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Australia Day shirts debate just another chance to be racist by Jack Andrew Wilkie-Jans 17 January 2014
T
he debate surrounding the Aldi Australia Day shirts (pictured below) is not really about what was written on them. For people who cannot see that I feel sorry for them. What the debate is really about is the fact that Aboriginal pre-history on this continent is consistently either ignored or undervalued in mainstream, non-Indigenous society. Aboriginal people who spoke up about the shirts and urged for them to be taken off the shelves were
met with an outcry of “get over it� sentiment. The whole saga has once again sparked the Aussie vs. Aboriginal fire. The debate has given subtle racists the opportunity to denigrate yet another valid concern and upset held among some Aboriginal people. While I understand that most people are merely not involved in the debate or unmoved by either party for no unsavoury reason, yet without a doubt the many who
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rushed to, not defend the Aldi shirts, but to attack those who would have them recalled are subtly racist. The kind that Vernon Ahkee’s very apt artwork “Austracism” reflects; the “I’m not racist but...” people. We’ve all heard that we should simply get over it regarding the landing of the First Fleet in 1788 and the subsequent horrors Aboriginal people experienced during the colonial period because it was so long ago. I was even told by a youth worker no less that most of the problems facing young Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people could be solved by greater integration. Integration which is supposed to be enabled how when remote communities have little to no tertiary or further education facilities, job and employment opportunities and a far higher cost of living to match and when the cultural and health divide is still so wide? While not being solely Aboriginal problems, there are far too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in jail, possibly heading to jail, completing suicide, getting sick and in and out of hospitals far away from their own homes, without jobs or training, without a permanent electricity source to their own towns and so on, and all statistically higher than non-Indigenous people. Why? Because we hold on to the past and don’t integrate? Well the present doesn’t look that crash hot for most of us to be honest and that is because by and large nobody truly listens to the problems, and more significantly, to the solutions of Aboriginal people. No government by and large has yet listened and acted on the advice by Aboriginal leaders in communities about how to better their own people, instead the governments continue with big-city
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developed legislation and social experiments which have been proven to be ineffective. The “I’m not racist but...” people would have us be equals if only we cleaned our act up, got over it and integrated, and yet they clearly have no respect for the pre-white past and very modern cultural context of the people they would have integrated, over it and behaving. Understand that I don’t personally have a problem with these shirts, or at least I didn’t at first until I realised that the issue isn’t about the shirts and what’s said on them but about, and as I said above, the fact that there is no mainstream acceptance or even knowledge of the fact that there was a time prior to this country we enjoy and give thanks for today. How can those “I’m not racist but...” people, who feign respect for Aboriginal people, who likely work with Aboriginal people day in and day out and who see the problems Aboriginal people face on the television still have such a narrow view of Aboriginal people when it comes to Aboriginal people expressing their points of view regarding a fashion statement which expresses its point of view very blatantly? Is it okay for Aldi to have it’s interpretation of Australian history, but not for the First People? I understand what people say when they say to us to get over it when talking about the First Fleet and ensuing colonial times because let’s face it, it took place long ago from living memory. However children were being stolen well into the 20th century and in the early 60s the Queensland Government burnt and forcibly removed the people from the township of Mapoon. So clearly Aboriginal people still face face severe issues and trauma which is not ancient history. Nothing gives anyone the right to prescribe what elements of another’s cultural heritage is
important and worth remembering or bringing with them into the future. Only Aboriginal people can decide how to move forward and with that baggage decide how they will end up, it’s early days still. Like Warren Mundine pointed out, there are many other issues than a shirt worth focusing on, but how can we be sure people will start listening to us on those major issues when views on a minor issue like this are brushed aside? Mundine said that we have forgotten how to take a joke, but the joke is on Australia for not allowing its First People to correct wrong facts and to stand up for their history as something as worthy of recognition as the landing of the First Fleet. The joke is also on Aldi for ignoring that Australia only stopped being a dependent British Empire colony in 1901 and hence the nation we relish in today was in essence founded then. The real joke, which isn’t very funny, is that Aboriginal people still to this day suffer the mainstream media and majority populous undermining anything we have to say, no matter how trivial, when it comes to reminding the rest of the country that we are in fact still here. Yes the drama over shirts seems overt but the real issue here is that it would never have taken place were racism truly dead in this country and if Aboriginality was considered as Australian as Neknominating your friends. De-weeding racism from this country is what we should focus on addressing and I hope that academics, politicians and social commentators like Warren Mundine begin to understand, once that happens there will be equality in opinion and equality in service delivery for all Australians no matter their heritage or their location.