As promised, I’m handing over the commentary on blakandblack.com to some people who have helped me collect statements for my proposed application to the United Nations. Mick ‘volunteered’ to be first. He is a former union organiser and fifth generation resident of Bourke, a town in the far west of New South Wales, which has seen its fair share of racial tensions over the years. Mick is married to an Aboriginal woman and they have five children together. Mick refers to Aborigines as dark people in his post, a descriptor he has used since realising that in Australia you are never just a ‘bloke’ or a ‘sheila’ if you’re an Aborigine, you are always one of them, an outcast, an outsider. An Aborigine in Mick’s experience is someone who is treated differently and adversely by the police, by the courts, by the government, prejudged by all, solely on the basis of their ethnicity.
Over to Mick
I grew up in Bourke and have worked in the bush all my life. I met Mark when he came to Bourke looking for dark people who had been bashed, brutalised or otherwise mistreated by the coppers (his words). He was introduced to me by a mutual friend and asked my help in finding dark people willing to provide him with a statement. “Fuck me” I thought he could get one from every dark person in town that was until I realised that he is one of them choosey bastards. “Only one criminal conviction” he says, “fuck me” if you’re a darkie in Bourke you have one of those before your 10, the police just hate the dark people out here.
As Mark and I walked the streets of Bourke I pointed out the spots where people I know or knew of had, had the ‘shit kicked out of ‘em’ by the police, every corner, every building, don’t have to go too far.
As I take him on a tour of the Bourke riots, the choosey bastard tells me he’s only interested in the stuff that has gone unreported, “The hidden injustices” as he calls them. As we walk past the corner of Oxley and Wilson Streets I point out where the police bashed me old mate so badly that he eventually died. They had it in for him, every time they saw him in the street the police would do him for something, big or little or non-existent, it didn’t matter, they hated him because he was big and black and wouldn’t take their shit. One day they threw him in the back of the paddy wagon, deliberately slammed the door shut on his leg broke it in three places. It was so badly damaged that it had to be cut off, those fuckin’ cunts still wasn’t good enough for ‘em, they then bashed his son, knocked three teeth out of his gin’s mouth. Poor cunt eventually died of gangrene cause the police left it several days before taking him to hospital about his broken leg.
“Can’t get a statement from that one” me smartarse mate observes as we continue our tour of racial hatred in Bourke. I eventually take him to the camp on the outskirts of town where we have a talk to me old mate’s gin. She agrees to give him a statement along with her son and one of the old nurses at the hospital who still remembers what happened. “How many more do ya want” “as many as I can get”, bloody smartarse reply.
I next take him to see my nephew a former student of the University in Canberra, first dark member of the family to finish school. Poor cunt, the police in Canberra bashed him into a coma, can’t walk properly or look after himself now, can’t go back to university either. Shit load of good that did him.
When his mother asked the police what happened they refused to talk to her said it was an official investigation. What investigation, no one was asked, no police came near us. His mate said that the police drove past a group of white kids pissing on in the street and went after the ‘abos’ who were walking back to their house. “Police just laid into us for no reason” his mate told me.
Apparently in Canberra the police have a discretion they call FIDO (fuck it, drive on) only works if ya white, if ya a darkie, it’s GEBE (get ‘em, bash ‘em). When me lawyer mate in Wagga suggested I take me nephew take the matter up with the Ombudsman in Canberra all he got was the run around, they don’t give a shit about darkies in that town.
Fuck first time I went to Sydney with me missus I was bashed by the police in Campbelltown for being with a dark woman. Fucken’ cunts she me missus I told ‘em. Got locked up for that. What for I asked, smack across the head was their only reply.
Ya know, when they say that dark people have equal rights in this country it’s all bullshit, they have no rights, they just don’t count and anyone who says otherwise is bullshittin’ ya. I could go on and talk about me and me missus being followed around Dimaru in Melbourne by security ‘cause she’s dark or being refused a drink at the Pub across the road from Flinders Street Station ‘cause all dark people are trouble. Though none of ‘em are as bad as those cunts in Queensland, went shearing up there once and only once, racist cunts they are up there.
In the end me and me smartarse mate found 60 victims of police bashings in Bourke who matched his smartarse requirement of only “one criminal record, mate” as he keeps telling me. Could have been 600 if he wasn’t so choosey.
Ya know I took me missus into Canberra to watch the Prime Minister give his apology to the stolen generation and to see if I could get somthin’ done about what happened to me nephew. Fuck me, nothin’ has changed, white folk are only concerned about themselves everyone else can go and get fucked as far as there concerned in Canberra.
Until the government starts taking equality seriously nothin’ is goin’ change, nothin’. Dark people just have no rights in this country, none at all. The white folk stereotype ‘em (smartarse taught me that word), the police hate ‘em (learnt that one for me self), the government just won’t look at ‘em and their lives are shit.
It really is a sad day when someone gotta go lookin’ for justice overseas because there is none in his own country. What’s the point in having police or courts or a government if all they care about is themselves? Fucked if I know.