Tools of the Master Wielded Against Each Other
On the Policing of Blak Thought and Identity by Ourselves
Note from the author: I would like to acknowledge the feedback and contribution of Dr Melinda Mann for this essay.
This is a subject I’ve thought about for a long time. I think it’s one of the most insidious issues within the wider First Nations community, and it’s only grown worse with the rise of social media and the perpetual onlineness of our lives.
We spend more time worrying about each other and policing Blak thought and identity than tackling the larger problems that continue to hold us down.
This might be an example of survivorship bias within my own thinking.
During World War II, the military noticed that returning aircraft often had bullet holes in the same areas. They assumed these spots were the most vulnerable and reinforced them. But they were wrong - the planes that had been hit in truly fatal areas never returned. This is survivorship bias: focusing only on what survives and missing the full picture. Albeit a colonial example, this is likely one of the most well-known illustrations of survivorship bias, often shared in internet culture as a clear metaphor for faulty conclusions.
In the First Nations context, survivorship bias might be how we focus intensely on internal disputes and distractions while missing the bigger problem - the ongoing erasure of our political capital, cultural sovereignty, and the structural violence that continues to oppress us all.
“Survivorship bias might be how we focus intensely on internal disputes while missing the bigger problem - the ongoing erasure of our political capital and cultural sovereignty.”
Take the conversations around cultural disputes. Yes, disagreements over cultural knowledge or community roles can be significant. But compared to the issue of us not having true political power in our own country? It’s a distraction. And yet we spend so much energy there, tearing at each other rather than confronting the systems designed to keep us powerless.
ICIP and the Master's Tools
ICIP (Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property) was created to protect our knowledge, iconography, and cultural expressions from being stolen by designers, production companies, and others who sought to profit from them. It was meant to be a tool to hold exploiters accountable - a shield for our stories, medicines, languages, and art.
But increasingly, I’ve seen us wielding ICIP against each other instead. Rather than using it to file claims against corporations for cultural theft, we’re using it to police each other’s creative expressions and to gatekeep what counts as "authentic" Indigenous culture.
It reminds me of Audre Lorde’s famous quote:
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
In her essay, Lorde argued that tools created by oppressive systems can only ever produce narrow, limited change when turned inward. They are designed to maintain power structures, not to free us from them.
Yet here we are, using tools like ICIP - designed for us but shaped by colonial frameworks - against each other.
Certificates of Indigeneity: A Parallel Tool of the Colony
Another tool that parallels ICIP in its problematic use is the Certificate of Indigeneity (COI), sometimes known as a Certificate of Aboriginality. Like ICIP, COIs were created in partnership with the colony, ostensibly to help First Nations people assert their identity and access resources meant for Indigenous communities. But as with many colonial constructs, COIs have become fraught with complexity.
On one level, they can be seen as a validation system imposed by colonial frameworks - a bureaucratic requirement to "prove" identity in ways that align with Western legal and administrative structures. While some First Nations people use COIs for practical purposes, others wield them to question or delegitimise the identities of their peers.
This gatekeeping often mirrors the same exclusionary tactics the colony has used against us for centuries. What was intended as a protective measure has become another tool to divide us.
Performative Policing for a Non-Indigenous Audience
“Too often, the mob who performatively use COIs and ICIP against other mob are doing it for the benefit of a non-Indigenous audience, even if they aren’t consciously aware of it.”
Too often, the mob who performatively use COIs and ICIP against other mob are doing it for the benefit of a non-Indigenous audience, even if they aren’t consciously aware of it. The attention shifts away from fighting systemic racism and colonial oppression to petty internal disputes that serve only to entertain or reassure outsiders.
This creates a double burden: fighting on two fronts - against external forces that perpetuate racism and colonial violence, and against internal distractions that sap our energy and cohesion. By focusing inward in this way, we lose valuable momentum in the larger fight for justice, sovereignty, and liberation.
Burning Our Decency for Future Generations
And yet, here’s the uncomfortable truth: we may have no choice but to use these tools.
We can’t wish them away. We exist within this system, like it or not. But instead of turning them inward, we must wield them outward, against the forces that oppress us. And in doing so, we must acknowledge the stain this will leave on us.
“Nobody in the history of the world has ever gained their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of those oppressing them.”
Nobody in the history of the world has ever gained their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of those oppressing them. Freedom has always been won through resistance, struggle, and often sacrifice. First Nations movements in Australia - from the Wave Hill Walk-Off led by Vincent Lingiari to the Tent Embassy - have always faced opposition not just from the government but from a social climate determined to maintain colonial dominance. Today, that opposition is embodied by trolls on social media and even trolls in the Australian Parliament, who dismiss or mock Blak sovereignty and self-determination.
We will burn our decency for someone else’s future.
There’s a line from Andor that captures this sacrifice perfectly:
“I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise I know I'll never see.”
This is what I’m suggesting. That we must use every tool at our disposal - yes, even the master’s tools - to dismantle the house that was never built for us. Not because it’s what we want, but because it’s what we have to do for future generations.
“We have been reasonable and decent for too long, working within the bounds white law has set for us. And where has that gotten us?”
We have been reasonable and decent for too long, working within the bounds white law has set for us. And where has that gotten us? We have never broken out of those constraints, and we are worse off as a people for it.
A Vision for the Future
Imagine a world where our future generations don’t need ICIP, because no one would dare steal from us. Imagine a world where Blak thought and identity are not policed but celebrated in all their diversity. Imagine a world where we wield no master’s tools at all - because the master’s house no longer exists.
That’s the sunrise we fight for. Even if we never get to see it ourselves.
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Since when is asking "mob" to share their connection part of the colonial project? You've used the term "policing" in such a loaded way while ignoring cultural lore and its related processes. This is a disappointing and very un-staunch take.
There is a massive issue of "pretendians" especially in the academic space, taking jobs and resources meant for blak peoples and communities. Ultimately they are stealing our very identities and this reads as a justification for business as usual, arming them with ammunition against Traditional Owner accountability and sovereignty. I'm unsubscribing.