The Resilience of
Racism in Australia Tomas Ditton
D
o Black Lives Matter? While Covid-19 restrictions were coming into force, the Black Lives Matter movement was out in force. The protests have made Australians confront the resilience of racism against Indigenous Australians and the legacy of colonisation. Origins The hashtag ‘Black Lives Matter’ that spawned the original American movement first appeared in July 2013 on Twitter in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin. References to the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ appeared in Australia during protests following the August 2014 death of Ms Dhu, an Aboriginal woman, in police custody. The movement fully emerged in Australia with a dedicated Black Lives Matter rally in Melbourne in 2016. The movement was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in May 2017. Movement in Australia in 2020 The protests in America over the death of George Floyd in May of 2020 inspired Australian protests to Aboriginal deaths in custody. Simultaneously, Covid-19 in Australia was spreading like the bushfires. The concomitant public health order restrictions meant that the planned protests on 6 June would occur in defiance of the orders. In New South Wales, the Supreme Court initially ruled that the protests could be stopped under the Summary Offenses Act 1988 (NSW) because the organisers had not complied with the notice requirements for a public assembly under s 23(1). However, this was overturned on appeal due to the Court finding that the protest organisers had complied with the notice requirements and that the Commissioner of Police had not satisfied the statutory steps needed to oppose the public assembly. Tens of thousands of people then lawfully marched in Sydney alone. The movement itself brought attention not only to black deaths in custody across the world but brought
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home the severity of systemic racism. In Australia, the movement has profound significance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experiences of violence, trauma and discrimination. Indigenous Australians constitute approximately 3% of the Australian population but comprise 29% of the national prison population. Such disproportionate detention itself undermines the resilience of Indigenous communities to thrive as autonomous cultures free from discrimination and the pernicious effects of criminalisation. Moreover, since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report, which recognised the effect of detention rates on the high death in custody rate of Indigenous Australians, there have been at least 455 Indigenous deaths in custody in total, including the more widely publicised deaths of Ms Dhu, David Dungary, and Tanya Day. There were a further 7 deaths in 2020. A salient cause in Indigenous detention rates is historical. Australia’s history as a colonial possession is also a history of Indigenous dispossession. But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have not only been deprived of their land, they have been deprived of their culture, their liberty, and even their lives. The fact that aboriginal people are detained so disproportionately evinces that this oppression continues today. Unfortunately, racism is resilient. The State’s Response While the initial protests were unable to be stopped in Sydney, subsequent protests and Court challenges were less successful. Amid growing concerns over the transmission of the virus in Melbourne and the threat of Covid-19 to public health, the Supreme Court found that the Commissioner of Police had satisfied the statutory requirements to oppose the public assembly and the implied freedom of political communication could not overcome the interest in public health. Thus, the Sydney protests on 28 July were stopped by police. Based on the Melbourne protests, there were many claims from people, including Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, that it had spread Covid-19. Ed.1 2021
