In 2020, we’ve had bushfires that have destroyed our old growth forests, driven rural communities to the brink of collapse, and killed over a billion native animals.
We’ve had a global pandemic that has infected over six million people. We’ve had lockdown and closed borders that have bankrupted businesses and basically put folks under house arrest. I’ve had three friends lose a parent during this time and not be able to attend their funerals. I’ve got friends with relationships at breaking point, know of at least one suicide, and don’t know a single person who isn’t stressed.
Then last week in America, land of the free, a white police officer, sworn to protect citizens, killed a black man by kneeling on his neck for nine minutes. For having a counterfeit $20 note. Have you ever seen American currency? It ALL looks fake. I thought I had a counterfeit $20 note once. It came out of a Bank of America ATM cash machine and the supermarket took it without question. Does that make me a criminal?
The very many really good people of America were filled with entirely appropriate rage and anger at the complete betrayal of everything they put their hand over their heart for whenever the anthem plays. And we sit here and watch in horror as, in the midst of a highly contagious pandemic, they don ineffective cloth masks and gather in huge numbers to protest this horrific gross injustice. But what else could they do? Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
And even as the rest of the world watches in surreal disbelief, we here in Australia have been forced to turn our eyes to the inhumane and callous way we treat so many of our indigenous communities. Since the release of the royal commission into black deaths in custody in 1991, more than 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander have died in custody. The Australian press has (finally) begun to draw attention to how similar incidents to the George Floyd death have occurred here, but with little or no media attention at the time.
May 26 is National Sorry Day in Australia. You can read about it here – it is a day that remembers and acknowledges the irreparable harm caused to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities who had their children forcibly removed from them – “The Stolen Generations” as they are now known. 26 years after the report which highlighted this incredible injustice, and 12 years after a national apology was made by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still ten times more likely to be removed from their families than non-indigenous children.
This year, two days before National Sorry Day, Rio Tinto destroyed – legally – a site sacred to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura People, two caves that showed 46,000 years of continuous occupation, including an artifact that proved a genetic link between the traditional owners and their ancestors of 4,000 years ago. This was not only a huge blow to the PKKP People, but to every single Australian. It was mindless destruction of our country’s history in the pursuit of expansion and wealth, and yet another example, in a long line of many, of the truly appalling disrespect with which Australia treats its First Nations peoples.
I’m honestly not sure how much more my heart can take this year. And it’s only June. 💔
. . . . .
Diane commented recently that my posts were never negative. I try very hard to keep it that way, but this week I’ve felt overwhelmed, and the words needed to come out. I hope though that you will take something positive from this. The only long term way to change societal bigotry and racism – especially the subtle forms that we’re not even aware we all have – is education. If you’re Australian and like me, your knowledge of indigenous history is limited, then make it your job to find out. Read the Uluru Statement From The Heart. Celebrate our First Nations cultures without appropriating them. Read books written by authors like Stan Grant and Bruce Pascoe. Watch Vernon Ah Kee’s Tall Man art installation, but be prepared to weep, as I did both times that I viewed it at the MCA.
It won’t be a comfortable learning curve, but nothing can change until we acknowledge that a problem exists in the first place. ♥
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Thank you for these thoughts – they echo how many of us are feeling right now.
I starred at this comment box for a long time, a silent prayer for words to express my feelings. Here too we have had all the same issues and I can only pray that this is a “cleansing upheaval” For many years domestic violence, sexual assault were NEVER spoken of and the world suffered. Now although there is not complete turnaround of these issues there has been amazing progress. Most communities no longer accept these as normal. Let us keep on loving until the whole world is rising up.
All I can say is Thank you for this poke in the ribs – I needed it! XX
This is just how I feel this week too. Tears, anger, dismay so many emotions rattling around. Trying to do my best to spread love and peace but sometimes it is all too hard. Thanks for sharing. We all need to support each other through this and work towards a better future for all our peoples globally. It is definitely beyond time for change.
‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Edmund Burke
Such an overwhelming time…hard to make out the World as it is now. Even more stressful as we have had a huge move….and I lost my Mother and then my Beautiful Son 10 days later. Then the fires…the virus…totally devastated. What is going on?
Oh Dzintra, I’m so sorry to hear that. My deepest condolences.. ❤️
Thank you for sharing this sad but important post. It’s been a heartbreaking year. I only hope that we now truly recognise the problem in Australia and take genuine measures to address it.
Let’s face it it’s been a right sh!tshow of a year so far. I hope we are seeing the start of a new awareness and understanding, it feels that way at least. White colonialism has a lot to answer for and the reverberations have been felt down the centuries on all continents.
We should feel overwhelmed – it’s about time. I’m going to start by educating myself and showing up and speaking out. A number of times I’ve heard racist discussions around our treatment of our First Nations and tried to speak up and then just kept quiet – no more. It’s not good enough on my part. I don’t care if I offend them anymore. Their attitude and behaviour offends me. I’m angry at myself and it’s time we all did better. Australia Day needs to be cancelled – seriously WTAF? That would be a start.
Celia, you are such a caring beautiful soul my friend. x
Oh Celia.
Thank you for your wise words even though I truly wish they weren’t necessary. Troubling times indeed. I hope we come out the other side of this a much changed world for the better.
xxx Jenny
This is so well written I am reposting it on Equipsblog tomorrow morning. We have not lost anyone close to us yet, but otherwise, the same year-same overwhelmed feeling. Come November 3 (US election day), I hope for the possibility of a better 2021.
Thanks for writing so clearly what I think.
2020 reveals as a horrendous year.
Hoping the next six months are better.
xxx Ale
Oh Celia, thank you for this, yes, crying with you. An African American woman said in her speech: “You taught us violence” I saw the change of ONE letter and cried again: ABHORIGINAL.
Oh Celia, this is so beautifully written and I don’t take it as negative, it’s sad and it’s true. It’s your voice echoing many others and it’s your voice teaching many others.
You are a wise soul. Thank you 🙏
Thank you. We in Australia need to be reminded of what is happening in our own backyard. We must speak up.
Posting from the U.S. As you mentioned , we are in such an uproar here with coronavirus, police brutality resulting in black deaths, protests, riots, looting,racial tension, and a pompous , narcissistic ,out of sync president, who is threatening to call in the military to subdue the rioting.This will only make things worse and cause more death and destruction. I can’t believe this is happening.. It’s frightening, and maddening all at once. George Floyd was the black gentleman that was murdered but just last month we had another incident , a vigilante killing of another young black jogger by three white men who decided to take the law into their own hands (he was mistaken for a possible intruder in a vacant house), and in Kentucky an innocent young black woman, an emergency medical tech, was shot to death by police when they entered the wrong house during a drug bust. So you see there are injustices going on here against the blacks too. I hope our nations arrive at a timely peace and justice for the repressed.
Speaking up about what you believe isn’t a negative action.
Over the past few days I shared a couple of posts on FB, one I quoted from Literally Cultured “I would have thought this would go without saying…but feelings of outrage, helplessness, and overwhelming despair when seeing yet another horrific and unjustified death of a Black man IS NOT A POLITICAL STANCE. It is this feeling, the need to cry out—to scream for justice…that will bring us together on the common ground of our humanity.” to which my comment was “I feel way too human”.
And the other, “I don’t want to be included. Instead, I want to question who created the standard in the first place. After a lifetime of embodying difference, I have no desire to be equal. I want to deconstruct the structural power of a system that marked me out as different. I don’t wish to be assimilated into the status quo. I want to be liberated from all the negative assumptions that my characteristics bring. The same onus is not on me to change. Instead it’s the world around me..” ― Reni Eddo-Lodge, to which I added “In this house we believe in… Equity…. where equality achieves equal opportunity but equity achieves fairness, justice and impartiality.”
Sharing my views on social media links me with those who are likeminded which helps cope with the overwhelmed feelings.
Take care x
Thank you Celia – you have put it well. Rio Tinto had the audacity to put out a statment to the effect of – we didn’t know or some such similar rot. Really? How much money were and are RT going to make and they supposedly don’t have advisors? That is garbage.
My very intuitive friend said late last year that he believed that 2020 would be a year where there would be great change in the world. My heart aches too and I am trying to hope that all of this pain is kind of like a painful birth of the new, Hang in there – like you will…. we all need the good positive and healing folks of this world.. and it is time for a lot of the silent observers to step up and help. We are not alone and MUST remember that when we feel overwhelmed..
I love reading all your words Celia … not matter the subject, they are always well considered and expressed perfectly! THANK YOU! xo
Dear Celia, I don’t take your post negative at all, in fact it is inspiring, especially the wise words of Desmond Tutu. I am thankful to you for sharing your thoughts.
[…] here to read her powerful […]
I wish I knew what to do. I’ve read Stan Grant’s book. It left me feeling immensely sad and impotent. Over the years initiatives have been talked about and talkfests have happened and I would think “now, now, something will be done” – but nothing, nothing changes. My brother lives in America with his American wife and family and I now really wish they would leave – I can’t see anything positive happening for generations.
Tragedy and inexcusable but possibly not inexplicable – every day USA policemen die at work, must be terrifying. BUT – did this have to be framed as a racist issue? Yes, I’m sort of being provocative but I can’t help thinking back to the Australian woman who was shot by a coloured American policeman.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-08/mohamed-noor-sentenced-for-murder-of-justine-damond-ruszczyk/11184162 A tragedy, a crime, but it was never framed as a racist issue and there were never any riots. Celia, I agree with Cornelia – you aren’t negative, you are with Bishop Tutu, hoping for a better world, and sometimes your light must shine from a dark place.
Diane, with the greatest of respect, yes this was a racist issue. The response was completely disproportionate to the supposed “crime” and threat level and comes from many generations of racial profiling of black American men in the US. If you believe it to be otherwise, I’d strongly recommend listening to the first hand accounts of the many people of colour who have come forward with their stories of institutionalised prejudice and persecution. Many, if not all, of these people life in fear of everyday activities that you and I take for granted, like walking down the street and entering a shop. And I’m a Chinese immigrant, so I know a little bit about racism, but nothing like the lifelong, soul destroying pain that black and indigenous communities have been forced to endure. Protests and riots, even though I don’t agree with the latter, are the result of people having no other avenue to express their despair and hopelessness. Sorry to disagree with you, but I have to on this one.
Yes, the background of racism meant it would always be seen as that & the disproportionate number of black arrests/ imprisonment make it a race issue. Saw a tweet recently, USA blacks advising each other to keep ID in the sun visor, so they arent seen to reach for pockets or glovebox, fancy having to think of that. In our country it’s complicated by prisons being used to contain the damaged (from glue sniffing, foetal alcohol etc) who have poor impulse control, are a danger to themselves & others, should not be in gaol but there is no humane alternative & that is the disgrace. So are the deaths in custody tho I had an incident working in NT, a pair of concerned cops saw a confused aborigine, realised he was sick & raced him to the hospital ( all verified, NOT a prisoner) and he died 3 hrs later of pneumonia, that went into the “deaths in custody” stats as they had transported him & the commission didn’t want to miss any. Of course that’s unusual, just meant there are people doing good, & a few failed rescues in the number, there is hope.
Who could have foreseen such devastation this year – I had such hope for it and now I wonder when all these terrible events will end. It is heartening to read your reflections – and I think it is important to shine a spotlight on our Indigenous people. It was so lovely to hear of some of the positive actions of people looking after each other in the protests rather than just all the violence. I live in hope that if we learn more about what our Indigenous people are proud of in their cutlure as well as how badly they have been treated that then we might others them better as a community. But as such heartbreak and anger takes hold, it makes it harder and harder to move towards that
I must admit, although this year has been stressful, worrying and heartbreaking for a lot of it, it also gives me hope. The old systems that ensure that people are kept repressed or in poverty, that kill our planet, that work on the illusion of constant growth but less connection… all these are breaking. I feel like we are breaking apart as a society, and this might be the time we rebuild in a way that is a true reflection of who we are as humanity. Previously I would worry so much about the future (climate change particularly, but also poverty, repression of women/girls, racism etc) and then be dumbfounded when people’s reaction was to say “well, that’s just how it is…” and to continue with life as normal! But people are finally banding together to say this ISN’T how things need to be, this is NOT who we are and that gives me great hope for the future. This is the end of the old ways, and either the start of destruction or the start of the new world. Now we get to work, for there is so much to do.
So true, Evil lurks when good men are silent.
We in the US are all bewildered by the speed with which our system has failed to cope with disease, economic disaster, increasing oppression, and failing democratic processes. Your summary captures the situation completely. The worst is that it is becoming clear that a return to “normal” isn’t either practical or desirable. So what next?
Your correction of the person who said the issues of police brutality aren’t racist was very well stated. Only willful blindness could lead to such a conclusion!
be well… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
As a US citizen I am appalled, horrified, overwhelmed, deeply saddened and embarrassed by our country and leaders ‘on-high’. Your post is well written Celia, thank you. I have been close to tears for days.
This has been a tougher than usual week in the U.S. made worse by the continuing antics for our unworthy president. Across the globe things are out of kilter and I wonder how we are going to right the ship.