…you just feel disappointed in your countrymen. Like today. I happened to click on this awful little story in The Australian (reported in more detail at Perth Now):
Aboriginal Liberal candidate Ken Wyatt has got [sic] hate mail from people who say they wouldn’t have voted for him if they had known he was indigenous.
Mr Wyatt, 58, will become the first Aborigine to be elected to the federal House of Representatives if, as expected, he is officially declared the winner in the West Australian seat of Hasluck.
The upset Liberal candidate said his office had received at least 50 emails and telephone calls from angry voters who accused him of only being interested in indigenous issues, the Perth Now website reports.
Personally I think it’s a damn fine thing that it’s looking like an indigenous person has a place in the House of Reps, and I salute Mr Wyatt. I feel like writing him a letter to balance out the horrible ones. In fact, I think I’ll do that right now.
22 Comments
The problem with this sort of thing is that you can never be sure who is sending the letters. Tony Winsor on Insiders this morning was saying that he’s been getting calls originating in Melbourne and Sydney from people who claim to have voted for him.
Unfortunately, both LE’s article and SD’s comment are all too believable.
If we think about indigenous senators, there is no indication of “only” being concerned about indigenous issues. Indeed, I cannot think of anyone, on any side of politics, who had anything but deep respect for the work of Sen. Neville Bonner (Lib). But those were days before the Hansonite epidemic of bigotry.
From memory, the MP concerned is Lib, which suggests the hate-mail is unrelated to orchestrations by party machines organizing the technically clueless messages to Windsor.
The first I heard about that candidate (I’m in Vic), the “first indigenous MP in the House” was in the introduction by presenters before crossing to the interview. Surely any voter in that electorate paying any attention, especially voting for the guy, would have been aware of this aspect of the man? This makes me wonder about how pathetic most voters are, not just on knowledge of candidates, but of issues. Were they voting “tribally”, unthinking party fans?
I would be sceptical that there has been much of a surge in racist views as such. A surge in various forms of frustration, clearly: including from the use of “racist!, racist!” to try and corral public debate and exclude various concerns. One remembers Andrew Marr’s abortive attempt to popularise “egalitarian racism” (a “racist” who believe in the same policies for all) during the Hanson surge.
Thomas Sowell said it well:
Or, to put it another way, there has been a certain amount of racism for 150 years or more. The noxious letters to Ken Wyatt remind us of that reality. But I do not think it is some new or worse reality compared to even 20 years ago.
His photo on the election posters didn’t tell them he was indigenous?
Sinc, that’s just bizarre! The depths of politics astound me. Wyatt reports that he was also verbally heckled as he walked through a shopping mall with his son, so I’d say they were definitely locals in that case.
Dave and Lorenzo, I hope it’s gotten better rather than worse. I taught an indigenous student about 15 years ago, and I had to reassure her that the staff in the Law Library would not throw her out. She was quite amazed: “They’d let in the likes of me?” Damn straight they would. To illustrate this, I took her in and introduced her to the staff, who were so nice to her that she almost burst into tears. Poor darlin’, she’d been too scared to enter the library. She wasn’t afraid thereafter.
Steve – a sad indictment on the uninformed nature of some voters – his Liberal Party webpage clearly states his indigenous heritage, as well as his desire to represent all people in his electorate.
LE – I’m not doubting he was heckled – but by whom? Close election in seat and nationally with tempers running high – could be anybody.
I realise this election campaign hasn’t been particularly edifying, but this incident suggests some people really do need to grow up.
If the only way to know he is indigenous is by going to a Liberal Party webpage and reading about it, then it is not difficult to see how many/most of his voters were unaware.
How it is an after the fact issue for them is something I struggle with. It is quite a shock when confronted with cut-nose-off-to-spite-face racialism.
However I’m with Sinclair Davidson #1, you never know just WHO is making these comments. I’ve seen some dirty tricks in the name of politics, but the ability of the ALP to hate, surpasses all others I’ve encountered.
“I’ve seen some dirty tricks in the name of politics, but the ability of the ALP to hate, surpasses all others I’ve encountered”
I’m not sure I’d going blaming it on a party or anyone else until you know who it is. My first bet is that it’s just a bunch of idiots with no real party affiliation.
Steve, let me put it like this. You can see immediately from Mr Wyatt’s photo that he is very tanned of skin, has black hair and dark eyes. It’s not necessarily obvious that he’s indigenous (a bystander might presume he was Indian or Turkish, say). But it should have been bloody obvious that he wasn’t some Aryan archetype.
As to who was sending the hate mail…my first bet (like Conrad) is that it’s stupid idiots.
However, I do know that it’s very hard for an indigenous person to be affiliated with the Liberal party. My friend mentioned above was a Liberal kind of gal. She was accused of being a traitor to her people by other indigenous people (including one whose schtick seemed to be that the true indigenous state was akin to communism, and if you didn’t believe that you weren’t a real indigenous person). I note that the person who heckled Mr Wyatt called him an “Uncle Tom” and I wonder whether that person was indigenous.
I have a funny anecdote about one of my other indigenous friends. We studied Indigenous law and culture together and the class was full of what my aunt might call “earnest young insects”. My friend was very shy – he was an unmarried reasonably traditional man, so he couldn’t meet my eyes – but we sat together at the back of the class in companionable shyness. The class was discussing a piece by the fellow who said that indigenous people were communists, and all the earnest young insects were nodding and saying this seemed very reasonable. My friend glanced at me sidelong with a wicked, wicked glint in his eye. From the back of the class he said loudly and very audibly, (with his eyes still on the desk) “It’s bullshit!” There was a momentary pause, then everyone kept on talking as if he hadn’t spoken. He said more loudly, “That author is full of FUCKING BULLSHIT!” Again a pause, again the comment was ignored. Isn’t it interesting that the earnest young insects ignored the testimony of the real indigenous person from the back of the class?
LE
Your story about that Aboriginal girl at the Law school library nearly made me cry. Perhaps I understand a little better why the universities have so many programs and scholarships specifically for indigenous students.
LE
This whole story has made me suspicious right from the word go. They have the energy and resourcefulness to track down his phone number, and make such sordid phone calls after they had allegedly voted for him, but for years no idea that he was an Aborigine?
I smell shenanigans.
PP, that story made me cry after I typed it. I think both of us got a bit teary at the time. Then we recovered and went and had a cup of coffee to celebrate her conquering of the Law Library. I hadn’t even thought that she might be nervous about going into the Library.
Every poster handed out carried the i.d of ken wyatt being an indigenous candidate so how could anyone not have known that he was an aborigine.
There were some who didnt accept any posters but merely stormed in and either voted informal or voted wyatt because they hated the alp so much!!
robert halsey
The first aboriginal I met was a girl in third grade. Her father later killed her. In school she was verbally attacked on a relentless basis, much of it with racist remarks, but she said some pretty mean stuff herself. Although I recall thinking that she looked attractive, and was intrigued by the fact that she didn’t always wear any knickers, I didn’t like her. I don’t recall ever saying anything racist but I do recall thinking she was some weird kind of alien that didn’t belong. The Indian kids at our school never invoked that feeling. Luckily I grew up and learnt to look at the world in a more considered way. I suppose some people don’t. LE – sorry I didn’t have your capacity for empowering disempowered people when I was 9 but I was still figuring stuff out. Besides only losers talk to girls.
Terje, when you’re a kid – you don’t quite pick up on the complex depths sometimes. There was a kid at our school whose clothes were always pretty grubby. He had some bad personal habits (eg, wiping his nose on his jumper front) and he lived with his grandparents even though his mother was alive. At the time I just thought he was a particular gross and weird specimen of the male species (at the age of 10 or so, all boys had boy germs anyway).
But now as an adult I see things differently. Why was he with his grandparents? Were the dirty habits some kind of attention-seeking thing, or something he’d picked up before he came to live with his grandparents? I suspect now that he probably came from a background where his mother couldn’t care for him (perhaps she was mentally ill, perhaps she was into drugs, who knows?)
re LE@17. I remember my dad, a teacher, coming home and crying, because he’d told a kid “your homework is wet and filthy, looks like it’s been done in the gutter”, and it had been, under a street light, in the rain. At least this explained other things the kid had been picked on for by other kids, and my dad put the fear of leather (he was the school’s “designated strapper” as it were) into anybody who continued the hassling.
LE – your anecdote reminds me of a situation that is too close to home to share in a public forum. However I will say that whilst I’ve learnt over the years to demand better from people I’ve also learnt to judge people a whole lot less. I was’t born to riches but I did have a very privaledged childhood.
His indigenous breeding mentioned on all election posters?
Even the stupidest of voters couldn’t have missed that. Thus it all points straight to a deliberate hate campaign.
Conrad #10. I didn’t mean to hint that ALP members were behind a race-hate based campaign. For proper hate (including vandalism of home & physical violence) the union movement has no equal. Political parties could never compete with the unions for juvenile & twisted retribution of perceived political enemies.
At 11 above, I mentioned the difficulties faced by an indigenous person who chooses to be involved with the Liberal Party. As I suspected, it turns out that this was one of the drivers behind the slurs:
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