounters with what it feels like to be Black or Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in our world.

And the reason it is tempting is because the things that Black people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are suffering are absolutely horrible and cruel and one hundred percent unnecessary.  There is no good reason why Aboriginal people are dying in custody at the rate of one per month.  There is no legitimate reason why Black people and Aboriginal people are over-policed. There is no justifiable reason why so many Black men and women have died at the hands of the police and the justice system.

There is only racism.

And it’s absolutely shattering to read about.

The thing is… the closest white people like me are ever likely to come to this experience is reading about it, or seeing video footage, or hearing eyewitness accounts.  Being able to not think about it is actually an incredible privilege.

And that’s something to think about right there, because I don’t want to read all of this stuff which I know full well is going to traumatise me and make me cry and give me nightmares, and yet Black Americans and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders don’t get the choice of switching off from that trauma because it is their lived experience.

(And now I’m thinking about how much of an emotional and intellectual load that must be – I mean, we were all talking about how it was hard to be fully productive when dealing with the stress of the pandemic, but the stress of racism is there ALL THE TIME. There are some amazing, clever, funny, delightful Black writers whose books I love, and I’m just trying to imagine how brilliant they must be to be able to write what they do while at the same time living with a level of stress that I am terrified even to experience at second hand. Imagine how much more they could do – more importantly, how much happier they could be – if they didn’t have that stress and that pain in their lives.)

And look, mental health is real and important, and I am not here to tell you that justice and solidarity demands that you must do things that will be harmful to you. I want everyone to be safe, physically and mentally.

But it is important to acknowledge that if you are white like me, being able to choose to take care of your mental health by not exposing yourself to the harm done to people of colour… is in itself a privilege. And that is a whole extra horrible thing in itself, because the ability to protect your mental health ought to be a right for all of us, not just those of us with a particular skin colour.

In fact, perhaps that’s the thing in a nutshell:  things that ought to be basic human rights – things that white people believe are basic human rights, because for us they are – turn out to be privileges that are only extended to us as a matter of genetic luck. I don’t want to lose my privilege. I want everyone else to have the same privileges I do. I want my privileges to be rights.

So yeah. I’m uncomfortable. And I think I need to be, because 432 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have died in custody in Australia since 2008 and I had absolutely no idea. I thought we had a Royal Commission and fixed that.

I mean, I donate to charities which work to fight racism, and I’ve always felt like that excused me from digging too deep into what racism feels like when you are on the wrong side of it. But I’m realising – rather belatedly – that I don’t have the right to remain ignorant, because ignorance means that I am likely to do harmful things through a lack of knowledge – or if not that, it certainly means that I’m not paying attention to the harm that is happening, and therefore I’m not able to work against it.

I do not like this conclusion. I do not want to read all those books I have been so studiously avoiding.

But I have the privilege of not living my life in a world that views me as something less than human based on the colour of my skin. The least I can do is bear witness.

~~~~~

Things we can do

Note that the links and charities below are primarily around Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues.  I’m listing a handful of US-based charities and bail funds at the end, because God knows, they need all the help they can get, but I’d encourage you to make local action your priority – because God knows, we need to do a lot better than we’ve been doing so far.

Places to donate in Australia

  • https://paytherent.net.au/ – As a descendant of immigrants, I live on stolen land. Paying the rent is both a symbolic gesture of solidarity, and a practical way to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.  You can decide how much you can afford to contribute per month, or support them with a one-off donation.
  • https://sistersinside.com.au/ – Sisters Inside supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders women and girls in prison. Many are imprisoned for non-payment of fines (think 19th-century-Debtors’ Prison, but with extra racism), and they have a specific GoFundMe which raises money to pay these fines so that these women can be free.
  • The families of several Aboriginal men and women who died in police custody or at the hands of police are seeking justice, and have fundraisers to which you can donate
  • Welcome to Country has an extensive Aboriginal Charity Guide which lists charities that work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in areas from health and education to activism and the environment. Whatever your favourite cause, you will find it there.
  • https://www.asrc.org.au/ – The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre supports asylum seekers with material aid, legal aid, housing assistance, and help finding work. Asylum seekers in Australia face discrimination on a number of fronts, not least from the government, which denies them access to Medicare, financial assistance, and in some cases forbids them from working. And if you don’t think racism plays into that… well, I suppose I have to admire your ability to think kindly of people who don’t deserve it.

Some articles I have found helpful

Some books I need to read (and maybe you do too)

  • Dark Emu, by Bruce Pascoe – if you were taught at school that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people didn’t practice agriculture or have technology… this book will enlighten you.
  • Talking To My Country, by Stan Grant, talks about his experience as  an Aboriginal man in Australia. It’s highly acclaimed and needs to find its way out of my ‘To be read’ pile and actually get read by me.  He has also written a follow up book, Australia Day, which I gather talks more about reconciliation
  • Welcome to Country, by Marcia Langton – this is a travel guide to Indigenous Australia, with information about Indigenous languages, customs, history, and more, as well as cultural awareness and etiquette for visitors.

Other actions you can take

  • An amazing woman named Zoe Amira posted an hour long video on YouTube filled with art and music from black creators. It has a heap of ads, and is basically designed to rake in revenue that will be used to support Black Lives Matter organisations.  This is a great way to support the cause if you have no money and can’t get to a protest. I’ve had it running quietly in the background while writing this list (because I don’t actually want to hear the ads).
  • Buy some music on June 19 to support racial justice, equality and change.
  • Sign the petition calling for an end to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody.
  • And here’s another petition to prevent deaths in custody caused by improper restraint.
  • There are a number of protests tomorrow.  Honestly, I’m really torn about this. Protest IS important right now.  But I’m also super concerned about the public health risks of having large groups of unscreened people gathering during a pandemic.  It looks like the organisers are trying to do this responsibly, but ultimately, I don’t think there is a responsible way to hold an event of this nature in this context. I don’t think I can, in good conscience, link to them. However, I *have* seen a number of Ministers and politicians out there telling us, with varying degrees of sincerity and self-righteousness that the best way to exercise our right to protest right now is to write to or call your local MP. I think we should take them at their word. So here are some suggestions from my friend Emily about people to contact and what to say:
    • Prime Minister, Scott Morrison – (02) 9523 0339
      Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt – (08) 9359 0322
      Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese – (02) 9564 3588
      Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney – (02) 9587 1555
    • In Victoria: Premier, Daniel Andrews – (03) 9548 5644
      Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gabrielle Williams – (03) 9096 8587
      Leader of the Opposition, Michael O’Brien – (03) 9576 1850
      Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Peter Walsh – (03) 5482 2039
    • Talking points:
      • I fully support the important protests that are happening across Australia/in Melbourne tomorrow.
      • Governments must move immediately to stop Aboriginal deaths in custody and police violence toward Aboriginal people, and police who have killed and harmed Aboriginal people must be held to account. I am asking you to take urgent action to make this happen.
      • I am asking you to guarantee that all protesters tomorrow will be able to protest freely without fear of police violence.
      • When you call the office, ask the staffer who answers the phone to take a message for the MP. Give your full name and postcode, and then proceed.

Read, Listen to, and Watch Content by Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Black creators

  • Check out some of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bloggers listed at deadlybloggers.com – you will find blogs on a huge range of topics art to politics to health.
  • Here’s an article listing some great social media accounts to follow from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
  • My friend Heath made this excellent list of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers, actors and musicians. (I would add that Adam Briggs, in addition to being a muso, is a fantastic comedian)
  • Did you know that we have a National Indigenous TV channel? You can find it on Channel 34. I am terrible at remembering to watch TV shows, but we really enjoyed Ready For This, which is just a nice, well-done teen drama series about a bunch of Aboriginal kids from various parts of Australia who come to Sydney for their final years of school, to pursue their dreams. It was very good, and lots of fun.
  • I read a lot of romance novels, and some of my favourite writers right now are Black women.  If you are in the mood for some escapism, check out Charish Reid Alyssa Cole, Talia Hibbert, Farah Rochon and, Rebekah Weatherspoon, for starters. (I especially like them because… not all fiction centering People of Colour needs to be sombre – indeed, writing happy endings for people in demographics who are often denied them is a subversive thing in itself.  Also, as Tom Lehrer so accurately pointed out, dirty books are fun, that’s all there is to it.)

Actions you can take in the USA

  • Donate to a Bail Fund. Lots of people are going to need help with bail in the near future.
  • Black Visions in Minnesota wants to dismantle systems of oppression and violence and to develop Minnesota’s emerging black leadership.  It is Black-led, queer- and trans-centering, and my friend in Minnesota tells me they do good work.
  • The American Civil Liberties Union is recommended by pretty much everyone I know in the US as an excellent charity for justice.
  • Black Lives Matter has a very comprehensive list of actions you can take, from petitions to protests to calling politicians to donating.

Scott Morrison and the racist in the dark alley

March 18, 2019 / / 2 Comments

So here’s something I’ve been thinking.

Scott Morrison has been saying all the right things in the last few days, both about the terrorist attack in Christchurch and about Anning’s disgusting remarks. He is clearly trying to distance himself from the overt racism of the far right. And this is heartening, as far as it goes. Frankly, if ScoMo has decided that trying to be unifying and bring Australians together is a better election strategy than racism and divisiveness, then I’m all for it. Words matter, and I’m in favour of anything that keeps our multicultural society safer.

Hell, perhaps this is ScoMo’s ‘come to Jesus’ moment – the moment when he sees where the kind of rhetoric he has been permitting leads, and decides to change. Even if it isn’t, I believe that he is quite sincere in his horror and revulsion at this event.

But here’s the thing.

This entire conversation is reminding me of the sorts of conversations we have after a woman is attacked and murdered when walking home at night, or by day, or wherever, by the stranger who comes from nowhere. And we are all shocked and we are horrified and we hold vigils and have conversations about how dangerous it is for a woman to walk alone at night. Because it is so much easier to think of rape and assault as something that is perpetrated by strangers in the dark than the fact that women are more likely to be attacked in their own homes and by people they know.

Fraser Anning is helping ScoMo and his mates quite a bit right now. He is giving them something truly despicable to point at, so that they can say ‘this is racism, and we reject it utterly’. And it is, and they should.

The thing is, though, Anning is that stranger in the dark alley. He and people like him are terrible, terrible people, and we absolutely need to stand against their overt racism – but we must not forget that for every attack by a stranger in the dark alley, there are dozens, hundreds, even, of attacks that we don’t see or don’t recognise, because they happen in private, or because they don’t fit our idea of what an attack looks like.

I think it’s important that we don’t let the government, or the media, or anyone else fool us into thinking that they are fighting against racism because they reject Anning and the acts of terrorists. That is the lowest of all possible bars (and I can’t help but noting that there are those still doing their best to limbo under it).

Pay attention to what else they say. Pay attention to the dog whistles about economic migrants and immigrants who don’t want to fit in. Pay attention to what sort of free speech is protected, and what sort is condemned.  Pay attention to who is allowed to be angry, to be outraged, to react in self-defense, to have their feelings hurt.

There are so many microagressions, so many everyday acts of racism, so many things that we ask people just to ignore to keep the peace, because ‘he doesn’t really mean it’, or ‘she was only joking’ or ‘it wasn’t that bad’.

And it’s true that these things aren’t as bad as murdering 51 people because of their religion, or even as bad as blaming those people for their own murder.  But, you know, something can be not as bad as the worst thing you can think of and still be not, actually, good.  It can, in fact, still be bloody terrible.

You can be less racist than Anning, and still be racist.

I think we ought to be demanding that our politicians do better than ‘not the actual worst’.  We’ve become accustomed to some pretty terrible rhetoric, and I think that’s dangerous – our standards have become so low that we feel faintly relieved that ‘at least’ Morrison referred to the killer as a terrorist.

(And I wasn’t even all that surprised when Dutton tried to claim that the Greens were just as bad as Anning.  Surely that ought to merit more than an eyeroll?)

We need to do better than this.  We need to demand that our leaders take responsibility for the racism and xenophobia that they have been enabling (or at best, turning a blind eye to, for the sake of votes).

But most of all we need to understand that racism doesn’t start with a man murdering people at prayer because he is a white supremacist. It starts with words, with small cruelties, with tiny acts of exclusion.  It starts with all the little things our society does to signal that it’s OK to be a little bit racist, it’s OK to think that people who come from somewhere else, or who worship differently from us might be a bit funny or a bit dangerous or a bit inferior.

And, after all, don’t we care about freedom of speech?

Fraser Anning has said terrible, racist things.  This is indisputable.  But we can’t afford to be distracted by him, or by arguments about the proper use of eggs vis-a-vis politicians of any stripe.

I would love to believe that this is the moment when our society and our politicians look inside themselves and reject racism once and for all. But I’ll need more than a denunciation of Anning to be convinced.

~~~~~

Disclaimer: I’m white.  I have no direct experience of racism, nor have I devoted significant time to studying it.  So this analogy might be terribly flawed.  I welcome comments from those who are more knowledgeable.  (But bear in mind that all comments are screened, and I’m not always online and available to unscreen them.)

Of Paris, and of Fear

November 14, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I’ve spent most of the last fortnight thinking about Paris.  With the huge project I’ve been running at work coming to an end, I can start looking ahead to next year, and I’ve been thinking about taking some long service leave, even a visit to Europe.  Then, I’ve been playing with a project where I’m writing short stories set in Paris, so I’ve spent a lot of my spare time recently reading histories of Paris, learning about the old geography of Paris, and its now-underground rivers.  On good nights, I’ve been dreaming about Paris.

And then this morning I woke up and heard the news.

News reports are now talking about more than 120 dead – some sources are saying as many as 160.  Seven coordinated attacks.  Terrorists who blow themselves up rather than be arrested. Daesh is taking credit.

I am heartbroken and I have no right to be.

Continue reading

Politics: What is Australian?

October 9, 2007 / / 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking about Australian-ness for a while, partly inspired by a friend’s blog posts about nationalism in France, and partly inspired by the new Citizenship Test and other acts of idiocy currently being perpetrated by our government.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that I have some ideas about what being Australian is all about that are perhaps more unusual than I’ve thought. Because to me, the key thing that makes Australia Australia is immigrants, immigration, and the stunningly diverse population we have as a result of these things. Let’s face it, with the exception of the few people of Aboriginal and Koorie descent, we are all immigrants here. And most of the waves of immigrants, now I think of it, have been from classes or races that were at the time considered socially unacceptable (criminals! Irish! Miners! Chinese! Greeks and Italians! Chinese again! Vietnamese too! Muslims! Sudanese!). I find it both sad and ironic that the descendants of these earlier settlers now feel the need to turn around and reject classes of immigrants based on religion, colour or alleged criminal tendencies. And this from a country whose most long-established families take pride in being descended from… convicts. Or, less romantically, economic refugees fleeing the Highland Clearances. Or, if they were lucky, Catholics, which carried a fine set of prejudices in its day.

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Politics: Racism and Moreland

March 22, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Just thought I’d re-post this email that was just sent to me:

Moreland Community – Rally and March
Stand Up for Multicultural Communities
Racism will not divide us: Muslims are welcome

12pm SAT April 1st
Cnr Glenlyon and Sydney Rd (Outside Brunswick Town Hall)

supported by Moreland Council, Socialist Alliance, Carlo Carli MLA, Moreland Peace Group, Moreland Greens, Stop the War, Civil Rights Defense

After ten years of playing the race card, Howard and Costello have made recent comments singling out Muslims as antagonistic to
“Australian culture”. Tony Abbott, recently inteviewed on Lateline said that,” the purpose of multiculturalism is not to say that all cultures are equal”. These comments represents new heights in promoting community division.

This new wave of divisive politics deserves a community response. The Moreland area typifies multicultural Australia. Let set an example and send a message that Muslims and migrants are welcome in our community.

Just to add my two cents – I overheard a conversation on a tram yesterday about how the area is ‘no longer a good place to raise children’ and ‘not nice, like it was 15 years ago’ apparently in response to some local (admittedly annoying, but no more so than usual) teens of arabic descent making a lot of noise on the tram. I was fairly horrified, but as an eavesdropper, didn’t feel that I could respond. I’m wishing I had now. I am disturbed at the way racism seems to be becoming endemic in our culture…

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