The oft quoted, and misquoted, line from Romeo and Juliet which formed a big part of my undergraduate drama education still creeps in from time to time when pondering the perils of nomenclature in contemporary Australia. For despite any idealistic declarations of love the teenaged Juliet may have made, they both end up dead in the end (spoilers!) and the final message is clearly that no, misnamed roses don't actually always smell as sweet.
And so this quote was pumping through my head as the debacle from the latest Meanjin cover played out last week. In a bad editorial decision linked to representing content geared around analysis of the mass call-out of sexual harassment and assault, 'Meanjin', which is the Turrbal name for Brisbane, was partly crossed out to read #Metoo.
Following quick action by Aboriginal writers Karen Wyld and Amy McQuire along with others, highlighting not just the continual desecration of our languages but also the erasure of Aboriginal women from #metoo dialogues despite us experiencing sexual violence at significantly higher rates, editor Jonathan Green submitted an apology and the online issue of Meanjin included an amended cover.
As I watched this, I had many thoughts. One was that the journal was named Meanjin several decades ago due to its progressive and challenging content, yet that challenge to historical white supremacy had been forgotten in the contemporary. Another was concern regarding the alleged 'intersectional politics' I witnessed in the resultant, mainly non-Aboriginal, outrage — where points regarding language loss and violence perpetrated against Aboriginal women seemed to get lost in preference for calling out individual contributors who, while they do need to be mindful of privilege and how they reinforce theirs, did not actually design the cover.
Finally though, I couldn't help but reflect on Aboriginal languages and how, when our words or histories do come to the forefront in this country, they're continually disrespected or treated as a massive threat to the white patriarchal status quo.
I stated last week in conversations that I see Aboriginal words as a gift — not meaning that we are freely giving them to mainstream Australia for their unbridled use but rather that, in the face of continual assimilation policies ranging from Stolen Generation kids being flogged for using lingo all the way to continual threats against bilingual education programs in schools, the fact that we still have words and languages is a miracle.
And therein also lies