How Fraffly UnAwstrayan

This week the good people at the Freo [Fremantle W.A.] City Council announced that instead of funding Australia Day fireworks on the 26th of January next year, they would have a multicultural event called ONE DAY on the 28th instead.

 

You can find the press release, which is actually quite well put together, here:

 

Commercial media wasted no time announcing the council had scrapped Australia Day celebrations due to Aboriginal “cultural sensitivities”. This generated a tsunami of outrage, as if someone is claiming that for the last 60,000 years the 26^th of January has been a sacred day to all Indigenous Australians.

Silly really. This has nothing to do with Aboriginal Cultural Sensitivity and everything to do with White Insensitivity [which, itself, seems to be a cultural thing].

A lot of people are frightened they might have to rethink their hitherto unquestioned assumptions about the world. But really, all they have to do is change them. Thinking is not mandatory.

It seems, at times like this, that non-Indigenous Australians respond with excessive, defensive outrage to the slightest hint we might be racist. Or we even rush to shut down a conversation before anyone has a chance to slip the R word in. I get it – none of us like to feel foolish.

I actually believe to my core that most Australians are better people individually than we ever get credit for. It's just that, collectively, we are failing our Indigenous brothers and sisters. If only we could just get over ourselves and set things right now, we wouldn’t have to be on edge about it all the time. That uneasy feeling won’t go away until we do.

Naturally, media trotted out one Indigenous man to announce the idea was horrible. Well, he is entitled to his opinion, but he does not represent the whole of the extremely diverse population of Indigenous Australia, and he does not represent this little old white lady.

Being a respectful sort of person [i.e. coward] I respect the right of people to insist we never change the date, but respectfully assert my right of reply with the following:

 

26 January Happy Not-Australia Day

 

Alright, alright; settle.
Now, take a dekko at the pikkie and tell me
*the name of the flag [look closely]
*where they landed
*the name of the bloke in charge, [spell his name correctly for bonus points] and
*how many ships were in the harbour.
Please do this without having to do an engine search first… if you are upset about the date being changed… because ONLY if you know all that stuff without checking will I believe you really think all the details are too important to change any of it… Including the flag.

 

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is not Australian, she’s Nigerian, but she is an awesome writer and I want to share with you a snippet from one of her novels that I think is indirectly relevant to our discussion about the date of Australia Day;

”But black people are racist too.” Because of course we’re all prejudiced (I can’t even stand some of my blood relatives…) but racism is about the power of a group and in America it’s white folks who have that power.
How? Well, white folks don’t get treated like shit in upper-class African American communities and white folks don’t get denied bank loans or mortgages precisely because they are white…

…So after this listing of don’ts, what’s the do? I’m not sure. Try listening, maybe. Hear what is being said. And remember that it’s not about you. American Blacks are not telling you that you are to blame. They are just telling you what is. If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here’s to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.