The Resilience of Racism in Australia

Tomas Ditton

Do 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 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.

However, there was no evidence to support such claims. Even where attendees of the protests tested positive after the event, they likely contracted the virus from a source other than at the protest.

McCormack’s views represent the dismissive attitude of the government to the movement. Rather than engage with the protestors demands, the state’s response was to crack down on the protests themselves. Such an attitude either intentionally or unintentionally endorses the suppression of Indigenous people’s voices and strengthens the resilience of racism.

Broader Cultural Reckoning The movement inspired an examination of perceptions of race within Australian society more broadly. Indeed, the movement resonates with refuges in Australia. Statues of historical figures associated with slavery or colonisation were pulled down across the world. Due to requests from either streamers or makers, shows featuring blackface were removed from digital platforms including four of Chris Lilley’s programs. Gone with the Wind was also removed from streaming, and white voice actors of non-white characters were forced to step down from The Simpsons and Family Guy. Collectively, these actions reveal the unfortunate resilience of racism within our domestic and global culture. Domestic popular culture generally reflects an image of Australian society as white, such as the white cast of Home and Away. It is a white face that black people are forced to see when they look in the cultural mirror.

The 2020 Australian Reconciliation Barometer Summary Report found that 60% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents agree that Australia is a racist country compared to 43% of the general community. 52% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents reported having experienced an incident of racism in the last year. Thus, despite actions taken to remove racially controversial material, the disparity between perceptions is suggestive of the general community having a distorted view on race relations in Australia. Moreover, acts of censorship are tokenistic. It is legal, social, and economic reform that is needed.

2021 While the alteration to the National Anthem of ‘young’ to ‘one’ suggested some symbolic hope, such a gesture ultimately does little to address Indigenous discrimination without other actions such as justice system reforms. Furthermore, on 12 January 2021, Michael McCormack compared Trump’s supporters storming the US capitol in January to the Black Lives Matter protests. When criticised for making such a comparison, McCormack responded that ‘[a] ll lives matter’. This comment is problematic as it is associated with opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement. As such, McCormack’s comments attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the movement. Moreover, McCormack’s comment is redundant because the Black Lives Matter movement calls for race equality, not race supremacy. Such comments signal the resilience of racism in Australia and its influence on the top levels of government.

On Australia Day in 2021, invasion day protests across Australia echoed the calls of the Black Lives Matter movement. The day represents a traumatic remainder of a violent past to Indigenous people. Yet, it also represents a violent present. A present in which racism is resilient.