TL;DR?
Nope, not this time.
Keep on reading.
Ah, Reconciliation Week! That’s the one week of the year that we, in Australia, ‘celebrate’ our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and the fact that we have the oldest continuous culture on the planet. You may have missed it this year as there was no footy, so no Indigenous jumpers or ridiculous media frenzy over goal celebrations. But heck, you could be forgiven for missing it every year, because the fact that we celebrate this culture we tried to decimate while the gap widens and children are still forcibly removed – well it seems a little tokenistic.
But you may have also missed it because of the blanket (quite rightly) coverage of protests in the US. And while I would love to write about the President organising peaceful protestors be teargassed and shot with rubber bullets for a photo op, about police that show solidarity for cameras only to order gassing when they’re gone, and about my heartbreak for a country I almost lived in, my friends live in, and where a beautiful future astronaut has just been born, I would prefer instead to talk about the racism problem we have in Australia.
Hopefully, you’ve read a bit in the past few days about Australia’s racial inequality. About how the Indigenous life expectancy is less but health issues are more. We see footage of brutal murders of black people in the States at the hands of the police, and think or say (as our PM did) “Boy, I’m glad I live in Australia”. Well. That’s probs cos you’re white.
Some facts for you regarding the Australian incarceration system. Since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, over 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have died in custody. Not one police officer has been charged.
For real.
The latest data (from 2018) declares that, despite Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders accounting for only 2% of the population, they make up over 28% of the adult prison population. If you’re an Indigenous male, you are 15x more likely to be in jail than non-Indigenous, and this increases to 21x for Indigenous women.
But it’s considerably worse for Indigenous kids – currently 100% of juvenile prisoners (10 – 17 years old) in the NT are Indigenous. Across Australia, Indigenous kids make up 59% of the juvenile incarceration population, yet only represent 5% of the total population.
What the fuck?
So yes, the footage of George Floyd is appalling, and the US is in a real bind at the moment, but we must stop pretending that the over-incarceration of blacks is only an issue in the United divided States. Unfortunately, we have footage here too, and I would like to share two cases with you.
These are hard to watch and the below is hard to read, but please – do it. It shines a light on our white privilege, because I can promise you, had the below women been non-Indigenous, and non-black, they would not have died.
Tanya Day
In Victoria & Queensland, it is a crime to be drunk in public. Not even disorderly, just drunk.
In 2017, Yorta Yorta woman, Tanya Day, was on the train from Castlemaine to Melbourne and fell asleep with her legs in the aisle. The conductor called the police on her for being ‘unruly’ and they arrested her for being drunk in a public place.
Tanya was placed into a cell for four hours to ‘sober up’. Although police checked on her, they did not do so to the required level, or at the required intervals. At some stage, as can be seen in the video, Tanya fell and hit her head on the wall. Police checked her after that time but did not do so thoroughly. After her four-hour spell, they found her unresponsive and called an ambulance. The ambos took an hour to arrive and found Tanya with bruising to her forehead.
By the time she arrived in hospital, she had suffered bleeding to her brain for close to 5 hours. She did not wake and was pronounced dead 17 days later on December 22.
It is not enough to read the above.
It is important that you watch this video.
(In 2019, following advocacy from Tanya’s family, Victoria abolished the drunk in public law. It remains a crime in Queensland.)
Ms Dhu
In WA you can be locked up for unpaid fines. These fines can ‘jackpot’ exponentially over the course of time unpaid.
In 2014, Ms Dhu, a Yamatji woman whose full name is not used for cultural reasons, was arrested in Port Hedland for $3,622 in unpaid fines. The timeline over the next few days is heavy and confusing, so I’ve simplified it as best I can.
Day 1
5pm
Ms Dhu arrested and told she would need to spend four days in prison for her unpaid fines8pm
Ms Dhu complained of severe chest pain, rating it as 10/10. She requested to go to hospital but had to wait over an hour before being taken. (An autopsy later revealed that she had an infected broken rib from an altercation with her partner 3 months prior)The attending doctor believed that Ms Dhu was “exaggerating” her pain for “behavioural gain”, but still believed it was real. She administered endone and diazepam, and claimed she was fine to return to her cell/custody.
Day 2
5pm
Ms Dhu complained of the pain spreading to her entire body and requested to return to hospitalThe triage nurse supposed that it was “a withdrawal from drugs”. An ultrasound was performed and Ms Dhu was provided with a paracetamol tablet and again declared fit to be held in her cell/custody.
The doctor that performed the ultrasound, who had seen her on Day 1, considered both “behavioural issues” and “drugs?”
The Senior Officer at the police station assumed her symptoms were from drug withdrawal.
The First Class Constable believed that Ms Dhu was “faking it”.
Day 3
Early hours
Ms Dhu was unable to feel her legs or stand up and requested to return to hospital.12pm
A Senior Constable was told by the Senior Officer that “She has been to the hospital twice before, she is a junkie coming off drugs. She is faking now that she can’t get up, she was walking around this morning but now she is saying that she can’t get up, so can you go give her a shower, so when she is moving around I can say to her, ‘See, you are full of shit.’”The Senior Constable pulls Ms Dhu into a sitting position for her shower, when her arm then body falls back. She hits her head on the concrete.
12.30pm
The Senior Officer agrees to send Ms Dhu to hospital. She is unable to walk. She is handcuffed then dragged from her cell and carried to the police van.When they arrive at the hospital, the police tell the staff that Ms Dhu was “faking it”. She was moved to a wheelchair where her feet drag on the ground and her head falls back.
1.38pm
Ms Dhu is pronounced dead, after doctors spent 53 minutes performing CPR.
Again, it is not enough to read the above.
It is important that you watch this video.
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Please – if you’re white and reading this, rack your brain for the number of times you’ve been drunk in public. Think about those unpaid carpark and speeding fines that you had.
Should you have died for them? No.
And nor should have Tanya Day or Ms Dhu.
That we didn’t, but they did, is our white privilege.
And that’s why black lives matter.
It is not a broken system, it was designed that way.
And that’s why black lives matter.
In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men are 15x more likely than non-indigenous to be incarcerated. And Indigenous women are 21x as likely. Then when they get there, they are more likely to die.
And that is why black lives matter.
Ms Dhu and Tanya Day are but two examples of hundreds of deaths in custody.
Again – not one policeman has been charged.
Not. One.
So – what can we do?
Well, educate ourselves and listen to people with lived experience. But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are not responsible for reliving their traumas to teach us how to be better allies. That is on us. Some practical things:
Donate:
As was the case of Ms Dhu, many women are incarcerated in WA for unpaid fines. According to Sisters Inside, ‘single Aboriginal mothers make up the majority of those in prison who do not have the capacity to pay fines.’ Debbie Kilroy fundraises money to pay the warrants so that women are not locked up for poverty. Donate here.
Read:
Dark Emu (This is without doubt the best book I read last year, and one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read ever. It truly is incredible!)
Deaths Inside: Indigenous Australian deaths in custody until 2019 – The Guardian
Starter guide to Indigenous culture
Learn:
About the Indigenous language in your local area
Listen to Indigenous voices:
Follow IndigenousX on twitter (this is a twitter account with a host that changes weekly)
Subscribe to Indigenous News & watch NITV
Watch:
Uncle Jack Charles talking about being a Stolen child and trauma (other stories on Indigenous intergenerational trauma here)
Show up:
Protest against Black Deaths in Custody, this Saturday 6th July
Listen:
Spotify Playlist created for National Reconciliation Week
Write:
To your local member:
Dear XXX,
Australia has not made enough of a realistic effort to Close the Gap and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are dying at a much higher rate than non-Indigenous Australians.
As part of this, we must reduce the number of Indigenous deaths in custody and Indigenous people incarcerated. This should start with implementing:
All 339 recommendations from the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in full.
All 35 recommendations from the 2018 Law Reform Commission Report Pathways to Justice – Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
Improved early intervention (NOT removal from homes or community), diversion and presumption against arresting young Indigenous people (similar to NZ)
A Koori Justice Unit within the Victorian Police Force.
As a member of your electorate, I ask that you please work with Koori leaders to reduce incarceration and death in custody rates immediately.
Please inform me of your support, initiatives and progress.
Kind regards,
XXXX