Editor’s note: This piece contains discussion of racist and discriminatory statements and behaviours.
Image: Dom Fou, Unsplash
‘You’re really smart for an Aboriginal.’
This charming backhanded compliment is something I’ve heard for most of my life. I’m not smart. As a person of colour, that’s obviously impossible. No, I’m smart for someone with a skin tone that isn’t white. As though my Aboriginal and Malaysian ethnicity has any effect on my intelligence. The tone of my skin must be an obstacle. This stereotype followed me as I moved through university and into my masters. Sometimes it’s a little shocked ‘oh!’ rather than the whole sentence, but one syllable says an awful lot when you’ve just said, ‘well, I’m actually Aboriginal.’
Going through my undergraduate was truly eye-opening. I was studying to be a history and English teacher, two areas that I am incredibly passionate about. I took an Australian history class to make sure that my knowledge was accurate. You never know what might have been discovered since you were in school, after all. I didn’t know what I was walking into.
I sat in a lecture theatre as a lecturer began to talk about the White Australia Policy. He spoke about the premise of the policy, about how they were trying to attract ‘desirable’ citizens, about how Pacific Islanders were a ‘cheap labour alternative’ and about how Asian people were ‘taking over’. My fist began to clench and my nails started digging into my palms. The lecturer spoke about all this traumatic history so easily, like it wasn’t a problem. He spoke to soothe the white people in the room. They didn’t do it, it wasn’t their fault, it was just a part of history. Then he said a sentence that took my breath away.
‘Indigenous Australians were considered a dying race anyway.’
I had never been more aware of the florescent lights of the lecturer theatre. I distinctly remember the hard plastic of the chair on my back because I was trapped there with my racing thoughts as the lecturer moved on.
The lecturer spoke about all this traumatic history so easily, like it wasn’t a problem. He spoke to soothe the white people in the room.
‘But if we look more closely at the gold rush…’ The lecturer kept talking like all that racism was nothing. As though saying my father wouldn’t have been worthy of being in Australia and my mother wouldn’t have been classed as a person was nothing. I thought to myself that this couldn’t be where they left it. It was only two slides. I waited. I waited for further discussion about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. I waited for there to be any information about the lasting effect this horrific policy had on us, or for any indication that my teacher knew it was a horrific policy at all.
There was nothing in the whole course.
My tutorial was worse. Students were asked to debate whether the White Australia policy was a bad idea. Some students argued as though certain lives didn’t matter, as though there was some benefit to getting rid of any person who wasn’t white. I was not the only person of colour in that room. Yet none of us spoke. I sat, glued to my seat, unable to move, unable to think, only able to listen.
I’ve found at university that discussion questions seem to be intentionally controversial. Students will sit there and argue our right to exist like we hadn’t fought for it. They talk about the trauma that happened like it was so long ago when it’s barely even a generation old. We are expected to sit there and discuss moments that destroyed our history. If we get angry, if we get passionate, if we get mad, we are deemed irrational because we make people uncomfortable.
But if you don’t want a reaction, why is my existence used as a discussion topic that students will forget in a couple of weeks?
Why is my existence used as a discussion topic that students will forget in a couple of weeks?
My presence in their classroom was a problem and they were happy to hound me because they believed it was their right. They had to work hard to get into university. They didn’t want this Aboriginal who just walked in without trying. I truly think they didn’t believe I could have earned my place there. They asked how I got there, what I had to do and, if I even had a connection to country. I felt like I had to appease them because I was yearning to be there, to be seen, to make the change that I was desperate for.
There is no handbook, no blueprint, no overall message that is given to us that tells us how to handle any of those situations. I was not handed a pamphlet inscribed ‘how to deal with racist people who don’t believe they are racist.’
I left with my bachelor’s degree after four years and I didn’t look back. I didn’t leave with a lot of friends but I had something burned into me. An ache. A fear. This nagging voice that told me I only got my degree because I’m blak. I couldn’t have worked for it. It didn’t matter that I would be doing readings until 2am. It didn’t matter that I soaked up the information like a sponge. Still after four years, I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there, no matter how much I loved what I was learning.
A wall was raised and I didn’t shake it for a few years.
I avoided further study until I could no longer. I was itching to get back into learning. Perhaps the five years after my undergraduate was enough to put on some rose-coloured glasses. It couldn’t be that bad. I adore the subjects… right? When I was accepted into my postgraduate, I thought it would be better. After all, a master’s degree is for people who want more than just a basic bachelor’s degree for their workplace. We chose to be here.
When my brand new lecturer asked if there were any Aboriginal people in the room, I shyly raised my hand. Naively, actually. In a turn of events that surprises absolutely no person of colour, I was brought into conversations as the ‘blak voice’ from that moment on, as though that was the only interesting thing about me. The whole class was asked if we had ever faced discrimination and I told them about a moment when a person was being racist in my workplace. That person was trying to claim that all blak people are drunks. I explained to the class how I struggled to stay calm in that moment. Then a white woman, a classmate, simply smiled.
‘You didn’t want to be the angry Black woman?’ She joked.
I stopped. I blinked. I continued with my story as the wall started to rise once again. That hadn’t been what I was worrying about at all. But there it was. The stereotype. When we’re rightfully upset, that’s what we become. Angry and black. And with that, I shrunk.
Still after four years, I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there, no matter how much I loved what I was learning.
This was a space I had assumed was safe and that safety was rapidly taken away. I should have honestly known better. But that’s part of it. We hope that there’s been change. When I’ve spoken to Aboriginal women about things like this, women who are older and wiser than me, they just sigh and comfort with the air of someone who knows this pain. They all say, ‘I thought it might have changed…’
In the end, it’s never really a discussion. It never really mattered about my sources or my information or my personal experience. If my choice of words wasn’t perfect, if I didn’t sound like I was smart enough to be a part of the conversation, I was ignored. Dr Chelsea Watego put it best:
I persevered with the indignities and assaults in the process, I think because I was too invested in the idea of winning on their terms.
It is exhausting being in those spaces. I felt like I had to toe the line between educating other people and fighting against them. I thought I had to choose my words carefully. I thought I couldn’t ever truly relax because what if we’re excluded from all these discussions again? You see it in politics, in education, in any space where our voice should be heard. You have to be calm, even in the face of utter humiliation and insults.
In the end, I am never going to win. The platform was never built for me. I was sold the idea my entire life that if I finished school, if I was accepted into University, if I got a full time employment, paid taxes and did everything right, it would be okay. If I played by the rules that society had set out for me, I wouldn’t be subjected to the backhanded compliments or thinly veiled racism. But that wasn’t what happened. All I ended up with was the realisation that no matter what I do, no matter how I succeed, there will always be the belief that my success got handed to me because I’m Aboriginal. There will always be a little voice in my head saying that I’m not enough, that I’ve changed nothing, that I will never be smart. I will only ever be smart for an Aboriginal.
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This piece was edited by KYD First Nations Editor-in-Residence Nadia Johansen, in partnership with State Library of Queensland’s black&write! Indigenous Writing and Editing project.
Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers can submit pitches to KYD’s First Nations Editors-in-residence here.
