The White Country
I have lived in Australia my whole life. The northern part of Perth, WA, to be specific. It's a relatively nice place to live- people are usually kind, life isn't too hard, it's a beautiful country with lots of things to do and see. But Australia has a few problems, one of the biggest of which is racism.
Me
I am white. I am the whitest motherfucker I know. My family can be traced back to Scotland on both sides within four generations. My great-grandfather moved here when he was younger, voluntarily. My great-grandfather was a coloniser, he moved here not long after federation of "modern", white, Australia- maybe around 1914? I'm not sure how I would fact check that.
I grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth- one of the whitest places I've ever been. I had very little decent education on indigenous people and culture (although far better than the "education" my parents got). This has always trouble me because, as a bisexual trans woman I have always felt the need to fight back against hate and discrimination... but how do I do that when I live in an area so white that I honestly could not name a single indigenous person.
The Problem
Australia was built on the genocide on indigenous people. Without that mass murder, "modern Australia" would be a completely different place. Now, obviously, killing people is bad. I don't need to tell you that. There are other things that have happened too, such as the Stolen Generations (Wikipedia) between the early 1900s and the early 1970s, Howard refusing to make a Sorry speech, the systemic rape and enslavement of indigenous Australians, and so on so forth.
White Australians have always been, and still are, out of touch with indigenous issues. There are so few indigenous Australians in metro areas, and so few (if any) that are regularly active in the online communities I'm on (namely, the fediverse) that I feel I do not have a way to check in with them on colonisation-related issues and what they think of potential solutions. Who am I, the whitest white Australian, to act as if I know what we should do to combat racism? But on the other hand, I'm not about to stop posting about racism as if it doesn't exist.
I mean, juvenile detention (ages 10-17) is 63% comprised of first nations' kids, despite them only making up 5.7% of the population (in their age group). Australia is filled with systemic and societal racism, I'm not going to stop talking about it just because I am not the right person to consult if you want to combat these issues.
On the other hand, I don't want to keep posting about stuff if I might be presenting 'solutions' that indigenous people don't actually want; hell, I don't even know if they want to be called indigenous- this episode of You Can't Say That says not every first nations' person wants to be.
The Solution
Engage. It's not easy, but it's not hard, to look for indigenous opinions. Even if there are no indigenous people on the fediverse (which I highly doubt) I can still find articles that are based on surveys of indigenous popuations, or interviews, or watch NITV, or whatever just to find a more relevant opinion.
Extra Notes
Smfh I was doing a little research for this post and stumbled across this NITV video and fuck me look at the comments. This country makes me lose brain cells how do you, as a white person, who has learned about indigenous rights issues in this country, publicly post this horse shit.
