On reflection, it's been a strange day of coincidences, leading to an assault on my sensibilities which I find both shocking and saddening.
This morning, I went for a swim with Jay. She has a lovely heated pool in her complex and I love having the chance to go for a swim. Being in water is one of my favourite things. While puttering around the pool we got chatting about this and that. High on the list of things to talk about was the disaster awaiting North Melbourne Football Club, of which Jay is a stalwart.
We're both horrified at the allegations levelled at the Hawthorn Football Club. For once, the night before, I'd tuned into The Footy Show. These allegations sound horrific. But as Jay said, this racism, which they are trying to stamp out, is all around the place. (She even told me of a time in the last year or so where a well known aboriginal footballer was in a local pool with his toddler minidng their own business. The lifeguard came up to him and said he'd been asked to have him removed from the pool because he was making some old, bigotted white folks uncomfortable - I got even more angry about this. How dare they! Ignorant, racist wankers.)
All of this racism crap makes me rage. Aren't we past this? Surely, we've become a lot more aware of the sins of our past. We acknowledge the lands on which we stand. We hold smoking ceremonies. We're finally looking to have an indiginous voice in parliament. It's well overdue.
One of the trailblazers for indigenous voices was Faith Bandler (AC). An Islander woman, she fought for the rights of Aboriginal, Islander and Torres Strait Islander women to get the vote in 1968. You have to remember that before this, the indiginous peoples were treated as flora and fauna in the eyes of the government. Faith Bandler's was a national treasure.
(Image sourced from https://www.nationalwomenslibrary.org.au/)
I was born in 1968.
To think of this makes me sick to my stomach.
Regardless, Faith Bandler was a bloody good egg. I've been looking at her smiling face as I go down a laneway on the way to the supermarket. The mural has been there for years, along with a Jewish saying, "If not us, who? If not now, when? (Bandler's husband was an Austrian Jew who, as a refugee, immigrated to Australia after World War II.)
I've been saying hello to Faith's image as I shlep down to the supermarket/gym/shops for years.
So I've been thinking about these sorts of issues all day.
Then, on my second walk of the day, looking to get my steps up, I set myself off to the shops, audiobook in my ears, entertaining me as I walk through the twilight streets. I take more photos of random stuff you find on the streets of Richmond, all the while taking in what Julia Baird has to say about finding the light within. I'm loving her book, Phosphorescence. Tonight, walking down the lanes, she was talking about street art, and its transience.
She made some great points. Learning to let go, nothing being permanent, street art is testimony to this. There one day, gone the next. Hell, have a think about what goes on down Hosier Lane in the city.
But street art, no matter how much you love certain pieces, is transient.
Walking down the cobblestone laneway this evening I found this.
That a piece of street art has been defaced normally wouldn't bother me, but this is has been done out and out racism - it's not mindless vandalism. It's sickening. This isn't just mindless tagging.
That's we're on an extra long weekend means that the council won't be able to do anything about this until next week.
I'm going to miss Faith's wry smile and twinkling eyes. She was a fighter. (Julia Baird has a bit to say about her. You don't get the honours bestowed upon her without be impresive).
Even more thank missing this once lovely nod to a great Australian, I'm really pissed off that this has happened. It shouldn't. It's racist shit. Arseholes.
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