All of This Belongs to Us

“We acknowledge the Larrakia people as the Traditional Owners of the Darwin region and pay our respects to Larrakia elders past and present. We are committed to a positive future for the Aboriginal community.”

The unique thing about being in a place where unique issues are literally up front and portrayed as just part of the Territory is the fact that the not so unique issue about color is really very simply black and white.

Maybe a by-product of having lived in and traveled on many different places is a keen objective awareness of surroundings and the feel of a place.  Maybe it’s just a survival instinct developed when one is not in a familiar comfort zone.  Maybe it’s just eyes ears and senses open to what is actually happening right there and right then.  Maybe if you don’t know any different or don’t really care maybe then you don’t see hear and feel.  Or maybe you’re just unable to put yourself, imagine yourself, in another’s position.  Stereotypical viewpoints can be based in ignorance and fear. Awareness and fear of what has been brewing for generations certainly cannot be ignored, anymore.

Darwin City is certainly at the Top of Australia, but for many it’s where they end up, bottoming out.  Homelessness and destitution is not unique.  But in the Northern Territory it’s almost triple the National rate.  It’s just another ugly award to hang on a wall of records dedicated to the downside of unspoken ills affecting this part of the world.

In this City it’s very common to witness Indigenous individuals and groups in various stages of distress destitution and chemical intoxication.  It’s accepted as normal.  Behaviors that would be unacceptable elsewhere are normalized here.  In a City that appears to have no solution to the most unique of all unique issues, a divided we and they understanding between black and white is a shared common bond.     

After an extended period of time I can now see how convenient blindness creeps in.  Like macular degeneration, a full sensory glaucoma can set in easily; crossing the road to avoid the issues is preferable.  There is no reconciliation; they are just political statements.  Words spat and rattled out for votes and future self-serving lucrative pensions.

But, nothing comes close to cementing the divide brick by brick more evidently than the sight and sound of a group of Aboriginal men and women being moved on from a predominantly whites only drinking establishment.  It’s nothing new on Darwin’s famous mile long alcohol soaked Mitchell Street.  But this time it’s just that little bit more clearly heard.  They are seated engaged in employing their click sticks hoping for some meagre monetary gain as a security employee approaches.  “All of this belongs to us and you will need to move on.”  

​As a white man I am ashamed that racism segregation discrimination and fourth world conditions are very real and apparent in this first world ‘Lucky Country’.
 
I don’t have answers and am not totally innocent when it comes to issues of color. I fear and at times suspect that the damage done is too much, remembering that the impact on this Nations first peoples is so recent in generational terms.

‘There has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian,’ spoken by a privileged white man in power.”

In a world of tipping points, maybe things need to get worse, before they get better, maybe.

​Image credit.  News.com.au