This weekend marked the 20th anniversary of when St. Kilda player Nicky Winmar lifted his jumper and pointed at his skin in reaction to racial taunts in the Saints match against Collingwood at Victoria Park. 20 years on and the debate Winmar ignited has unfortunately reared its ugly head once again, after Sydney Swans player Adam Goodes was called an ape by a 13 year old fan in their game against Collingwood on Friday.
It is hard to describe how disappointing this is. It was a terrible incident. But something much more disappointing happened on Friday. Earlier in the day the Australian Institute of Criminology released a report about Indigenous deaths in custody. The report is alarming at best.
Here are some terrifying statistics.
The report said that whilst only two-and-a-half per cent of the Australian population are Indigenous, Indigenous people make up 26 per cent of the adult prison population. This represents a doubling Indigenous people in prison over the past 20 years – a DOUBLING.
Since 1980 there have been 2, 325 total deaths in custody across Australia, with 450 of those being Indigenous people. 19% of deaths in custody in Australia over the past 20 years have been Indigenous people. And these numbers seem to rising. In 2009-10, 14 Indigenous people died in prison – the highest number on record. As more Indigenous people are entering prison, more are dying.
Let’s go back a little while and have a look at some more terrifying statistics. In a report that I doubt very few actually noticed (I certainly didn’t until the weekend), in March the United Nations ranked Australia number 2 un the Human Development Index. Take Indigenous Australians out as their own group however, and that number drops from 2 to 122. As The Stringer reported:
“The report stated Australians have the world’s fourth highest life expectancy in the world – 82 years. But this is not so for Aboriginal peoples – subtract 20 years from the Australian life expectancy average for Aboriginal peoples, and in some regions of Australia make that 30 years less off the average.
With education – in terms of number of years of schooling achieved and the standard of school performance – Australians are ranked second highest but that would not be the case for Aboriginal peoples who do not enjoy quality schooling in many semi-remote and remote communities.
Australia has the lowest suicide rate of the world’s top ten nations but Aboriginal peoples have the world’s highest youth suicide rates.
Nothing has improved since the 2011 United Nations State of the Indigenous Peoples report, “In Australia, an Indigenous child can expect to die 20 years earlier than his non-native compatriot.”
These aren’t new statistics. These aren’t new issues. But they are extremely confronting to me. I feel like I may end up coming across here as the ‘white boy with some middle-class guilt’ here. Maybe that is part of what I’m feeling. But at the same time I feel like it’s just useful to say something. Anything to help bring up this issue.
What happened at the AFL on Friday was disgraceful, and Adam Goodes should be lauded for the way he dealt with it. He has helped further the debate about racism in Australia that we desperately need to have. But, please, at some point, can this debate also include some discussion about ending systematic racial violence in this country? About closing the gap, ending poverty and getting people out of prisons?
I’m a white middle-class man. I can’t explain what it is like to be an Indigenous person in Australia. I can’t truly explain the impact of over 200 years of oppression. I can’t tell you what the solutions are, nor even come close to acting as though I can speak for Indigenous people. I’m not sure if I can progress this debate and do justice to it.
But the one thing I do know is that the systematic violence against Indigenous people in this country is shameful. I’d be delighted if we can finally have a national debate about it – one that actually deals with the over 200 years of oppression that continues today, and actually looks to tackle this issue.
Any ideas on how we can do this?