So – there we were, AFTER a white Australian supremacist had gone to New Zealand and murdered 50 innocent Muslims at prayer, and it was time for New South Wales to have a state election.
The State Labor Leader, Michael Daley was caught on film making the following observation:
He reckoned his comment about “foreigners” wasn’t xenophobic.
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The Liberal National Party LNP has been guilty by miles of not only saying nothing about white supremacist hate, but using it to garner votes.
But boy, show me a politician who wouldn't sell their mother to a foreigner if there is a dollar to be made?
The LNP has sold Australia’s water and ecosystems repeatedly to foreign interests for the last 20 years.
Cubbie station diverts entire rivers, the Culgoa and Balonne, into its dams. This foreign owned firm has water storages 28 kilometres long capturing 460 billion litres of Murray-Darling headwaters. Meanwhile, farmers downriver can have a BBQ on the Darling.
The LNP has not yet decriminalised Abortion in NSW.
It was the LNP which last year passed a law making it legal to pass children directly from State Wardship up for adoption – enforcing the stolen generations all over again and speeding up the process to boot.
There are so many reasons – including the awful lack of leadership from our current un-elected PM, Scott Morrison – that Labor should have won the state election by default, but they lost badly.
I suspect Daley’s inexcusable comment about Asians with PhDs had a lot to do with it.
This country is fucked. I could say we get what we deserve, but those who are not settler stock do not deserve what we settlers have done to this country.
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This week I went to Wodonga with a friend who is thinking of moving up there. Personally I’m something of a hermit, because I am over being disappointed by people. I am especially over feeling complicit in all the shit that happens in this country. While friend dropped in on her friends and relos, I stayed behind in the accommodation, cos they all just give me the shits.
Later, we went to the stooper market.
Friend: “Kev said the Medical Centre is behind the burger shop on the corner, but it’s full of foreigners.” Me: “How is that relevant?” Friend: “It’s not. It’s just what he said.” Me: “So why are you repeating it to me? I mean, I know that you know that there are anglo doctors who are total dicks, and anglo doctors who are good. And you know there are foreign doctors who are total dicks, and foreign doctors who are good. And you know how I feel so why are you repeating this shit to me? I stay away from these good catholic friends of yours cos I know I’m not going to change them and in return I just want people to leave me the fuck alone, so why do I still have to hear this shit?” Friend: “It’s not xenophobic!”
How is not going to a local doctor just cos they are foreign not xenophobic?
In fact how is it not actually even STUPID?
How is it not nice to use words like "shit" or "fuck" but okay to be racist?
How is it okay to be politically incorrect, but not okay to call this shit out?
Why am I the one who is considered anti-social here?
Are these the fucking “nice” idiots voting for the idiots destroying this country?
And by the way, Labor is fucked.
I have some questions for you, Michael Daley.
WHAT fucking jobs? The unemployment in this country is structural and deliberate - there is 1 job for every 8 jobseekers. And it's not like jobs are homogenous or labour is interchangeable or even what economists would call responsive to Demand. It's not like a job seeker with an employed spouse, 3 kids and a mortgage can just piss off interstate to work 30 hours at a shit job that doesn't guarantee permanent employment. How was it okay for a Labor PM (Gillard) to bag people who "did not work hard"? (Let alone lock asylum seekers up offshore. What a punt!)
Do you even understand what is meant by the expression "casualisation of labour" or the term "precariat"?
Do you understand the increasing meaninglessness of "GDP= Gross National Income" when income is not distributed fairly, if at all? Not even distributed within, or even taxed within, Australia in many instances. Gee, thanks a lot, Labor.
What fucking jobs have been stolen that actually require a PhD, and if they have gone to someone with residence or a work visa, how is their race relevant????
What, did One Notion knock you back for membership?
Your Party, when in power, helped create this mess. When in opposition, your party at both state and federal levels continued to support this mess, but are so busy sucking up to voters you just keep pushing the right further and further to the right.
If you want to understand Settler Australia’s culture you
need look no further than a sports-field.
Tennis
Let’s start with Indigenous Australian tennis champion,
Evonne Goolagong. Her entry in the tennis hall of fame mentions the poor living
conditions of her childhood, acknowledges the stolen generations and then… and
then… can’t help but be cute:
During the 1970s,
Evonne Goolagong was a household name and face – attractive, carefree, and admittedly
prone to lapses in concentration that caused folks to say “Evonne’s gone
walkabout.”
Other players might lack a killer instinct, or be given the
benefit of 100 white failings, but Evonne’s bad days were put down to her “going
walkabout”.
Indigenous Australians are many different peoples. These many
peoples traditionally lived purposeful and spiritually rich semi-nomadic or nomadic lives. “Walkabout”
was not necessarily as Hollywood would have it, about “vision quests”. On large
outback cattle stations, “Walkabout” was often the explanation given to white
managers when Indigenous labourers warned they were heading off for a while –
often to tend to spiritual or community obligations. The priorities of
Indigenous Australians were perfectly reasonable but, from the white viewpoint
of those who exploited their labour, the word “Walkabout” became equated with
unreliability and weak character.
But hey, if white people did not know any better in 1970,
what’s the fucking excuse for the way the entry reads now?
Football –Biggest Religion After Christianity
“Look at the boy go,” says the commentator in the clip. One
week before Michael’s 24th birthday. He does this all the way through my DVD of
the complete 1993 Grand Final match between Essendon and Carlton. Michael Long
was a brilliant player; he was everywhere the ball was this day, and won the
Norm Smith Medal (Best on the Ground in a Grand Final Match.)
One day in 1993, Nicky Winmar decided he'd had a gutful of being told to go back
to where he came from and sniff petrol, and all the other usual stuff:
The Winmar “incident” prompted the AFL to try and get its
act together and stamp out racial vilification on the field. Of course, it
didn’t change much. Racism and sexism are deeply entrenched values in football because they are deeply entrenched values in Settler
Australia generally.
At the end of this brief clip is the moment in 1993 when Adam Goodes had a 13 year
old girl evicted from the ground for calling him an ape in 2013. Adam pointed
to the person who abused him before he realised she was so young, but says he
was still right to evict her.
Goodes said that Victoria Police asked if he would like to press charges
but he declined, reiterating that the girl needs to learn why her abuse was
hurtful. The young girl was quick to ring Adam and apologise.
"It's not her fault, she's 13, she's still so innocent, I don't put
any blame on her," he said.
"Unfortunately it's what she hears, in the environment she's grown
up in that has made her think that it's OK to call people names."
"I guarantee she has no idea right now how it makes people feel to
call them an ape."
Two years later, the girl’s grandmother complained that Goodes
should be the one apologising – he only had himself to blame if people did not
like him. (Guess there is no chance the young lady learned anything, despite having to apologise.)
Then the pot started bubbling again when Goodes called
Australia Day “Invasion Day”. (I wrote my second post about Australia Day in 2017. With a lot of campaigning from more important people than me, things have improved, and the movement to have the date or day changed is actually growing.)
Round 9, 2015 Adam Goodes does a war cry, created from the traditions of several
tribes by a group of Indigenous teenagers called the Flying Boomerangs. Goodes’ on-field cry was more for the benefit of those teens than to get
up white noses, but of course we settler lot always just assume everything is all about us.
Greg Inglis (who plays rugby rather than Aussie Rules) is
feted in Sydney for his goanna run. Why does Rugby have no problem with
Indigenous people, but the AFL does?
After the initial commentary this clip provides clear
examples of what opinion leaders in this country really think:
You’ve gotta wonda Y, at this point, McGuire and Bolt’s
opinions get so much airtime and carry so much weight. Short answer is this
country has, for a long time, been the exclusive property of older, sexist,
racist, white males – at least in their minds. People like them DO consume more
than their fair share of oxygen. And, as I always say "if you wanna understand the bizarre behaviour of humans just follow the money" the real answer lies with the people what own the media.
When you see the sort of leadership we have/ tolerate/ still endorse, no wonder the grandmother of a 13 year old girl could still
be comfortably unrepentant 2 years after she was called out for racism.
Back to 2015: Soon after Goodes’ performance, Lewis Jetta repeated the cry
in response to all the flak Goodes was taking.
There are one or two sane pundits in Australia – no surprise
most pundits are white, but at least someone tries to represent decency.
The Weekly is often a source of sane responses to rubbish
ideas.
One of the greatest ironies is that Australian Football,
while seemingly a mish mash of other western styles of football, was actually
based on an Indigenous Game, Marn Grook.
If Greg Inglis can celebrate his culture openly, it’s really
because he hasn’t broken the number one rule yet. “If you don’t like living in
a racist sexist culture, don't complain, just fuck off somewhere else.“
Women’s Football
Did you see what happened there? I’ve followed the lead of
the dominant settler culture – “football” means men. Women’s football is a
deviation from the real deal.
As a youngster I quite enjoyed football, but back in those medieval
days I had no idea how sexist the world was, nor how racist. The last time I had a season pass to Essendon, it cost 10/- (ten shillings) and the club still played at Windy Hill. The clubs were
community based, players were loyal to their teams, and the game was not all
about money. Now, it does my head in if I try to work out why any female in her
right mind would pay one cent to see a match. Why would I want to join a club
that doesn’t really want me as a member?
In 2017, no doubt because there was a dollar in it, the AFL
began a women’s league.
In 2019, some truly sexist and foul comments were left online
after a TV station posted a photo of Tayla Harris kicking the ball. The station, rather than
challenge the sexism, took the photo down. This doesn’t surprise me, because
this station and others propagate racism and sexism as if it was some kind of
righteous obligation. Tayla quite reasonably said the comments were sexual
abuse, because they were repulsive and made her feel uncomfortable.
The public was annoyed with the station’s decision to take
the photo down, and there was an outcry and a social media feeding frenzy.
Tayla went on twitter and launched a challenge for people to
send in photos of their best kick. You can check out the public response at #TAYLAKICKCHALLENGE
NEW ZEALAND TERRORIST ATTACK
On the ides of March, 2019, an AUSTRALIAN white supremacist
organised an assault on 2 Christchurch mosques, murdering 50 people and
injuring dozens more. Make no mistake, the racist shit that drove this coalhole
festered in Australia, and was promoted by Australian Settler Culture.
In 1998, 4 Australian Prime Ministers – Liberal and Labor - put their names to a public letter saying there is no room for racism in Australia. Since then, the decay in leadership has been drastic on many fronts. Australia’s “leadership”, cross bench, has had no shame.
The 1998 letter is in marked contrast to what has been happening since. We now detain asylum seekers indefinitely in appalling and subhuman conditions. The rate at which Indigenous Australians are locked up, the reasons they are locked up and the way they die in custody are just obscene. And the mentality behind the so called war on terror is fanned constantly.
Senator McGrath posted this photo of Young LNP members online:
We are supposed to believe the white power gesture is just a joke designed to get left wing morons like me in a frenzy. Sadly, even the most innocent jokes often end in tears.
Here is a professional Australian Nazi having a laugh with a mate:
And here is the arsehole that murdered 50 innocent people in Christchurch:
Australia's so called leaders have responded atrociously to the murders. By now, you are probably familiar with the story of Senator Anning being egged, for effectively saying the Muslims in Christchurch deserved it. Anning is a mate of Cottrell, the Nazi above doing the white power thing for a joke. Chuffed that egg boy did what he did, but certain if a person of colour had done the same they would not have lived, let alone be released without charges.
The absolute best we got from our (latest unelected) PM was that his party accommodates a range of different viewpoints, and a denial he suggested years ago that his party exploit anti-Muslim sentiment. Not gonna post more about him cause - stuff him.
The bizarre thing is that amongst the general population, Australia’s response to the NZ
attack has been almost commendable. There are lots of decent, sane people in this
country. We are and have always been especially happy to cheer whenever we see
a Haka performed. No rugby match between Australia and New Zealand ever starts
without one. Is that what makes it okay? That the celebration of Indigenous
Culture has the approval of a sporting code?
One of many significant differences between Australia and
New Zealand is that Britain made a treaty with the Maori people in 1840. Naturally
the terms and spirit of the treaty have been broken repeatedly, and there are “problems”
in New Zealand, but of all the many white Kiwis I’ve met, I’ve never met one
that did not have some familiarity with that country’s true history, and Maori
culture.
White people have adopted aspects of Maori culture as their
own, and nothing shows this more than the Haka. I think this has only happened
because the treaty, despite it’s failures, approved in theory the notion
that Maori are people and as deserving of respect as any other.
Australia, on the other hand, was built on theft, and the lie of terra nullius.
Like blackface, which helped subjugate black Americans after 1865, Settler
Australia has justified its existence with a culture that dehumanises
Indigenous Australians, lies about resistance to occupation, pre-1788
achievements and so on. To permit AFL players to show any kind of war cry would
create too much cognitive dissonance in too many feeble white minds.
Back in the day I got sick of blokes [and a lot of women] going on about bra burners, and asking me what feminists were whingeing about and I snapped. It finally hit me that if people really care about an issue, they will make an effort to work it out themselves.
Same thing for being gay and people having no idea this makes you, as Magda puts it, a minority of one in your own family, not to mention the bullying, the extra rape threats, [or if a male the threat of being murdered with no one giving a shit] and not being born with a brand on your forehead so you have no option but to make it personal and a big deal when you ask people to be a little kinder.
And so, after an interesting discussion many years ago about Indigenous Australians, it hit me – if I really cared, I would make an effort to work it out myself. And all the leftard brainless dogooder wanky bullshit abuse and silencing from other whites just for caring leaves me in no doubt it must suck to be an Indigenous Australian.
After ten years most of what I have learned is that Australia’s full history is buried, that most of what we were told and still are told is just plain wrong – a legacy of lies and omissions. So when I heard a new series of First Contact had been made, I was excited.
O.M.G. After 2 seconds I wanted to slap David Oldfield around the head. Not just ignorant, but having him on my screen was like a Parliamentary torture chamber.
But I get it. It’s not sensationalism, it’s necessary for people like me to hear the shit Indigenous Australians have to listen to all the time, though once should be one time too many.
And it’s necessary for people like me to know what it’s like not to have any answers “handy” and so feel, instead, that it would be easier to just give Oldfield a slap around the head…. Because he isn’t listening anyway.
And it also raises points in a way that people like the panel on Awaken are able to provide “answers”, and say some really important and insightful stuff.
Because racism IS simple, but pain is not, suicide is not, struggling to imagine a good tomorrow is not, change is not… and caring is not enough.
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 26th 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.
