We request the refunding for critical support services and counselling for criminalised women pre and post release prison in North Queensland by the LNP who cut the funding last week.

Why is this important? Criminalised women have the highest rate of sexual and physical abuse perpetrated against them in our community. Due to this horrendous abuse women turn to self medication with illiiegal drugs and / or alcohol. Nearly 60% of the women have a mental illness.

In Townsville women’s prison over 80% of women are Aboriginal and over 90% of the women cannot read and write. These issues have to be addressed, so that women when released into the community can move on with their lives and not return to drug and alcohol abuse and offending to feed their addiction.

Housing is also a fundamental part of their success on release. The support of our services assists women in healing their traumas and practical needs so when released they can reconnect with their children and families and move towards their goals and being a part of their communities.

(via Save Sisters Inside | CommunityRun)

Sister’s Inside is founded and run by primarily ex-inmate women and some lawyers. It’s been an internationally recognized success model of a service that helps;

- inmate mothers and their children re-establishing or maintain functional relationships during/after imprisonment.

- improved prospects of literacy, safe accommodation and finding work on release.

Allowing how many female inmates in Qld are ATSI women being punished for defending themselves in domestic violence situations, or arrested for petty ‘offences’ related to homelessness, this being top of the list for service shut down tells you exactly where real state priorities are.

Probably not coincidentally: they host the Is Prison Obsolete? Conferences, being one of the few regional public forums about changing the overall high imprisonment of marginalized people, not just services.

Oz folk - pls. signal boost on your other networks, not many politics Oz folk on tumblr.  Non-Oz folk - ATSI = Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Native + Black.

(via the tiger’s mouth · The real face of White Australia)

In October 1911, the Sydney Morning Herald published a short article under the headline, ‘An indignity: photographs and finger-prints’. The article discussed the situation of Charles Yee Wing, a wealthy and respected Sydney businessman, who had asked to be exempted from having to supply his handprint and photograph as part of the process of being issued a CEDT.

Yee Wing had travelled before and was well-known to Customs officials. … Yee Wing’s primary objection was that the officials insisted upon photographing him, in various positions, ‘just like a criminal’.

+++

As part of our Invisible Australians project, Tim Sherratt has recently been experimenting with facial detection technology to automatically extract and crop photographs from CEDTs. You can read Tim’s discussion of what he’s done over at his blog. After extracting 7,000 photographs from Sydney series ST84/1, about a seventh of which is digitised in RecordSearch, Tim built an interface to display them as an interactive wall of faces. As Tim was putting it all together, I thought of Sophie’s critique of the use of photographs of Chinese people in the Forgotten Faces exhibition and of the way the images had been assembled together in rows as a kind of rogues gallery. I also thought of Charles Yee Wing’s comments a hundred years ago about the indignity of having to provide his photograph for a CEDT.

Could the same kind of criticisms be levelled at our wall of faces as at Forgotten Faces? Are we representing our subjects as more than passive victims of a racist bureaucracy? Are we using their images respectfully and decently? Are their images able to be understood by our contemporary audience? And how should we acknowledge the resistance and opposition of people like Charles Yee Wing?

Kate Bagnall on the ethics of using POC imagery/records obtained coercively, in media addressing racist coercion and ommission in historic archives.

Invisible Australian’s is an online gallery project, documenting the thousands of Chinese, Malay, Japanese, Afghani, Indian and Syrian people subject to state surveillance - as migrants at the commencement of the now infamous White Australia Policy.

+ the archive they’re creating counters white nationalist denial of POC contributions to nation building. Their ‘about’ page states: “They celebrated Federation. They fought at Gallipoli. They struggled through the Depression. And they battled for freedom in the Pacific.”

Whatever you think about the links between militarism and nation, this and the photos of families of primarily Asian Australians who served in military and civic roles are a visible counter to current aggressively ahistoric, white nationalist myth building around Gallipolli, the ANZACs etc.

-although these people are now deceased, their descendents may recognize them, using the gallery. You can access the project via a blog - which does have posts describing lives and politics at the time of the photos - acknowledging whatever is known about the subjects, their self perception and how this was disregarded by the WAP. Or you can access a photo browser that directly clips photos of these people with their original migration dept. ‘Excemption from Dictation Test” paperwork.*

That part - the separation of any subjectivity, context, consent etc. from what remains a demeaning white supremist mode of archiving - remains jarring and ethically dubious imo. 

- otoh, much work being done in Asian Australian histories is very academic or highly localized and not public searchable atm. I suppose the thing this prompts and why I’m tumbling it is, because there is a lot of scope for online curation in addressing the legacy of the WAP, just thinking about the how, who, where aspects.   

*dictation tests were English language skills tests that Australian immigration staff could apply randomly at the border. They were manipulated to discriminate against POC or non-British migrants, to whom they were given far more than white Brits, although they could involve esoteric questions that even mother tongue English speakers probably wouldn’t know.

The traditional owner, an older woman with a tough grace, welcomed us to her land. Her words were plain and her voice was tinged with a sense of pride. Her group was one of the few in southern Australia to obtain a native title determination recognising the members as native title holders.  (via Reading the Constitution out Loud · Meanjin)

Marcia Langtons’ article on the history, process &  issues around constitutional reform for recognition of Aboriginal Australians.  Photo: Untitled (Marcia Langton) 2002, detail, Christian Bumbarra Thompson.

leonineantiheroine:

http://m.news.com.au/TopStories/pg/0/fi1171757.htm

A POLICE officer unleashed a series of savage blows to the head of a teenager bleeding from a bullet wound to the neck during a brutal arrest early yesterday.

Moments after he was pulled from a mangled car wreck in Kings Cross, Sydney, shocking footage shows police repeatedly striking Troy Taylor before dragging his limp body across the street.

An officer then places a knee on the teen’s blood-soaked back to handcuff him.

The 18-year-old, one of two teenagers shot by police during a dramatic chase, is then left lying in a pool of blood as dozens of stunned bystanders look on.

The teenagers, one just 14, were in a serious condition in St Vincent’s Hospital last night.

—-

All of the boys and young men are Aboriginal. Yep they did the wrong thing by driving the car onto the pavement but also they seemed to be frightened of the police and there was no need for the cop to bash the kid after the car crashed. 

This is what Mick Mundine had to say:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/mick-mundine-horrified-by-video-of-arrest-of-shooting-victim-troy-taylor-in-kings-cross/story-e6freuy9-1226335217914

“ABORIGINAL elder Mick Mundine was shocked and stunned by the way police arrested shooting victim Troy Taylor, 18, describing it as “pathetic.”

“It’s very wrong - this has to stop,” Mr Mundine said.

The respected Aboriginal community leader watched the dramatic and disturbing video footage in the offices of The Sunday Telegraph yesterday.

“I mean, how are they training them? What’s the training for? Where’s the commonsense?” said an emotional Mr Mundine, who is working with respected Redfern police commander, Superintendent Luke Freudenstein, to calm tensions in the inner-city suburb.

“They never had guns in the car, so why did they even shoot the kids?”

(via TIWI Designs: Aboriginal screenprinted fabric. > Hogarth Galleries [2] (5 February 1982 - 16 February 1982))

Poster by Raymond John Young, 1982. Tiwi design.

(via Mosman Art Gallery: Australian Accent: the Designs of Annan Fabrics and Vande Pottery of the ’40s and ’50s)

Nance Mackenzie and Anne Outlaw screen printing fabric, 1944. They started their screen printing business, Annan Fabrics, in the depths of World War II and went on to represent modern Australian textile design internationally and domestically. (Collection: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney)

i love this photo, for how much printing hasn’t changed, and their overalls.

oz culture note: their designs were less appealing otoh. they might have encouraged the shift from parochial, British trend following in design to acceptance of [some] local women artists and styles, but they also had a phase of producing those colonial racist kitsch styles which competed with real Aboriginal artists.

provocatoria:

Advice for white Indigenous activists in Australia (Gary Foley)

Aboriginal historian, activist and leader, Gary Foley, explains the do’s and don’t’s of white activism. 100% Juice from an inspiring orator, and priceless advice for all would-be allies of Indigenous people in the struggle for justice.

Filmed during the public discussion forum: ‘Deactivating Colonialism / Decolonising Acivism’ convened by Clare Land at MAYSAR (Melbourne Aboriginal Youth, Sport and Recreation), Fitzroy: August 31st, 2010.

Bush Foods-Plants – Knowing your rights

Respect for traditional knowledge and cultural rights to them is integral to bush plant based initiatives. There are a number of organizations who are doing good work in this space. A range of useful information resources are also available to help you to better understand and to address what’s involved if you and your community are looking at developing bush plant based initiatives, or are being contacted by people about information that Elders and other community members in your community may hold.

The CRC for Remote Economic Participation portfolio of projects includes the project “Plant Business”. … This project will also create commercialisation models that return greater equity share value to Aboriginal people for the genetic resources that are used commercially.

…the Aboriginal Bush Traders Bush Harvest Project conducted by Aboriginal Bush Traders have developed three valuable booklets that were released in mid March. They are:

1. Knowing your rights to your Aboriginal Plant Knowledge – which provides Aboriginal knowledge holders an overview of what people need to consider when developing Plant based products.

2. An Analysis of Indigenous Body Products and Markets

3. A Support Manual – which has detailed information in regard to product development, legislative requirements, labeling and quality control. To obtain a PDF copy of the booklets email bushharvest@aboriginalbushtraders.com

via Bush Foods-Plants – Knowing your rights, from RIG News #12 | Remote Indigenous Gardens)

In case this needs clarification: RIG = Remote Indigenous Gardens network Australia. Generally, there isn’t much [any, negative] money in community gardening, but they act as a network for Aboriginal Australians who either retain traditional ownership of lands, or don’t but are engaged in creating community gardens and/or work on issues around native species and intellectual property.

okaylove:

nickholmes:

This is no third frame. 

DO NOT LIKE THESE BIRDS. FUCKING AWFUL MEMORIES.

There is. No third frame. 

Ruby Williamson ‘Puli Murpu’ 2008

redlightpolitics:

Remember when in October last year when I wrote extensively about the corporations that run immigrant detention camps? Back then, I mentioned the conditions that immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in detention camps run by Serco, in Australia, were exposed to:

Naomi Leong, a shy 9-year-old, was born in the detention camp. For more than three years, at a cost of about $380,000, she and her mother were held behind its barbed wire. Psychiatrists said Naomi was growing up mute, banging her head against the walls while her mother, Virginia Leong, a Malaysian citizen accused of trying to use a false passport, sank into depression.

Turns out Serco’s training manual for the treatment of these detained persons was leaked to the press yesterday. via Serco training manual: how to “hit” and “strike” asylum seekers:

The “control and restraint” techniques included in the 2009 training course manual recommends the use of “pain” to defend, subdue and control asylum seekers through straight punches, palm heel strikes, side angle kicks, front thrust kicks and knee strikes.

“Subdue the subject using reasonable force so that he/she is no longer in the assailant category,” it explains.

“If justified, necessary force is to be used to bring the subject to cooperative subjective status whereupon they respond favourably to verbalisation.”

Under a section headed “principles in controlling Resistive Behaviour”, guards are told to cause pain, stun, distract, unbalance and use “striking technique” to cause “motor dysfunction”. […]

“They enhance your ability, to compel compliance from unco-operative subjects,” it explains. The “expected effect” is “medium to high level pain”.

I cannot write about this without exploding in a ball of rage. More at the link above, including the text of the whole manual, though I must warn for potentially triggering content.

H/T @jonanamary

(via Anita Heiss - Author, Poet, Satirist, Social Commentator)

I’m Aboriginal. I’m just not the Aboriginal person a lot of people want or expect me to be.

What does it mean to be Aboriginal? Why is Australia so obsessed with notions of identity? Anita Heiss, successful author and passionate campaigner for Aboriginal literacy, was born a member of the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales, but was raised in the suburbs of Sydney and educated at the local Catholic school. She is Aboriginal - however, this does not mean she likes to go barefoot and, please, don’t ask her to camp in the desert.

After years of stereotyping Aboriginal Australians as either settlement dwellers or rioters in Redfern, the Australian media have discovered a new crime to charge them with: being too ‘fair-skinned’ to be an Australian Aboriginal. Such accusations led to Anita’s involvement in one of the most important and sensational Australian legal decisions of the 21st-century when she joined others in charging a newspaper columnist with breaching the Racial Discrimination Act. He was found guilty, and the repercussions continue.

In this deeply personal memoir, told in her distinctive, wry style, Anita Heiss gives a first-hand account of her experiences as a woman with an Aboriginal mother and Austrian father, and explains the development of her activist consciousness.

Read her story and ask: what does it take for someone to be black enough for you?

(via Photographer snaps at Katter’s ad)

leonineantiheroine:

butcheredmentality: [snip]

i swear to god if some bastard busts out the but Australia is multicultural,~harmony day~ no,racism, the police is here 4u~ shit i will fuck something up. Australia is founded on anti-black sentiments.this shit breaks my heart,a phone call? really?how many more until whitey wakes up and realizes the destruction and pain it continues to inflict on marginalized communities?

wecoming4chu.

also butchered, i felt unsettled by African Australians on FB posting a link to the pigs—as if we should join them. wtf?

“I began researching this story in mid-August. At the time, Atakelt’s family and the Ethiopian community were expecting the autopsy results within weeks. But they did not arrive.”

People making pre-emptive excuses for the police and minimizing it have to quit. A missing autopsy after Black male was in police custody then died in unexplained circumstances does have a history of meaning one thing here.

Even if it does turn out that there’s miraculously some other explanation of the wounds, the next of kin are seeking answers. They haven’t accused anyone, they’re not going on a vendetta, there’s nothing here to be condemning these people or making racial slurs about them.

Saying there’s distrust and they want truth is what would be expected, and respected, from almost anyone else facing this situation. Hell it would be grandstanding from politicians and demands for inquiries by now if the young man had been a white lawyers son.

All this leaping to condemn their request shows a paranoid, willfully ignorant grasp of the power relations at play, with bonus racist snark. Would people really accept non-answers if it was their own relative? So what’s the difference here then?