Why I can’t breathe (Culturally) as an Aboriginal person in Australia

I was asked the other day what comparison life in Australia has to the African American experience in the USA. Naturally I have been asked this a lot lately and I replied that I personally felt every day in this country that there is no room for me to breathe authentically, culturally, ritually and as my black brain tells me I should. This response might surprise people who know me, work with me and read my posts.

I acknowledge that most Colonial heritage people are good and kind and cannot help but look at our people through their own lens. I acknoweldge it is hard to believe there is another set of societal norms with its own systems, standards and rules to live by. I acknowledge when all you learn about in school or from your family that when your Colonial ancestors arrived they saw naked, dark skinned people sitting around, singing, storytelling talking of powerful spiritual beings, laughing and moving about with very little personal material gain. I can see how your settlers considered this to be an unstructured society of lazy, uneconomical, unintelligent natives that needed to be disregarded and enlightened. I get that by your social norms that is what it would have appeared to be.

What I find hard to swallow is the continuing blindness and ignorance over a few hundred years that indeed this was far from the truth. Aboriginal people developed a repetitive societal system that solely focused on achieving harmony for its members. They did this by strategically framing their systems, standards and rules to try to achieve their survival through harmony by living in mutualism at all times. Their societal norms included collective first traits such as modesty, indirect communication so as not to offend, verbal problem solving, spatial awareness, relationship learning styles and shared parenting. If we did not have a different set of Societal norms then why do I and all other Aboriginal people I know feel systemically displaced everyday of our lives.

I can’t breath in this country as an Aboriginal person. I am restricted because I am compelled to take on the mandatory social norms, values and rules of Colonial Heritage Australia. I am inadvertently forced to do this if I am to earn a living, have relationships outside my cultural group, educate myself, be thought of as intelligent, funny, trusting or even attractive in Australia. These are the systemic standards that European people brought to these shores and forcibly replaced my mother’s peoples systemic standards with. The problem is for Aboriginal people our black brains have been moulded to live and thing one way and it is not the Colonial way. This is a key reason to why we do not thrive mentally or financially or physically.

Your systems admire people that stand on their own two feet and you teach that to your children to go out on your own, and to be considered successful you are must make lots of money, have material gain, travel, get a high education at university etc. This clashes so much with how Aboriginal people’s culture judges what makes a truly successful person.

In the end I am a writer and storyteller so I wrote a poem about how I feel everyday in this country.

We can’t Breathe

I wake up each day thinking about the despair of my Aboriginal family, so constantly

I can’t breathe

Our collective brains make us feel shame even though we try to find a solution relentlessly, to allow our people to live again in harmony

I can’t breathe

I hear of the destruction of our people’s ancient history constantly, dismissed and disregarded so white people can have more, and more and more money

I can’t breathe

I listen to the ignorance & arrogance of the leader of your created country, who is so disconnected from this lands incredible antiquity

I can’t breathe

I cannot unsee the awful cruel comments on social media that reveal the underbelly of savagery that many feel towards my family

I can’t breathe

I work in your employment systems where my Aboriginality is at the convenience of the Colonial heritage managers and bosses who hold the majority. I don’t need to edit me

I can’t breathe

I live in a society that rarely allows me to live authentically, culturally what is right way to live according to my ancestry

I can’t breathe

I watch our collective babies desperately trying to meet your white standards that idolise individuality, torn between standing as one and their kinship dynasty

I can’t breathe

I see our precious Elders numbed from decades of watching powerlessly, how despite their long hard battle, little changes systemically

I can’t breathe

I watch the blond, blue eyed media represent us so negatively, biasedly, or not at all as they are encouraged to contribute to our invisibility

I can’t breathe

I see my people being judged by white standards and rules constantly. Why won’t you believe our black brains see the world differently

I can’t breathe

You fucked your home country royally with overcrowding, disease, and misery; you invaded our lands so violently and did the same to our people literally. You learn so little from your own history because you see it so biasedly, without culpability.

With glasses shielded so rosily, disguising the disparaging secrets of your settler family, you avoid any liability or confronting your truth realistically. Erasing anything that risks your families respectability

I can’t breathe

It is you that has to change egotistically, to make way for our society of group first modesty. To say sorry by restoring some of our lands to practice our ways culturally. You must systemically, make room for us be the experts in our own society. Nothing else will work you see.

We can’t breathe here……..

Written by Nola Turner-Jensen (Wiradjuri Aboriginal) 2020