The most confronting part of writing an opinion piece about violent Indigenous deaths is that they’re timeless. There are sound legal reasons why you can’t go into too much detail about a particular case while an investigation is ongoing and the accused has yet to face trial. This week a man was charged with the murder of Indigenous teenager Cassius Turvey, who Western Australian police said was an “innocent victim of a violent attack”. While police are investigating the claims that racism may have played a part in the attack, they have also made clear they are not speculating about the reasons for the alleged murder and I do not intend to do that here.
Whatever really happened that day, there is a dense cloud weighing over my community at the moment, but the skies are never really clear for us. While that may sound morbid I need a metaphor for this article and that one’s gonna have to do.
As a journalist, comedian and writer or just a 40-year-old Aboriginal man from Western Australia who’s lived all over the country, there are very few communities I don’t have a connection to directly – or maybe that’s just how our people work. There is a kinship and struggle that links us all socially and when a tragedy strikes one of our families, it ripples through all our communities. That empathic exhalation is usually followed by wondering how the police, media and judicial or legal system are going to fail us this time around.
I know generalisations are lazy, and as someone who battles stereotypes on a daily basis I should know better, but if I was to reel off the names of the First Nations Australians in just the last 20 years who died in graphically violent circumstances but without adequate “justice” … I’d understand people questioning my objectivity because it makes for ridiculous reading. An impression of taking the piss, if you will?
I’ve heard the phrase “sense of justice” for such a long time I honestly don’t know if I have one, and if it exists then we as First Nations Australians are experiencing sensory deprivation (and it’s not the fun kind). When I was a court reporter it became pretty evident that in Australian society your access to justice correlated with whether or not you could afford a competent lawyer. Justice seems to have very little to do with balance and truth and more with suppression and control and the fact that wealthy people can threaten you with litigation over their hurt feelings, rather than any actual legal infringement. It does place a Caucasian-coloured filter over the concept of justice.
When anyone’s life is taken violently and tragically it should rock our community to its core, if for nothing else to at least reinforce that despite these brutal spurts of aggression, however committed, my community still has its humanity despite repeated attempts to extinguish it. It’s that second wave of despair that follows which divides us when Black Australians ask “Will we get justice?” to which we collectively say: “Probably not.”
As positive as I try to be I can’t escape the cynicism that comes with being an Indigenous Western Australian. There is a strong precedent set by society, the police and the judicial system to ignore us. When one of us dies, the emotional state of the person who killed them seems to be considered way more than the consequences of their actions. Our women are told to calm down, hang up the phone, lock the door and hide behind their violence restraining order while their former partner is still out there. This isn’t even counting the violence perpetrated by the police themselves. That’s a whole other game of cards to discuss, but the house usually wins that one too.
Our community has never been bigger or more connected at any stage of our history. We will brace and carry ourselves with as much dignity as the beautiful parents of those that have passed. So while our hearts are heavy comprehending a world without yet another one of our young souls; our anger, sadness and frustration will again become focused. We hope for the best but are prepared for the worst because we’re used to the worst happening. We’re still here.
There is a particular comfort in knowing we haven’t stacked the deck in our favour to ensure “justice”, yet persist because we’re just built different.
Built to last.
Craig Quartermaine is a Brisbane-based journalist, writer and comedian as well as TV and radio presenter from the Nyoongar and Bunjima people of Western Australia
