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Not Quite White in the Head
1. Very Small Story
Earthspeaking? You will think of
it as a big story, a national story. Native Title. Salinity,
Landcare. Turn the rivers backwards, or find that inland sea.
It’s Burke and Wills, it’s the Bushtucker Man,
its drought and flooding rains, but no. Stop. Pause for breath,
since people in a hurry cannot feel. You say: It’s a
big country. I say: there isn’t much room for everyone’s
big stories.
Things change. Down the track a
bit now, some migloo might be thinking: Oh, The Land –
something bigger than themselves at last. A chance to be Humble.
(It’s hard to be humble when you’re…not.)
Only, we are asking you, pause
for breath. The earth is not in any great hurry for your prostrations,
fabrications, speculations. Take one day for looking. For
one day:
Do not plough.
Do not burn.
Do not plant.
Do not clear.
Pause for breath. Remember Genesis: The Land Is Not Cursed.
(continued...)
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Whiteness
I'm Not a Racist, but...
In my Brisbane high school, one of the set texts we read
in the early eighties was a book called Black Like Me. It
told the story of a white man who took medication that turned
his skin dark, after which he travelled around the US experiencing
life as a newly black person. He was sent to the back of the
bus, denied access to toilets and drinking fountains. White
strangers felt they could call him 'boy' and ask him prurient
questions about his genitals. Being black, so went the message
of the book, wasn't pretty and being white held privileges
that were rarely examined by the white population. Black Like
Me was, and remains, a best-seller in the US.
As a teenager, studying this text, I was only dimly aware
of my aboriginality. When my best friend in grade nine saw
my summer-dark legs and laughingly told me I "looked
like a nigger" I was shocked by the word without really
being hurt by it.. Mentally I inhabited a kind of racial limbo.
I was typically white in everything but an awareness of having
an Aboriginal grandparent whom I'd never met. Had I grown
up thinking of myself as a Murri, I may well have punched
my best friend out. Or at least had some better rejoinder
to her than to feebly protest her racism. But the word nigger
slid over me, and what allowed it to slide so easily was the
whiteness I was privileged to enjoy, courtesy of my relatively
pale skin and a hidden family history. (continued...)
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Who Let the Dogs Out?
Who Let the Dogs Out?
Willy is a young Palm Island boy, full of life and with more
than a fair serve of natural chutzpah. His grandmother, Aunty
M, whose house I'm camped in, tells me he's good at maths
as well as footy. Willy wants to play for the Cowboys when
he grows up, and for most of my stay on his island is glued
to the Playstation, selecting teams, taking passes, tackling.
His triumphant yell comes every ten minutes "And he's
through!" (In Willy's Bwlkman accent, 'through' comes
out as a cross between 'sroo' and 'truu').
I quiz him. Adult attention is a gift at the age of ten,
even in the guise of interrogation.
"You wanna be rich when you grow up Willy? Or you wanna
be poor?"
"Poor…no! Rich."
"You wanna be rich, you go to university, eh."
"I'm gonna play for Cowboys."
"Oh, okay. You do that. But you wanna be rich, you go
to university." (continued...)
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