Neverendum
Mob have been fighting for our voice to be heard for what seems like forever. This really is a Neverendum, and it’s whistling along like the good little Blackfulla it’s pretending to be.
We’ve been here before right, I mean this ain't new?
It may feel that way to mainstream straya but for Mob we’ve been fighting for our voice to be heard for what seems like forever. This really is a Neverendum, and it’s whistling along like the good little Blackfulla it’s pretending to be to win the masters approval.
What a time to be alive. The dots, the colours, the romance and the white guilt exiting through the hole in the ozone layer at a speed greater than Dutton leaving the apology!
Can I get an Amen? I may as well get an Amen because Christianity was the driving force behind the White Australia Policy which to this day still gives everyone else a say over Blackfulla life, land, water and future. By design, even the majority say in a referendum over whether Blackfullas can even ask questions about our lives, lands and futures. Because even if the Yes vote gets up, will we still have no fucking power, just a blind faith of all that is meant to happen will happen, or will we just be left with more questions?
Remember when Forrest Gump stood at the podium in front of the Lincoln memorial? Then the old white guy pulled the plug enforcing a silence. That’s how I feel about our voices now and the proposed Voice. At no stage will the government be mandated to action any of the recommendations from the Voice committee. How is that different to now? I mean if they didn’t listen to their own Royal commissions and reports previously when it comes to us, how will this be any different?
We are being asked to trust an institution built on genocide and illegal occupation. Call me cray cray, but I’m a tad skeptical. Actually, I have been called cray cray, among other things just for asking questions about the process. Just fucking questions! I guess we’re voting for a Voice, but it feels like it must be a no questions asked, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir, to keep the momentum of the campaign going, above all else.
People have said to me, be grateful, this is a “great start” to progress. I remember people saying similar things after Devon Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generation. We said sorry, what more do you want! A “great start” they say, the apology was a great start to Aboriginal children being taken from Aboriginal families in greater numbers since the “great start”. This makes me so wild, like we’re just meant to forget every promise that’s been broken by all governments to date. Give me a break.
Campaign wise; one of the reasons that saw me swaying towards to a Yes and the greatest thing the campaign has had going for it in my eyes, is the the undisputed fact that likes of Pauline Hanson, Jacinta Price and Peter Dutton are strongly against it. What a gift for the yes campaign to have the voices of the morally corrupt, do-nothing, know-it-all’s come out so strongly against it…
So am I a Yes voter now?
Like the great unknown Indigenous rights activist, Katy Perry says (reckon she would be anyways), I’m hot and I’m cold, I’m YES and I’m NO, I’m in and I’m out, I’m up and I’m down. My view on which way I want this referendum to go has swung so many times it has given me headaches. There have been days when I wanna fight so hard for what we deserve as a people that I forget the best way to take up that fight. I’m just angry and can’t wrap my head around why others don’t see things the same way. For all of that, lately, I’ve tried to think more about consequences.
My nine-year-old daughter said to me the other day that she overheard me talking about the Neverendum and decided she would tell her friends at school to vote NO. I wasn’t aware of how much she picked up from my discussions with others and how she interpreted those discussions. This left me feeling ill.
For me it became so much bigger than what I first thought. Although my reasoning for wanting more from this vote is about our children and their futures, I hadn’t stopped to realise how they and she would be affected by all the conjecture surrounding it presently.
What do I actually want for my kid?
Is hope enough?
Is symbolic change enough? No, of course not.
Do I want my daughter to think that the majority of the country doesn’t want us to be seen or heard? Also, no fuckin way.
I definitely appreciate and more than understand the views of the progressive No campaign led by Senator Thorpe. We are deserving as a people of so much more.
My main concern is that a majority No vote won’t be on the basis of mainstream straya wanting more for Blackfullas. It’ll be steeped in and overshadowed by racist motives.
Remember when Adam Goodes was getting Booed? Let’s for arguments sake say; that 5% of the total booing was for individual plays at the time. Those boo’s were lost in the resounding 95% of racist overtones echoing through stadiums as a reminder of who we are to this country and where they want us to stay put. Like it or not (and I definitely don’t like it), the progressive no is going to get lost in the majority racial roar NO.
So where to from here?
Will we still fight for treaty and truth as we do now, whether it gets up or not?
Will Mob feel seen and heard (albeit somewhat performatively)?
Do we want to believe that the majority of people who live on this continent want to give Blackfullas a genuine voice, regardless of what’s on offer?
Will a YES piss off the racists, I sure as fuck hope so.
So, I guess I’m a Yes? For now …
You may know Steve Jones from his Twitter ‘X’ handle BundjalungBud. He is a much loved part of Blakfulla Twitter whose hot takes have been shared wide across the internet and occasionally pasted up in offline spaces as well (Frankston Servo bathrooms).
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