zKeynote Address
Race, culture and democracy.
LILLIAN HOLT
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people, on whose land we stand.
I decided that the only way I could talk about the title for this evening's forum,
"Speaking from where we are” in a meaningful way, is to tell you who I am as an
Indigenous person, what have been some of my experiences and how they have
informed me. That way, we may, hopefully, understand a little better each other’s
reality. That way, we may encounter one another in a qualitative and not just a
quantitative way. That way, we may not always be shielded by the security of
statistics, the rumination of research and the safety of events, as opposed to emotions.
For my story is inextricably a story based on Race and all its ramifications within this
magnificent country of ours. Call it what you want, Racism, White Supremacy, the
realities of Race in this country have moulded, wounded and informed me. And make
no mistake, they have done the same to you, as non-Indigenous people. For what has
diminished me as an Aboriginal woman, has also diminished you. For my journey is
your journey. My story is your story. My history is your history. And race politics
and practices for 200 plus years have informed your view of me and vice versa.
(In fact if we can understand this “connectedness” we are well on the way to healing
and reconciliation).
Racial ideas, concepts, practices and policies have disempowered Indigenous peoples,
worldwide, and it is only relatively recently, that we are now in a position to question
its cunning and cruel power play, its insidious effects on us as Indigenous people.
Some of these historical legacies are not pretty. Indeed, they are painful. But to deny
them is to further deny our integrity- and to scar our soul. John Pilger speaks of the
Secret Country. And secrets keep us sick. So we need to open up and share. I believe
that only by talking about such issues, strained and strange though they may seem,
will we ever set foot on the path to the Wise Country, as opposed to merely just the
Clever Country.
So - to tell you about myself:
I was born on Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement, Queensland, 54 years ago. (And age
should not matter unless you are a cheese or a wine!). Besides, Picasso, said that it
takes a long time to become young.
The reason I was born there is because my parent- Grandfather was sent there, in
either 1919 or 1922 (the records vary) from a cattle station in Central Western
Queensland. Cherbourg, originally called Barambah, was set up in 1908, for so-called
‘disadvantaged or difficult Aborigines. I’m sure my Grandfather was in the latter
category, for, as the story goes, he objected to the treatment the local Station owner
meted out to my father who was, then, a very, very young, stockboy.
Culture, Race and Community: Making it Work in the New Millennium
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My mother, as a very young child, was taken to Cherbourg from North Queensland.
She died in 1987. And to this day nothing is known of her age or relations. There is
no written record of her existence on Cherbourg and yet she lived there as a young
girl and grew up there as a young woman, before getting her Exemption Certificate.
Exemption Certificates for Aboriginal people were the rule of the day and both my
Mother and Father received them. In essence, they deemed that one was now
“civilised” enough to live in mainstream society and, in some cases, actually stated on
the certificate that one was “no longer Aborigine”.
Having been born in 1945, I was a teenager in the sixties. The world was my oyster
and I had a whale of a time. There were a few firsts and I was feted. Such as the first
Aboriginal person to work at the ABC in Queensland. I started there as a fresh faced
17 year old in 1962. I worked there for four years and returned to study and entered
University. And so began what was a life, for me, of when not studying, working full
time.
The sixties were heady times. What with the Referendum of 1967, a milestone in
Aboriginal affairs. (How many know of the ‘67 referendum and what it did*?) I now
existed in Australia’s eyes.
Yet despite now being counted as part of the population, it was in the sixties that the
realisation of ‘difference’ began to creep in. Through actions and attitudes by others
who began to point out my own ‘otherness’, my ‘race’, my ‘difference’, I was
gratuitously given the subtle and not so subtle messages of an assuredly White
Supremacist society.
The signposts of supremacy were there and manifested themselves in many ways. For
example, in the sixties it was exclusion from the surfie scene, which dominated the
era. Boongs were out. Blondes were in. For surfie girls were, most often, blonde, blue
eyed and white skinned with slight European noses. Broad noses and brown, let alone
black skin- heaven forbid- were not encouraged. The surfie look was considered the
epitome of beauty. Both boys and girls were bronzed but not too brown and certainly
not black! Oh no, whitefellas were able to control how tanned they got! Whitefellas, it
seemed, were always in control, when it came to skin colour- theirs and others.
Control was exercised by inclusion or exclusion. I started, in the sixties to sniff
superiority and sense superiority or what I call today, white supremacy, through
exclusiveness and exclusionary tactics based on skin colour. I was relieved to find
that when I read about the Black struggle in America, in the sixties, they too had
identified colour as a major factor in the struggle and existence as they proclaimed “if
you’re white, that’s alright, if you’re brown, stick around, if you’re black, stay back”.
Ever since then I have been acutely aware of a hierarchy of skin colours whereby
some colours are more marketable and acceptable than others, including my own.
Such factors enabled me to survive into the seventies when the Commonwealth
Government took action. After the referendum of 1967, the 1971 census for the first
time counted Aboriginal people. In 1972, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs
officially came into existence. Money, policies, platitudes and jobs abounded. The
panacea for the “Aboriginal problem” was pursued, at full pace. If the sixties were
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heady, then the seventies were giddy ones…. Institutes for research were founded and
experts materialised.
People such as myself benefited as I became the first Aboriginal Executive Officer
for the National Aboriginal Education Committee (the education advisory body to the
federal government) and then gained an overseas study award to do postgraduate
study in the United States. I returned in 1980 and became involved in Aboriginal
adult and community education in Adelaide for the next sixteen years.
Once again, the world was seemingly my oyster. Ultimately I progressed to Principal
where I worked. I adapted, I advanced, I assimilated, I aspired, and even on occasion,
was admired. But once again, something did not quite fit. By the mid to late 80's I
was extremely disturbed by the use of deficit language in the endless writings and
research vis a vis Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people were often portrayed as
disadvantaged, handicapped, deprived, etc. A whole ‘industry’ it seems, was built
around this.
By the 90's, it was left to Aborigines to explain and to justify, to curious, well
meaning, ignorant mainstream Aussies what it was all about. The past had caught up
to the present. The governments of the day had failed to offer an explanation of why
money was needed in the first place and that there might be a need for unequal
distribution for equal outcomes given the historical legacies. Media releases, at the
time, which I well remember, proudly proclaimed what the Government was doing
and the huge amount it was costing. But never a hint of why it was needed and why
the cost.
Inevitably, there came about a climate of resentment specifically in relation to ‘black
money’. It started out as a sarcastic trickle and then turned into a torrent. Just when I
thought I had played the white man's games squarely and fairly, got his accreditation
and successfully negotiated his systems, it started. By ‘it’, I mean the interrogation.
The suspicion. Hence, I was frequently asked when I went to a conference "was the
Government paying for it?" I was asked frequently, sometimes menacingly whether
the College car was a government car. Whether I was buying my house, or was it a
government house? I was sure that they would not ask a White Principal (male or
female) the same questions. Not that I wasn’t used to questions of curiosity for, ever
since I can remember, I had often been asked if I was a “real Aborigine” or what
“part” of me was Aboriginal (In any event, I don’t know my European ancestry).
But questions did not have to be asked, either. The looks, the stares, the glares, the
attitudes, were enough. In vain, I searched for that plentiful pot of gold that
blackfellas were supposed to be getting. Indeed, I stood up at a conference last year,
after listening to whitefellas complain about how much money Aboriginal people
were getting, and said that if any whitefella in the audience knew where my share
was, I would use it for two purposes: (a) I would go and live overseas to get away
from Aboriginal -specific racism or (b) get a nose job, like Michael Jackson and have
my skin whitened, so that I would no longer be cosmetically apparent and would just
“fit in”. (I had a flurry of concerned, confused, compassionate, well meaning
whitefellas come up to me after, to say it’s not as bad as I made it out and that I was
essentially paranoid and imagining it all).
Culture, Race and Community: Making it Work in the New Millennium
”VTPU
But alas, to this day, no one can tell me where those bountiful bucks are!
Today, I work in a remote community. It’s called a University and the attitudes and
ignorance are alive and well and festering. Platitudes and policies abound about
Cultural Diversity, meaning migrants and international students and their
contributions to this country. Multiculturalism is applauded. (Not that I am opposed
to the latter).
But within all the discussion, I have not heard one iota of the contribution of
Aboriginal people to this country, eg., the pastoral industry which was built on the
backs of Aboriginal stockmen such as my father and grandfather who worked long
hours for which they were paid in rations of bully beef, flour, tea and sugar. Instead,
in the nine months since being there, I have been asked why Aboriginal people should
get special privileges, why do we need a separate Centre, why are there not more
Aboriginal doctors and lawyers, why do not more attend University, why do they
drop out, why, why, why?
And yes, it is my job to answer questions. Yet the stupidity and rapidity of it all gives
one a sense of the infinite. The amazing array of questions asked with monotonous
regularity says to me that mainstream Australia does not know its own history. They
do not know about Exemption Certificates, they do not know that it was official
policy that people, such as my mother, were only educated to fourth grade primary as
they were considered not capable of anything beyond, they do not know of the
apartheid system missions, settlements and reserves, with lights out by ten at night
and written permission by the white superintendent in order to visit the local white
town.
This ‘not knowing’ by whitefellas about what has happened in their own backyards,
for yonks, both fascinates and infuriates me. Fascinates me, because such institutional
hierarchies are supposed to represent all that is worth knowing. And infuriates me,
because often more is known about such places as South Africa and New Zealand and
their racial issues.
This ‘not knowing’, I believe, over time, has diminished whitefellas. Generational
ignorance has left them bereft, regardless of whether it is recognised or not. And I say
that in all sadness and kindness. It is this ‘not knowing’, that creates the ignorance
and stereotypes, which we as Indigenous people, deal regularly with, and for some
it’s a daily experience.
This ‘not knowing’ seems to be a luxury of white supremacy, which allows people to
refrain from the pain of pondering. It allows for the filtering, denying and discarding
of that which is uncomfortable, and I believe that Aboriginal existence in this country
has been and is too uncomfortable for most to contemplate. As Sister Veronica Brady
says Aboriginal people are the shadow side of White Australia, which is afraid to
look because of guilt, shame, blame, anger, and defence. Yet, in looking, there is
liberation, as my closest white friends have attested. And with liberation can come
Reconciliation.
Culture, Race and Community: Making it Work in the New Millennium
”VTPU
Thus, if we are to have a true Reconciliation, I believe there is mammoth work to be
done. Not so much on the outside but on the inside. For too long only the structural
has been addressed and it now needs to be accompanied by the Spiritual.
The time has come, I believe, for “Physician, heal thyself”. But in order to heal
oneself, one first has to know oneself. One has to know one’s history- warts and all.
There is an old Russian proverb, which says “dwell in the past and you lose one eye,
forget the past and you lose both”. I am saddened that the past has been consciously
or unconsciously forgotten, of late, in recent debate. For I believe that the past
informs the present and the present informs the future.
I speak like this because after 25 years of Official Government policies and structure
of one sort or another, there is a strange impasse - even a crisis - in race relations, in
this country, at this time. In the past decade I have felt the mean spirit of attitudes in
this country, in a way I have never felt it before. And I believe, rightly or wrongly, it
has to do with the virulence, ignorance and arrogance of white supremacy. If you do
not believe that white supremacy does exist, there is a very easy way to test it and it is
this: go and mix with Aboriginal people. Not for just a day or a week or a month. The
longer the better and the more obviously Aboriginal looking they are, the better. Hang
out with them, walk with them in the streets, and accompany them into shops, pubs,
and public places. Then wait for the reactions of other whitefellas to yourself and to
the Aborigines you are with. Try it. I urge you.
Most of my best white friends tell me that the only way they learn about white
supremacy in this country was through mixing with Aborigines. A kind of ‘learning
by proximity’ or absorption. However, they were often seen as race traitors by their
own.
But ultimately their encounter was a healthy and liberating one as they were placed in
a position to do what I call ‘interrogate their own oppression’ as whitefellas. For I
believe that unless we go beyond the mask, the superficial, the platitudinous
politicians and dig deep, it will remain a superficial encounter. Kissing and making
up doesn’t really matter unless you deal with what you came to fisticuffs over in the
first place.
I think that the time has come for Australia as a nation, to do just this. Maturity can be
part of the new millennium.
I also happen to think that we, in Australia, are superbly situated to embark on such a
journey. For it is a young country of European occupation coupled with an ancient
ancestry of Aboriginality and is blessed with an abundant and accommodating
landscape.
I am aware that to speak like this to non-Indigenous people can be painful. But I
believe it is necessary for there are no innocent bystanders in our mutual history. On
the other hand, neither should there be any terrified ones. We can all make a stain on
the silence.
For it was Adrienne Rich, the American writer, who said: “You can lie with words,
but you can also lie with silence”.
Culture, Race and Community: Making it Work in the New Millennium
”VTPU