Whiteness — some days it's like a light mist constantly hanging around yet going mainly unnoticed as it stealthily seeps into one's pores. Other days, it hits you like a cascade, or a tsunami of whiteness. Tuesday, observing the news, felt more like one of the latter.
It all started for me the night before when I was sent a video which had been uploaded by the Gold Coast Young LNP. In it, the president of this youth branch — Barclay McGain — seemingly took to the streets to get the 'hot takes' on some current issues from Schoolies celebrating the end of year 12.
And certainly, a good many of the responses he received indicated that the respondents were suitably inebriated or high like normal Schoolies. It was when McGain decided to hit up a group of white blokes on the topic of changing the flag or the anthem however that the nuggets of wisdom truly decided to drop.
I think people expected me to be outraged by alleged-schoolie-but-actually-a-young-LNP-volunteer Jake Scott's declaration that 'we've got to stop celebrating a culture that couldn't even invent the bloody wheel for God's sake'. Truth is, it's all a bit dull really and nothing Aboriginal people haven't heard from white people convinced of their own supremacy a million times over. At this stage I have to ask: is it too much to ask that Australia's racists come up with some original content? Or even ensure that their lot are actually responsible for the invention of the wheel and not ancient brown people before they accuse other groups of not inventing it?
What was more interesting, however, was the QLD LNP's statement to distance itself from its junior wing. Considering policies such as the Northern Territory Intervention, the Community Development Program and pretty much everything the Coalition governnment has done with regards to asylum seekers, it's news to me that racism 'does not reflect the values and beliefs of the party'. It's even bigger news to me that the Coalition have 'proudly embraced the history and culture of Indigenous Australians', particularly considering that one of the first people I can remember making a comment regarding the invention of the wheel was former Federal Reconciliation Minister Philip Ruddock back in 2000.
As that was unfolding on Tuesday, so too was a miraculous tale of survival in Central Australia. Of the three people who went missing on 21 November near Stuart's