Americans got a lot of loaded discourse about race that is intrinsically geared around their experiences of colonialism and slavery. So if you meet an Indigenous Australian, with white skin and blonde/red hair, and they call themselves a blackfulla, don’t come in with that American lense. They are black, i’m black, our darker and lighter family are all black, all Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
If you’re a white passing indigenous Australian, remember that they literally tried to breed the black out of us. You can’t forget.
tumblr needs to talk more about black australia tbh
where:
Alan Jones Says Australia “Needs More Stolen Generations”
The stolen generation is still fucking happening and no one pays attention to it
Transport NSW has denied requests to stop work on a transport project despite the discovery of huge amounts of Indigenous artefacts
Australian crime writer describes ‘Typical Aboriginal’ a A Violent, Thieving, Rapist, Murderer
Teenagers and kids are committing suicide in remote towns
An indigenous refugee camp was forefully removed in WA because it was an “eyesore”
The Darwin Correctional Centre is quite literally cutting off and targeting Aboriginal people
There’s just a general over-representation of Indigenous youth in prisons
There are indigenous peoples literally starving to death
Perth police officers are terrorising the homeless indigenous people (sign the petition)
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has never had authority to speak for all Tasmanian Aborigines
Some other general statistics:
- In 2008-2012, the infant mortality rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children was almost double that for non-Indigenous children (6.2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with 3.7 per 1,000 live births)
- Non-Indigenous girls born in 2010-2012 in Australia can expect to live a decade longer than Indigenous girls born the same year (84.3 years and 73.7 years respectively)
- The gap for men is even larger, with a 69.1 year life expectancy for Indigenous men and 79.9 years for non-Indigenous men
- The potentially preventable death rate for Indigenous children was more than 3 times that of non-Indigenous children between 2008–2012
- Death rates for Indigenous Australians in some age groups were 5 or more times higher than for non-Indigenous Australians between 2009-2013 in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory
- The maternal death rate for Indigenous women was almost 3 times the rate for non-Indigenous women who gave birth between 2006-2010
- Indigenous suicide has increased from 5% of total Australian suicide in 1991, to 50% in 2010, despite making up only 3% of the total Australian population. The most drastic increase occurred among young people 10-24 years old, where Indigenous youth suicide rose from 10% in 1991 to 80% in 2010.
- Indigenous adults were 3 times more likely to experience high/very high levels of psychological distress in 2012-13 compared with non-Indigenous adults
- In 2010 it was estimated that up to 40% of Indigenous youth aged 13–17 will experience some form of mental illness
- The proportion of Indigenous 20–24 year olds completing year 12 or equivalent was 59 per cent in 2012-13 compared with 86 – 88 per cent for non-Indigenous Australians
- In 2013, 7.3 per cent of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander potential year 12 population achieved an ATAR of 50.00 or above, compared with 44.3 per cent non-Indigenous young people
- The unemployment rate for Indigenous Australians was around five times the rate for non-Indigenous Australians in 2012
- In 2011 19.3% of Indigenous people were living below the poverty line, compared with 12.4% of other Australians
That antiblack moment when an Asian person in your apartment building keeps glancing back to look at you in the hallway as you walk to YOUR OWN apartment. And this was literally right after we spoke in the elevator but still suspicion and “fear” as I walked behind them. Not to mention the countless times other Asian people in my building have deliberately not held the building door open for me and my black friends when we try to enter after them. Antiblackness as always.
I’ve lived in Taiwan and the US and the depths of antiblackness amongst Asian people still never ceases to amaze me. Did I mention how people in Taiwan who were alone with me in elevators would literally RUN out when they got to their floors (this happened to me twice). Or when a Chinese woman in Chengdu asked if she could prick my skin with a needle so she could see if black people bled BLUE blood unlike human beings which bled red? Or how about when people would rub my skin to see if the black would come off, or tell me not to drink coffee so I wouldn’t become “even more black”? How about my black friend of a friend in Korea who had a student LICK her in class to “see if she tasted like chocolate.” This is just a few of countless experiences of the severe antiblackness in Asian countries.
People love to make excuses for nonblack poc and say “it’s just ignorance” but it’s not. Look at history. Blackface has been commonplace in South Korean media since the 70s and many Kpop stars to this day continue to parade around in blackface with some serial offenders like G-Dragon in just the past few years. In the 80s in China there were several anti-African riots in Chinese universities where Chinese students en masse assaulted African students claiming that they had sexually assaulted Chinese women. Africans in China to this day are subjected to incredible amounts of police harassment and violence. In 2009 a Nigerian migrant in Guangzhou died jumping from a high rise to escape a Chinese police immigration raid. Africans protested in large numbers in Guangzhou after his death. In 2012 another Nigerian migrant died mysteriously in Chinese police custody (sound familiar?) with no answers from the Chinese authorities. This led to more protests by Africans in Guangzhou. In 2012. Not 1912. (x)
And the shit in America with Asian people is the same. Asians running around saying the n word. Putting on blackface (UCLA Asian frat). And I’ve literally been denied service at an Asian restaurant in DC before saying that they “were closed” even as I stared at tables upon tables full of WHITE people. When pushed, the waiter said – “well you can sit here if you want” and ushered me and my black friend into a back side room where nobody would see us. We refused to sit and left.
People wax poetic about “POC solidarity” but honestly I don’t buy it anymore. Haven’t for a while. Non black POC are always clambering over black bodies to try and gain proximity to whiteness. As Toni Morrison says, the second word an immigrant learns when they come to America is “nigger.” And it’s because they know how central and pivotal antiblackness is in white supremacy. They know that finding any way to distance themselves from blackness is their ticket toward whiteness and humanity – just as the Irish and Italians did to become white in America- and so they reproduce the same bullshit as white people if not worse because of it.
I’m so over it. Like I’m literally just living my life and minding my own business and so many Asian people just won’t leave me alone with their antiblackness- no matter where I go. I go to Asia– bullshit. I go to Palestinian rallies where people scream “nigger” at black people– bullshit. I go in online spaces with Asian people defending blackface in Kpop (see FB comments on this post)- bullshit. I go to my own home minding my own business- bullshit. I’m so fucking over it. Just leave me alone if you have not done any work to dismantle all of your community’s internalized antiblackness.
dont condemn poc for not being able to speak/read/write in their mother tongues and/or not knowing everything about their ethnicity
like that’s so messed up we live in a society that expects us to fully assimilate into “white culture” and when we do express ourselves through our cultures we’re met with hostility and comments like “go back to your country”
and if we do fully assimilate we’re made fun of for not retaining the culture white people stole from us sooo
