Identity tags

It would appear that certain sections of the non-Indigenous community are happiest when they can tag Indigenous Australians - it gives them power and the ability to accept or dismiss our achievements.

I was filled with pride to see front and back page headlines in the last edition of the Koori Mail (August 10) duly promoting the Australian Football Indigenous Team of the Century: "It's our Team of the Century" and "Team for the Ages".

Although I've never played a game of Aussie Rules or met an AFL Indigenous player of note, I feel like I know them all through their media exposure. Most of my "rugby league-crazed" family and friends also expressed their pride in the collective achievements of all those exceptional athletes who made that historic team.

But five days earlier I was aghast at the audacity of Courier Mail sports columnist Mick Colman's pathetic appraisal of the team, which went under the headline of "Time to consign Indigenous teams to history".

Colman, like most so-called experts who have no claim to sporting fame, said, "Is it just me or did anyone else find this week's naming of Australian football's Indigenous Team of the Century a little, um … how should I put this, discriminatory?" He ventured deeper into the racist quagmire of social commentary by suggesting there would be an "outcry if the AFL had named a Non-Indigenous Team of the Century".

Not satisfied at dismissing this momentous announcement, Colman concluded his extraordinary column with a warning to all sports administrators: "The AFL, NRL and other sports have worked hard to combat racial vilification. They will know they have succeeded when the term 'indigenous footballer' is consigned to the garbage bins of history."

I had a bit of a chuckle at the ironic ideological postulation of this ignorant columnist and queried the dilemma he must have experienced when reporting on the Olympic Games, World Cup Soccer or Test Cricket. The last time I watched those events, I had a faint memory of competition based primarily on race.

As far as offensive journalism goes nothing beats Howard Sattler of Perth's radio station 6PR who, it would appear, has been consistent over a 15-year period. 

Media Watch, April 1990

Stuart Littlemore: ... six Aboriginal children were joyriding in a stolen car which crashed when being chased by police. All were aged between twelve and fifteen. Three were killed.

Sattler: Well, I say good riddance to bad rubbish. That's three less car thieves. I think they're dead and I think that's good. 

"Taxi Talks" Radio 6PR, August 2, 2005

David: Um, Yeah, I was just inquiring about your justice system right, I reckon it's just too soft mate, you know, like I'm in a wheelchair, and back in August last year I got speared by an Aboriginal glue sniffer.

Sattler: Goodness gracious.

David: ... went to court on the 1st July, he got a hundred hours ...

Sattler: He didn't go to jail at all?

David: ...didn't go jail at all, you wonder why people want to take the law in their own hands ...

Hughie: But ... David, it's Hughie here mate, I bet the Defence Counsel stood up giving all the mitigating circumstances in the world as to why he did this crime.

David: Oh yeah.

Hughie: Yep.

Sattler: Yeah it's not on.

David: Just too soft mate, nigger nigger pull the trigger, far as I'm concerned.

(laughter all round, and a few "oohs")

Sattler: He said that.

Hughie: I didn't say that.

Sattler: I know you didn't say that.

Hughie: I didn't say that.

Sattler: He said that.

There is no place in society for racist remarks such as these and it continues to amaze me how this repeat offender is able to hold down his job. I guess the same level of disrespect towards Indigenous people can be heard on most prime-time radio programs running simultaneously across the country.

When I think of these people I'm reminded of a saying Irish professor, psychiatrist and broadcaster Dr Anthony Clare made in 1989, "Apart from the occasional saint, it is difficult for people who have the smallest amount of power to be nice". People like Sattler, and to a lesser degree Colman, have probably never met an Indigenous person socially and if their inappropriate comments sell papers or radio time why would they want to reveal compassionate thoughts now?

But why should all Indigenous people have to endure the barbs of society because non-Indigenous people wish to apply stereotypical values on all of us? Is this a reflection on the lack of progress made on race relations in this country over the past 217 years? Audre Lord (1934-1992) explained eloquently why she did not want to be given a tag as part of her identity:

As a black, lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity … I find I am constantly asked to pluck out one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of myself. But … my fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all of the parts of who I am … without the restrictions of externally imposed definitions.

In much the same manner, I have fond memories of powerful words from renowned academic and high-profile Indigenous activist Grace Smallwood. A journalist asked her recently why other Indigenous people couldn't be like her, in reference to her hard work gaining tertiary qualifications and a sound vocation in life. Grace's one-liner of "Why can't you swim like Kieren Perkins?" had the white journalist stuck for words.

One week post-Colman’s article, I read in the same Murdoch owned paper a review - by Dr Martin Crotty from the Australian Studies Centre, University of Queensland - of my book (The Courier-Mail, August 13) "The N Word: One Man's Stand". He writes, "Does such a story merit an autobiography? Not by classical standards - Hagan has not had the longstanding public profile, nor the outstanding record of achievement that usually justifies publishing one's own story."

Strange how the book, an Indigenous journey of three generations from 1895, is doing well nationally and is currently receiving rave reviews internationally.

And still they try to tag us.