On one side there are racists, and on the other there is Yumi-topia, where everyone is virtuous
I will begin my first column for the year by saying that during the holidays I devoted much thought to establishing credits in wokeness. Is there a beginner’s guide? Perhaps I could start with small gestures such as displaying a “say YES to refugees’’ sticker on my car to let the motorist behind me know I care about the wretched. After all, platitudes are just as good as practical solutions.
But given Australia Day was approaching, I concentrated solely on demonstrating my solidarity with First Nations Peoples. I thought I should change the name of my city of residence on my social media bio and replace it with “Living on Gadigal land’’. When among progressive acquaintances, I could speak of the traditional owners in reverential tones and offer banalities such as “There is much we can learn from them” while my companions nod approvingly.
I imagined myself at some trendy inner-city restaurant as I indulged in preening porn. “It is not for us to lecture indigenous nations about how to address problems within their communities,” I could say solemnly, while in the same breath dissing the likes of Aboriginal commentators Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price as flunkies for white conservatives. I thought also of travelling to Cape York for some well-publicised indigenous ceremony and upon my return writing gushingly about the incredibly profound spiritual awakening I experienced.
All good so far. I would have no difficulty peppering my prose with alternate “oohs’’ and “aahs’’ as I write of my epiphany, but I would need to work on tonal delivery as I deplored my whiteness and castigated my fellow colonisers for their original sin. I had trouble training my larynx to produce that choked-up tone on demand, but I addressed that by thinking of some monumental and tragic injustice. By reminding myself that my taxes formed part of the $1.5 million paid to former Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane for his five-year term at the Australian Human Rights Commission, I could burst into tears at will.
Anyway, practising wokeness was an amusing two-minute exercise, but I concluded it was not for me. I can fake emotions for only so long until that “Have a listen to yourself’’ realisation kicks in, at which point I would have horrified my progressive new acquaintances by uncontrollably bursting into laughter at the spectacle of seeking affirmation for my faux-altruism.
Unfortunately, the laugh is on us. We live in an age where feelings trump facts and telling uncomfortable truths amounts to so-called “hate speech’’. The fracas last week on Studio 10 between veteran television presenter Kerri-Anne Kennerley and co-panellist Yumi Stynes over the motives of those marching in the so-called “Invasion Day’’ protests was an example of this.
“Has any single one of those 5000 people waving the flags saying how inappropriate the day is … been out to the outback where children, babies, five-year-olds are being raped, their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped, they get no education,” Kennerley asked.
“That is not even faintly true, Kerri, and you’re sounding quite racist,” replied a po-faced Stynes, her ridiculous accusation prompting the studio audience to gasp in dismay. Presumably Stynes’s only consolation was that her audience critics were ill-bred and ignorant suburban types. “Every time you open your mouth you’re sounding racist,” she added.
There was no need for this. Stynes needed only to make the point that taking part in the protests did not equate to ignoring or disregarding the appalling statistics of domestic violence and child sexual abuse in indigenous communities. Instead she resorted to denialism and defaming Kennerley by the crudest of tactics.
There is no logic in doubting that violence in indigenous communities is endemic. Depending on their location, indigenous women are 34-80 times more likely than to experience domestic violence. The homicide rate in the Northern Territory towns of Katherine and Tennant Creek is 30 times that of the USA. In 2015 an Australian Crime Commission study found that in some indigenous communities “every person had reported being affected by child sexual abuse, either as a victim, perpetrator or relative”. Last year the ABC reported that the rate of school attendance for indigenous students in the Arnhem region was 51.8 per cent compared to 89.8 per cent for non-indigenous students. How is your “not even faintly true” claim looking now, Yumi?
Had Stynes fronted up to the panel the next day as planned, she could have heard firsthand about these horrors from Price, a Central Australian and Warlpiri/Celtic woman who herself is a survivor of domestic violence. But Stynes cancelled her appearance, claiming on her Instagram account the composition of the panel was “quite right wing” and that she “would have been going into a trap”. Instead, she “really urgently want to lie around and do nothing”. I hope that women from the remote indigenous communities who had experienced domestic violence were paying attention to Stynes’ tale of woe, if only to put their suffering in perspective.
But what Stynes announced in the same post inadvertently revealed the apparent intellectual shallowness of those who shut down debate by accusing opponents of bigotry. “I am feeling stable and calm and like I’m on the right side of history,” she wrote. For her and her ilk, history is but a dichotomy, a backdrop to a philosophy where everything is about moi. On one side there are the racists, and on the other there is Yumi-topia, where everyone is virtuous.
Stynes’ mindset is typical of today’s commentariat. To strive for accuracy of argument is passé; rather, approval is earned through serenely reciting progressive shibboleths with the confidence of one who knows she is on the side of the angels. In these theatrical displays the indigenous people are but mere props in a narcissist’s soliloquy.
Ole whitey bears much responsibility for the racism of low expectation and shifting blame from indigenous perpetrators, but many indigenous activists too are part of the problem. “It is about truth-telling,” said former Victorian Greens parliamentarian and indigenous woman Lidia Thorpe on Studio 10 in support of those who marched in the Australia Day protests. “If you want to talk about rape and murder, we need to go back to when this country was invaded.”
Yes, let us raise awareness about historical atrocities committed by settlers against indigenous people. For far too long these accounts were suppressed and downplayed. But there is a certain irony, not to mention a great hypocrisy, in calling for truth-telling while implying the false notion that rape and homicide were unknown in indigenous societies prior to colonisation. It ignores the overwhelming evidence that mistreatment and brutalisation of indigenous women by their menfolk was widespread in indigenous culture.
“Australian statistics show that Violence against Indigenous women and children is predominantly perpetrated by White Males,” tweeted indigenous film-maker, actor and writer Elizabeth Wymarra last week. “@Studio10au conveniently leave that statistic out to demonise Indigenous Men.”
Just to clarify, Australian statistics show that Violence against Indigenous women and children is predominantly perpetrated by White Males. but again @Studio10au conveniently leave that statistic out to demonise Indigenous Men #SakKAK #WhiteFragility101
— Elizabeth Wymarra (@woollogirl) January 29, 2019
I don’t suppose it occurred to Wymarra she conveniently left out the source for her ridiculous claims. This was the same person who during an interview for the Guardian in 2015 stated “Above all, I would like people to remember that the Indigenous issues in this country have not been caused by Indigenous people.”
“Violence against Aboriginal women has been happening — from well, basically colonisation,” said indigenous playwright Nakkiah Lui when she appeared on ABC’s Q&A in 2016. Does anyone else see a pattern here? Only seconds before she had made the ironic observation in respect to domestic violence “We make so many excuses for the perpetrators.”
It is the ideologues of grievance politics who continue to make excuses for indigenous offenders. There are too many kudos to be gained by self-flagellation, too many frequent flyer points to be earned by attending UN junkets to decry colonisation and bemoaning one’s lot, and too many lucrative government grants in the way of incentives. In short, there is money and celebrity status on the misery circuit, and while that prevails activists will never acknowledge that individual autonomy and abrogation of personal responsibility cannot co-exist.
If making those observations puts me on the wrong side of history, so be it. In any event, I could never abide the stench of hypocrisy on the other side.
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