Don’t just shout ‘racism’

THE Territory isn’t perfect. No place is. It would be naïve to think some racism doesn’t exist here. But that doesn’t mean everything you see and hear is an example of racism, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM

THE Territory isn’t perfect. No place is. It would be naïve to think some racism doesn’t exist here. But that doesn’t mean everything you see and hear is an example of racism

THERE might not be a place in the world as often misreported on as the Northern Territory.

With depressing regularity people blow in and out of this place, armed with their own prejudices, and return with reports that do everything to reinforce the stereotypes and nothing to advance the truth.

We’ve seen this alarmist reporting spark drastic interventions and wasteful royal commissions, but it continues unabated.

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Just last month – after a couple of days spent in Darwin - the esteemed New York Times produced a report about an incident in Wadeye.

It alleged police brutality and a cover-up over an incident where a prisoner who was being flown back to Darwin tried to rush the cockpit as the plane was taking off.

Police used force to stop him in front of several witnesses including a lawyer and a judge.

It’s likely those police saved several lives that day, but somehow they became the villains in this yarn. “In places like Wadeye,” the Times reported (as fact, not opinion),” this casual disregard for black lives is frighteningly common”.

Then, yesterday, the ABC’s Sydney-based Radio National Breakfast program interviewed Amnesty International secretary general Kumi Naidoo about his recent visit to Alice Springs.

Here’s how the conversation went about his trip to the bottle shop.

“So I went with the indigenous colleague of mine and we observed first what was happening,” he told RN’s Hamish Macdonald.

“So several people were coming to buy, they were mainly white, and there was no request for the ID. So, when we got up there to buy a bottle of wine, we were asked for identification and my colleague Tammy said, ‘Why are you asking?’ And the guy said, ‘You know how it is.’. And then she said to him, ‘Is it because we are black?’ And he said, ‘You know sister, that’s how it is’. And it was clear, black and white.”

“It’s not only surprising, it’s also deeply depressing to be honest,” Naidoo went on to say unchallenged.

“What I saw in Alice Springs was that white people were not being asked for their identification.”

Of course, anybody who’s been living in the Northern Territory for the past two-and-a-half years would know it’s almost impossible for this to be true.

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The NT Government’s banned drinker register — re-introduced by the Gunner Government this term — requires everyone who purchases takeaway alcohol to not only produce their identification but to have it scanned, ensuring they have not previously committed an alcohol-related offence that would deem them ineligible to purchase grog.

If what Mr Naidoo alleges is true — that white people were able to buy takeaway alcohol without producing ID — then the liquor outlet has broken the law and could be subjected to a stiff penalty.

Mr Naidoo should inform the police and the liquor commission of the name of the outlet and the time this incident occurred.

They could then easily check the BDR scanner against the sales register and determine if bottles of wine had been sold to people who hadn’t produced identification.

I doubt very much this will be necessary because I doubt very much this story is true.

Unfortunately, as a wise man once noted, a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.

After being broadcast on radio yesterday morning, these claims have since been pushed to a much wider audience on social media.

Neither Chief Minister Michael Gunner nor Attoney-General Natasha Fyles have been given the opportunity to set the record straight.

And the tired old stereotype of the Northern Territory as a racist, redneck wonderland has been perpetuated yet again.

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The Territory isn’t perfect.

No place is.

It would be naïve to think some racism doesn’t exist here.

But using lazy clichés to promote dubious claims of racism does nothing to further the cause of those subjected to actual prejudice.