About a year ago I fell in love with a man, who as it happens, is an Australian Aboriginal.
Since then I have seen the result of 200 hundred years of white oppression - it's scary and it's sad. I don't get racism...
I remember when I was about 12 walking to the shops with my nana. She stopped along the street to gossip with a neighbour who began a rant about how the Chinese were going to invade the country. On and on the woman rambled and my nana just stood there, blank-faced waiting for the tirade to end. I was getting a bit nervous because I knew something that the neighbour didn't. When she finished her little racist speech, nana looked at her straight in the eye and said, 'Well when those Chinese invade I'll be right because I am one of them.'
She turned her back, walked away and said no more. The moment left a huge mark on me.
The older my nana got, the more Chinese she looked. Beautiful. She often recounted a story of her grandfather 'Tommy' Ah Poy, a full blood Chinese, who unusually tall for the people, cut a fine figure in a suit and hat. In his retirement, he would often stroll the streets of Wangaratta as any gentlemen would in the early 1900s. Nana told me that he warned his grandchildren not to acknowledge him in the street. 'If I walk past the school, don't run to the fence,' he would say. 'Don't wave. You don't want people to know we are related.' Not wave to her grand-pa? I loved my nana dearly. I couldn't imagine not waving to her as she walked by. I didn't understand what she was trying to tell me. This was long before I witnessed the neighbour slagging Asians.
My daughters have a skin tone that defies definition. They look vaguely Greek-Indiany-Spanish-Thai-Irishy-Aborignal. Everyone has to be nice to them becasue no one is really sure where they are from, so people are careful about what they say. I love it! Their heritage includes genes from pools and puddles in England, Ireland, Scotland, China and quite possibly ancient Australia (though that branch of the family tree has bleached history so we can't be sure. Fortunately the bleaching has been reversed by my Cantonese great, great grand-person).
My Coffee Coloured Rainbow Babies will eventually create a rich blend with other coffee coloured babies and save the world. I can't wait because human history sucks.
I grew up in Wogville. I am allowed to say wog as I am a Melbournian and they (the wogs that is), were cleverly, one of the first ethnic groups of the world to reappropriate a previously derogatory term and reclaim the name as a term of endearment. Acropolis Now and Wogs Out Of Work, Kuh-lassick Maaayte! I reckon 70% of the folk I grew up with were wogs: Italians, Greeks, Lebanese, Yugoslavians - this was before they became Serbians v Croatians - Albanians, Chileans, Lithuanians, Romani, Maltese, Maltese and Maltese (that lot breed like rabbits).There were also Chinese, Japanese, Ceylonese who morphed into Sri Lankans, Indians, more Greeks, Irish, English, Welsh, Scots a few Queenslanders and a Darwinian.
In primary school I don't remember there ever being race based fights. We all knew we were different from each other but that had more to do with gender, unpronounceable surnames and lunchbox contents, not skin colour. You wouldn't dare make a racist comment. Firstly it wouldn't occur to you and if it ever did, you would know there was probably more of them than you. You were more careful with what you said. You were gentler with folk's customs and beliefs. By the late 70s, everyone was half something and you would be taking racist pot shots if you picked on anyone, so it was better to just not, so we had it ingrained in to just not be bigoted. Besides, there was all that great food. Anyone who has met me can tell by the size of my butt that I learned to eat in Melbourne.
When I ventured into the big wide world, I often had people say to me that they knew I was from Melbourne because I was so friendly - this was before I became a bitch - and in some Gold Coast Clubs in the 90s, Melbourne girls got in for free for just that reason. I don't believe we were more friendly, just less nasty. We had learned from childhood to be nice to everyone no matter their background.
Australia is now turning into a big Melbourne as we are yearly producing more and more beautiful Coffee Coloured Rainbow Babies and it is these children of many colours who will eventually save the planet Melbourne style. This will happen on many levels.
It is well know that a mongrel will generally be healthier than a pedigree. It's a fact and we should make it a law. Let's get rid of all predigree even if only in title. Health issues will not have a chance to take hold if the prototype is constantly changing. I have several genetic defects that I am hoping upon hope have been bred out of my whitened in name, but not nature offspring. If we mix it up, we will produce a stronger race of humans.
SO SUCK ON THAT ALL YOU ARYAN NAZI BASTARDS!
On another level, if we have to be nicer to everyone in case we offend them, then "we have to be nicer to everyone in case we offend them". Get it? Imagine that. Imagine all the people. Living life in peace (thanx John).
A French woman I know recently had a baby to her Abporiginal partner - their second 'chocolate frog' - her terminology not mine. There first child is a perfect Coffee Coloured Rainbow Baby.
Once blood lines get a little darker and a little lighter, then a little browner, a blob of blonder, a splash of ranga and a bit of indigo, we will evetually have a large selection of Coffee Coloured Rainbow Humans ranging from long black, through machiatto, latte and baby cino - everyone will have to be less nasty at least, as no one will have a seperate racial history. We will all be related somewhere back along the line, as we were when when we fell from grace and the trees, and the world will be a much better place.
So there!
Coffee Coloured Rainbow Babies:
Jali, Wyuna and Wyana
Jali, Wyuna and Wyana