ITS ABORIGINAL CHILDREN’S DAY

 

 

Children are the future. They are very special and deserve to be protected and supported by the entire community. Without children there is no future, so let’s make sure each and every one receives proper care and education and let them enjoy their childhood.

Kids have such enormous potential that only needs to be nurtured by us grownups, but Aboriginal children are often disadvantaged, so let’s all take on that responsibility for all children all over Australia!

It’s Aboriginal Children’s Day today.

Roel Loopers

WALYALUP ABORIGINAL CULTURAL CENTRE RE-OPENS

 

 

The City of Fremantle Walyalup Aboriginal Cultural Centre is back in action after the Covid-19 lockdown and above is their program for this season.

Roel Loopers

IT’S A GREAT WRAP

 

Good to hear that Fremantle has made progress towards delivering the measures outlined in its Walyalup Reconciliation Action Plan, since the plan was adopted.

The plan was officially launched in July 2019 after being adopted by the council and endorsed by Reconciliation Australia.

It was developed in consultation with Fremantle’s Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group, local Elders and Aboriginal people and other stakeholders through a series of workshops and meetings held over an 18 month period.

The WRAP outlines 19 actions and 106 deliverable outcomes to be achieved by 2022, including establishing a strategy and agreed representation for Aboriginal stakeholder input.

The actions range from symbolic measures such as exploring the viability of a ‘treaty’ or equivalent agreement and identifying the opportunities for co-naming locations, streets and parks to practical steps around increasing Aboriginal employment and the procurement of Aboriginal services.

Since the adoption of the WRAP the City of Fremantle has established two groups to provide representation and consult with the Aboriginal community.

The Walyalup Reconciliation Action Plan Reference Group was established to track the progress of the implementation of the WRAP and provide feedback and accountability. An Elders group was also established to meet twice a year with the Mayor, Councillors and the City’s senior management to further build relationships.

The City is on track to achieve an employment target of 4 per cent of staff being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people, with six Aboriginal trainees employed as permanent staff. The City has also developed an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander procurement strategy.

Aboriginal facilitators have been engaged to conduct classes and share culture and knowledge through the six Nyoongar Seasons at the Walyalup Aboriginal Cultural Centre and enrolments for Nyoongar language classes have increased.

Cross cultural competence and cultural awareness training is being conducted by City staff and councillors and cultural awareness has been incorporated into the induction process for new staff.

The council has endorsed the name Walyalup Civic Centre for the City’s new administration building and library, with meeting rooms also to be allocated Nyoongar names.

The City has also supported activities for significant cultural dates and key celebrations including NAIDOC Week, Reconciliation Week, Woylie Festival, Wardanji Festival and the Revealed Art Market, while the City’s One Day event was recognised with an Australian Government award for promoting Indigenous recognition.

To view the City of Fremantle Walyalup Reconciliation Action Plan click here.

WHY RACISM IS SO DEVASTATING

 

There have been more racist attacks on AFL players, including legend Eddie Betts and West Coast Eagles player Liam Ryan, so to keep the Black Lives Matter momentum going I thought it the right time to copy what Ron Bradfield Jnr. posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago.

Ron used to be a familiar face around Fremantle and I used to bump into him in the West End quite often. Ron’s words and experience are sobering and so very sad.

 

 

 

What’s the ugliest word you’ve ever been called?

So, imagine hearing that word, pretty much every day. Imagine it ringing in your ears almost every night. Think about the times you’ve had that word (or similar words – all used for the same effect), beaten into you physically.

Think about being somewhere where every day – most people you pass – use that word in your hearing. Think of all the ways that people have, to make you realise that it isn’t a nice word and that they aren’t thinking nice thoughts about who you are.

Think about the times where people in authority have reinforced the negative use of that word. Think about how – over time – that word has coloured the way that people now look at you still. Think of the laws that have been passed to control your ancestors, who may have been called those words.

Think about fully wearing the shame of that word; how it sits, deep inside your bones and how it feels when it twists your guts inside of you. Think of your face glowing hot and going red with that shame, when people STILL talk like that about you – if not directly – then indirectly, but you still know exactly what they mean!

Think how angry you might get; when you’re out with your children and you hear that behind your back voice, muttering that word – with all its dirty, shitty, fucked up ugliness – behind you, directed at the ones you love and cherish!

Have I got your attention?

Good.

The reality is, if you can’t come up with just one single word – that has been used to make you feel like absolute shit in your life – you are one very, very lucky individual!

If you; like me, have had words used against you your entire life, you will know just how damn deeply they can cut! You will know the damage they can do. You will know the power they can rob from you.

I have survived 51 years of being called disgusting things and being made to feel dirty, as if I don’t belong here and have no value to this Australian society. That’s just me. This happens still to my mother. It happened to her mother. And her mother before her and… look – really – just how far did you need me to go back?

Words are used (and have been used) against some of the most beautiful people I have the pleasure to know (and have known) in my entire life. Only so many of them are Aboriginal.

In your house right now, there are people around you who know how I and many other Aboriginal and Islander people feel.

How surprised are you really, that people finally snap and decide in a single moment – that they can’t bear to hear that word – used against them?

I know I have. There are only so many times, you can turn the other cheek.

Ron Bradfield Jnr.

BLACK LIVES MATTER RALLY TODAY

 

 

I dragged this photo of the BlackLivesMatter projections on the Rainbow container artwork off Twitter as a reminder that there will be a rally at Langley Park in Perth today from noon.

The projections were put up last night in Fremantle.

Roel Loopers

WHY BLACK LIVES MATTER

 

I don’t understand the sentiment of some people that we should have an All Lives Matter movement, instead of the BlackLivesMatter one, that is happening all over the world.

No one argues that not all lives matter, in fact all living creatures on this planet matter. However I have never heard anyone argue that all people matter and not only women, when the Jane McGrath pink cricket day for breast cancer is on every year, or that all lives matter when we raise funds for children medical research during Telethon.

With all due respect, the All Lives Matter sentiments can only be expressed from the privileged position of an entitled white person, who is unlikely to have been racially profiled and targeted since birth and who has never experienced the extreme disadvantage of racism, and being patronised and disrespected because of the colour of one’s skin.

As one of those privileged Wadjelas I have witnessed racism against our Australian Aboriginal people on very many occasions. When I baby sat gorgeous indigenous kids, and took them into Freo to go shopping security guards would follow us, because all black kids are shoplifters.

Black kids get stopped by police when they wear new shoes, because all black kids steal, and taxis are reluctant to pick up dark coloured people because those people don’t pay the fare or might be abusive.

We focus on five drunken Aborigines on the street and totally overlook the hundreds of drunken white people who fall out of pubs every weekend in Freo, Perth and all over Australia. Yep, All Lives Matter!

Let’s stop the nonsense of talking about equality, or that we live in a fair country. Australia has been very fair to me and I am grateful for that, but I am also grateful that I have never had to experience racial abuse. I have never been rejected a job because I am white. I have never been refused entry into a pub because I am white, I have never been stopped by police because I am white, but that happens to our Aboriginal people every day of their lives. All Lives Matter!

The BlackLivesMatter movement is about trying desperately to create a level playing field, where dark coloured people are no longer judged to be inferior to white people, where black people actually will be getting a real chance to shine and show their potential, where we appreciate their beautiful culture, and how special a people they are, and where Australia finally wakes up and sees that our indigenous people have got so much to offer and there is so much we can learn from them.

BlackLivesMatter does not exclude anyone. When we yelled Free Willy, we did not mean that other whales don’t matter, and when we protested Save Ningaloo Reef, we did not say that other reefs are less important. When we support a cause we do not mean that other causes, or other people, are less important.

If our governments are serious about equality why have we not seen huge campaigns on TV and in the print media against racism? Why is there not more community education about racism at local, state and federal level and in schools?

Fr Rod Bower of the Gosford Anglican Church puts it very succinctly: The system is not broken, it is working perfectly well and to the advantage of those for whom and by whom it was created, white, male, western, nominally Christian heterosexuals.

Because of Covid-19 I have thought long and hard about joining the BlackLivesMatter protest this Saturday at 12 noon in Langley Park, Perth, but I have so much respect for our Aboriginal people, their culture and resilience, that I have to show my solidarity, so I bought a face mask and will hop on the train, because black lives matter a lot to me!

Roel Loopers

BLACK LIVES MATTER LOCATION CHANGE

 

The BlackLivesMatter protest for this Saturday June 13 at 12 noon has changed to Langley Park in Perth, so no longer Hyde Park.

I presume that is to be able to accommodate a large number of people while adhering to the social distancing rules.

Roel Loopers

 

BLACK LIVES MATTER-A LOT!

 

When the Prime Minister of Australia, in reaction to the George Floyd protests in the USA, says that Australia should not import those problems because we are a fair country, it is clear we still live in denial about racism in Australia. Australia is a fair country for fair-skinned people, but not for our indigenous people, or for our Asian and African people, and anyone with dark skin.

Racism started in this country the day Captain Cook set foot on land in the east and when Captain Fremantle and Captain Stirling arrived here in Fremantle at Bathers Bay.

The ‘wild black savages’ were hunted, killed, raped, abused, used as slaves, taken away from their parents, locked up and treated with absolute disrespect by most of the early settlers, who had no respect for the culture of the traditional owners.

The real history of Australia is rarely told. How many high school students in Western Australia are really aware of the stolen generations, the Pinjarra massacre, the killing and beheading of Yagan, the persecution of Jandamara in the Kimberley, the abuse that happened at the Moore River, Sister Kate, New Norcia, etc? How many have been told the truth about the awful Quod prison on Rottnest Island, where ten per cent of the 4,700 male prisoners died?

Just nine years away from celebrating 200 years of the start of the Swan River Colony Western Australia still does not have and Aboriginal Cultural Centre that tells the history of our state from the indigenous perspective.

We still do not have a significant memorial for those men and boys from all over WA who died on Rottnest Island, and many tourists leave the island without even being aware of it.

At the Roundhouse at least the volunteer guides acknowledged that they need to also tell the Aboriginal story and they have been working on new interpretive displays, but that will need state funding, so will they get the financial support from the McGowan government?

Racism is rampant in Australia and only many of those who are fair skinned believe it does not exist, but every dark coloured person in this country is subjected to it daily, sometimes it comes subtly and often it is blatant. Since 1991 432 Aboriginal people have died in custody in Australia!

We are lucky to have one of the best Treasurers WA has ever had in Ben Wyatt, a brilliant Aboriginal man. There are many of them, but they often do not get a chance to shine because of institutional racism in our governments and industries.

A country where Aboriginal people on average die ten years younger than non Aborigines, where Aboriginal kids often do not finish education, and where only a few study at universities, is not a fair country. We should be better than that! BlackLivesMatter!

Roel Loopers

 

ARTS CENTRE ABORIGINAL ART MARKET ON LINE

 

Like so many events and exhibitions the REVEALED Aboriginal art market at the Fremantle Arts Centre also had to be cancelled because of the Covid-19 crisis, but people can still view and but the works from artists from remore communities on line

Western Australia’s largest Aboriginal art market will continue to offer remote and regional artists the opportunity to earn much needed income by going online.

Revealed 2020 was due to be held in the gardens at Fremantle Arts Centre today. It is a big annual event that provides a very important source of income for the artists and the regional and remote communities they support.

Last year more than $500,000 in market sales went directly to artists and art centres across the state.

FAC have put together a list of artworks available to order from WA’s 25 Aboriginal art centres and a number of independent Aboriginal artists who were set to exhibit.

They are also compiling a catalogue of the works that would have been in this year’s exhibition and details about how to purchase works will be released shortly.

“An online order will help provide some financial support to these artists who have sadly been impacted by the event’s cancellation.”

To purchase artworks from Revealed artists online visit the Support WA’s Aboriginal Artists page on the Fremantle Arts Centre website.

To take a virtual tour of last year’s Revealed Exhibition click here.

Roel Loopers

FREO’S KINGS SQUARE TO BECOME MIDGEGOOROO PLACE

 

The FPOL Committee of Fremantle Council will on Wednesday debate the proposal to include Aboriginal names at the  Kings Square Redevelopment Project, and I have no doubt that this will become very controversial in the community.

The new Civic Centre will be named Walyalup Centre, which is the Whadjuk Noongar name for the Fremantle area, so proper acknowledgment of our Aboriginal culture and history.

Kings Square, that was once also called St John’s Square, would be renamed Midgegooroo Place. Midgegooroo was the father of Yagan and a very important elder.

The proposals are in line with the fact that the Department of Communities, which will occupy the top levels of the FOMO buildings, is also considering giving Whadjuk Noongar names to their North and South Campus.

There have long been talks, and complaints, that we do not name significant places in Western Australia with the Aboriginal names for them, and this would be a very good step forward I believe to make a real start with the renewal of Kings Square.

I do not agree however with naming the Civic Centre just the Walyalup Centre and would not agree to call it Fremantle Centre either, since that is not specific enough what the centre’s function is. It should be the Walyalup Civic Centre, or Walyalup Council House or Walyalup Council Centre, so that it is clear what the building is there for.

Roel Loopers