Growing up in Adelaide, I was a tween when my eldest sister starting working at Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute. All of a sudden my life was full of gallery exhibitions, theatre shows, dance, music concerts and more – what I now know as contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts and culture.
Being an older sibling my sister took care of us younger ones, in accordance with our culture. Through her immersion in arts and culture I ended up tagging along to seminal dance works such as Bangarra’s Ochre, exhibition openings of great artists like Ian Abdulla and was witness to Christine Anu’s ascent within the mainstream music industry.
I transitioned from passive to active participant in culture, parallel to this immersion. I remember working on the Aboriginal Message radio show at age 15, turning up to the radio station in my school uniform to prep the show and then read the latest news affecting Indigenous communities.
What I did not know then, but what is so clear to me now, is that this kind of cultural experience strengthened my sense of self as an Aboriginal person; I had a strong cultural foundation and felt positive about my identity. When non-Aboriginal people would make negative comments about Aboriginal people and culture, it was upsetting, but did not result in embarrassment or shame as I have seen with other Indigenous people and people of colour. As the years have gone by, I feel that this strong sense of self has been necessary for my survival in the face of a hostile dominant culture.
I use the term hostile dominant culture not to sensationalise or provoke, but simply because it is fact. It was not too long ago that the practice of culture, the speaking of language or the weaving of baskets, for example, resulted in harsh punishments. Food rations could be cut, children taken away, families broken up and people shifted to far away missions. Our Elders who remembered language and culture, who passed on knowledge in secret – they were warriors who paved the way for our subsequent revival and maintenance of culture.
Today, the hostility of this dominant culture remains foregrounded in the way that it undermines Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in the school curriculum are under attack, our communities and way of life are labelled as a “lifestyle choice”, and when our people practice culture – as Adam Goodes did when he performed an Aboriginal dance during an AFL game in 2015 – it is seen as threatening, resulting in tidal waves of racism.
The silencing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and perspectives also indicates a hostile dominant culture, whether the silencing is deliberate or not. Much has already been written about the continued whiteness of Australian television and theatre, and most recently, research by the Australia Council for the Arts revealed that both audiences and the arts industry itself were not engaging with Indigenous arts and culture. When you consider that this continent is home to the oldest living culture in the world, it beggars belief that non-Indigenous Australians mostly refuse to engage with it.
As a result, resilience is a prominent feature in contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We often hear words like “strong”, “survival”, and “respect” in relation to our culture and identity – and for good reason. Negative associations with Indigeneity are constant and our people are most often categorised as an “Aboriginal problem” or the “Indigenous issue”. Whenever we want to break out of this stereotype, it upsets the social hierarchy of Australia whereby Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are forever confined to the lowest rung.
When Adam Goodes practiced culture positively during that fateful AFL game, the most common defence for the barrage of abuse he received was that he was “arrogant”. A most illuminating insight into the mind of racist Australia, it would appear that Goodes’ crime was not only pointing out racism, but also daring to assert that he is an Aboriginal man who views his culture positively.
Putting the verbal racial abuse to one side, once upon a time it was explicitly dangerous to be proudly Black. I know of older Aboriginal people who felt it was safer to say they were South American, Maori, or Hawaiian than to ever admit they were Aboriginal. Bringing verbal, institutional and covert racism back in to the conversation, the implicit dangers of being Aboriginal are still present today. A different, but still dangerous kind of racism, covert racism alienates and lowers self-esteem whilst also having real mental and physical health effects.
This is why I view all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artistic and cultural practice as sites of resistance. Every story that is told, whatever the artform, can be viewed as political. As embodiment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity and culture, no matter whether the shared story is light-hearted or politically hard-hitting, Indigenous arts and culture draws a line in the sand. It asserts Indigeneity, what it means to be Black, and in doing so resists the hostile dominant culture, that which seeks to silence and undermine.
That these stories are so often shared unapologetically is also a form of resistance. Many non-Indigenous visual and performing arts critics will pigeon-hole Indigenous works as educational, part of the reconciliation process, never realising that they centre themselves as the non-Aboriginal audience, the raison d’être. Quite the opposite, most Indigenous works typically hold a space of autonomy, viewing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as the primary audience and thereby creating more authentic works that can then attract a wider audience.
But rather than attract that wider audience, it appears that despite it being 2016, mainstream Australia still does not want to engage with Indigenous stories. As reported by the Australia Council for the Arts, the understanding is that “… audiences wanted to be entertained, not lectured or told ‘how guilty I should be for being white”’.
In sharing this perspective, once again, racist Australia proves that Indigenous culture is viewed by them as threatening. However, with more and more Indigenous Australians practicing culture and sharing stories through art, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will continue to resist. We will resist this perception and negate the stereotype. We will share our stories and it will be deadly.
- “Our stories, our way” – each week, a new guest hosts the @IndigenousX Twitter account to discuss topics of interest to them as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people. Produced with assistance of Guardian Australia staff.
