End Systemic Racism.

It’s fitting that the last piece I published was around why the Black Lives Movement (BLM) matters. The importance of this sentiment is even more amplified today after the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments this week comparing the storming of the US Capitol building to the BLM demonstrations last year. His insistence on stating that ‘all violence is abhorrent’ is an outright blanketing of why those demonstrations took place last year. To compare a movement which attempts to raise awareness and highlight racial discrimination within policing and to oppose the use of disproportionate violence against people of colour, with a group of violent, racist neo-nazis storming a democratic institution in the attempt to mount a coup is frankly offensive.

When challenged by human rights groups across the country and called out by members of Parliament, instead of apologising, McCormack kept up the rhetoric by not only citing that ‘all lives matter’ but also then dropping the line ‘facts are contentious’. As an Australian who also happens to be a person of colour, I am outraged but not surprised. To see a white man in power, who has no understanding or concept of what racial discrimination looks or feels like to speak with such flippancy is disturbing. He then doubled down on this rhetoric when uttering “there are a lot of people out there who are being a bit bleeding-heart about this”. My response is to ask ‘a bit bleeding heart’ about what exactly? Surely it couldn’t be about systemic racism? About disproportionate use of force by police not only in the US but also against Indigenous people within this country? He cannot be referring sarcastically to people having ‘bleeding hearts’ about the death of David Dungay who was held down by guards and then said ‘I can’t breathe’ 12 times before falling unconscious and dying. He cannot be referring to the 434 Indigenous people who have died in custody since 1991. He can’t be referring to the underlying elements of racism that sit just below the surface in this country and which are allowed to seep through under the guises of comedic value or taunting ‘go back to where you came from’.

For a white man in power, on a national stage, to speak with such confidence about a matter that he obviously doesn’t understand is astounding. His complete ignorance on the BLM movement and lack of willingness to be educated on it, but yet still be the Deputy Prime Minister of this country is shameful. We are not the same country that enacted the White Australia Policy, we are represented in our citizenry of people of all faiths and colours but unfortunately this representation isn’t mirrored within the top echelons of power. Systemic racism exists in Australia, just as it exists in the US and it is not the onus of people of colour in this country to prove this. McCormack obviously exists in a space of wilful ignorance but what his comments also demonstrate is the unconscious bias that exists within a profound sense of white fragility. What is white fragility exactly you ask? This concept is defined as “discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice”. McCormack’s defensive triggers represent his complicity in allowing racial discrimination to flourish.

By touting that neo-nazis violently storming democratic institutions, beating people up and wearing T shirts that state ‘6 million Jews weren’t enough’ are the same as people of colour demonstrating against racial injustice is farcical and downright dangerous. We deserve better leadership than this. We, as Australians who are also people of colour deserve an apology. We deserve to feel that we are being represented, that this society that we live in is committed to eradicating racism in all of its forms. We deserve leadership that understands that saying that ‘all lives matter’ is a complete misrepresentation of why a black life matters, of why an Indigenous person’s life matters, of why a person of colours life matters. It completely disregards the impact that persistent whitewashing and the white privilege that persists today has within our society. It’s a slap in the face to anyone who sits outside of this whiteness and I for one will not stand for it.