The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
YouTube captures the NT’s most toxic culture
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Aboriginal culture has been under particularly heavy fire from white Australia for the past few years, but ironically, one of the worst cultures on earth has nothing to with race. I’ll return to that in a minute. Most readers would be aware by now of a video on YouTube from the Northern Territory, in which a police officer films a drunken Aboriginal man (reportedly near Katherine). The video starts with the man lying in the dirt. It shows one cop helping the man to his feet, while his partner (the cop behind the camera) urges the man — whose name is apparently “Chappy” — to sing and dance. The Aboriginal man complies, and starts stumbling around in the dirt singing By the Rivers of Babylon, while the two police look on, laughing. The original video was removed from YouTube on Tuesday night, although you can still see versions of it — some users have taken the clip, cut it down and reposted it without the footage showing the police involvement. Most people who’ve seen an Aboriginal man or woman in this state would find nothing funny in the video. Aboriginal people like “Chappy” (and for the purposes of debate, we’re making some big assumptions here) live lives of abject misery. It is a tragic existence, and only a very “special” class of Australian would think it was appropriate to film it. A very special class of Australian who, on this occasion, also happens to belong to one of the worst, most troubled cultures on earth: police culture. In the Northern Territory and around Australia, thousands of police have thousands of interactions with Aboriginal people every day, and very few of them end with a cop video-taping someone’s misery and then posting it on the Internet for light entertainment. And if that were all there was to the argument — that most of the time, most of the cops do the right thing — then you might think this story was a storm in a teacup. But that’s not all she wrote. The fact is, if a cop isn’t actively mistreating an Aboriginal person in the course of his or her duties, then sure as eggs he’ll be actively supporting and defending a colleague who has. Just look at Palm Island. Just look at Redfern. Just at look at what happened in Wadeye when a cop “mistakenly” shot an Aboriginal man in the back, killing him, but somehow escaped charges. The sad reality is that cops mistreat Aboriginal people all the time, and when it happens their colleagues back them, almost no matter what. The Northern Territory police have refused to elaborate any further than: “We’ve counselled the officer”. They won’t even say if a second officer depicted in the video laughing at the scene has also been “counselled”. There are many people calling for this cop’s head on the grounds that his conduct was unprofessional, not to mention racist. I agree, although there are more simple grounds on which to dismiss him. Having stripped a man of his dignity, the video is then posted on the internet, even though at the end of the sequence the cop turns the camera around and films his own face — in close-up! Anyone that stupid should not be allowed to carry a firearm. Although he should seriously consider a career in Territory politics. The ABC reports that the NT Opposition (the Country Liberal Party) said while it doesn’t support the video, Territory police often have to encourage drunk Aboriginal people to sing or dance to defuse aggression and get them to cooperate. On second thoughts, let’s give the copper his gun back … and have him guard the next CLP annual conference. The inference from the CLP is that the video is sort of racist, but not really all that racist because (takes out dog whistle, gives it a toot) … all black people are drunk and aggressive. Ever the populists, the CLP knows that the average punter — particularly in the Territory — think the humiliation of one of society’s most vulnerable citizens is all a bit of a lark. Some of the comments attached to the YouTube video tell the story. SmokingJoethedrunk writes:
His comment is typical of much of the chat on YouTube. Of course, the video is outrageously racist. For a start, point to a video where an NT cop has filmed himself directing a drunk white man to dance, then posted it on the Internet. The fact is, you can’t and that’s because this video made the light of day precisely because the victim was black and the perpetrator was white. It would never have been filmed if the drunk was white. It was on the internet for the same reasons. But if you still think the video is not racist, then just check out some of the other comments on the video, and while you’re doing it, have a think about the sort of people this clip appeals to: Adrian23199 writes:
Magumbo84 writes:
Sumo325:
mfd069 writes:
Nice stuff, and a lesson for us all: if you lay down with dogs, you wake up with … white Australians. |
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16 Comments
I have lived in Katherine for the last 4 1/2 years, much of that time working in Indigenous-controlled organisations and most of that time working with Indigenous people in the Katherine region and town.
I see constant interactions between Indigenous people and the police, most of them reasonably polite (and not thuggish like QLD/NSW/VIC cops very often are). However, their distaste for Indigenous people is often evident.
Yes, they do have an extremely trying job but that’s no excuse for this sickening video. Chappy is a lovely bloke who’s not violent and to film this sort of thing, to goad him into singing and saying happy birthday whilst watching with amused, arrogant contempt is disgusting. The police involved should be sacked, not merely ‘counselled’, whatever that means.
I have - at rare times - seen argumentative Indigenous people, but I’ve never seen violence towards police (I’m sure that it happens on occasion); to casually paint Indigenous people as inherently violent and aggressive, as some of the comments have, is reprehensible.
Indigenous people’s lives are so governed by white norms and strictures, enforced by poor old Constable Plod that it’s surprising the friction isn’t greater. There is however a very wide dislike of the police, engendered not just by the brutal and violent (not-so-distant) past, but by continued disrespect and arrogance.
Compare Indigenous attitudes to the police and the Indigenous-run Night Patrol services which, like the police, have a high level of involvement with intoxicated people. Night Patrol services are generally strongly supported and trusted and those working within them strongly committed to helping their people.
Lest we forget when the police are not laughing at Aborigines and making “amusing” videos, they may be lifting their knees into their abdominal cavities which results in death, shooting them ‘accidentally” or driving them hundreds of kilometres in vans with the air-conditioning turned off- resulting in death from bodies cooking in 50 degree heat.
This is less amusing.
Wake up White Australia- racism is a deadly business
“Nice stuff, and a lesson for us all: if you lay down with dogs, you wake up with … white Australians.”
When I lie down with my goldie and labbie, I wake up … wait for it … an honorary dog. Please don’t perpetuate the constant and age-old insulting of dogs - as a species they are infinitely superior to the homo sapiens variety and in particular, the racist White Australian kind.
This is hard hitting and extremely important journalism. The last sentence is an apt illustration of the point of the article - the tasteless racism evident on the UTube posting is an expression of toxic Australian culture, the police involvement is an illustration of white police culture in this country……. Aboriginal people are faced with these kinds of humiliations constantly…..there is no sweet, polite way of dressing this up!
I find when I go to the NT that the best way to avoid the sorts of persons who posted the really very vile comments above is to tell people that I am part Aboriginal. No, I’m not but that guarantees that the white trash give me a desirably wide berth.
I fail to understand how this clip is racist. It takes the piss out of a drunk bloke for sure, and he’s funny as hell, but he could as easily be white and the video wouldn’t be any different. Sure he’s more likely to be black where this video was taken, but we don’t actually know where that was from simply looking at it.
Sounds like a big PC knee jerk to me
The action of the coppers is clearly stupid, the quoted blog comments clearly vile. However there is no acknowledgement from Chris of the hard reality that many police, nurses, teachers, ambos and other people who give their service in aboriginal communities come to regard aborigines with clear and sometimes outspoken contempt. Either all people who enter those front line public services are racists when they join or their experiences with aborigines make them that way. I know which seems most likely.
What the hell’s with that last sentence? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
As a (very recently) former Redfern cop I have a few issues with this article. This is not a new article, nor is it new rhetoric. This is an article which could have been plucked from the pages of any Indigenous media or Green Left Weekly over the past 30 years. Mr Graham speaks from the victimhood which denies any reasonable debate about Aboriginal-Police relations in every state and territory.
The video is sad, honest and cringe-worthy. Frankly, I’m ashamed of the cop who made it and posted it. But branding it racist simply because ‘Chappy’ is Aboriginal is the sort of knee-jerk reaction which helps no-one. I have seen more Aboriginal people intoxicated to that point than I ever care to remember, and yes many of them are aggressive, as the Country Liberal Party suggested. That is not an Aboriginal reaction, it’s a human one. The same can be said of all the fall-down drunk people I’ve dealt with, regardless of race.
What I find most interesting is Mr Graham’s insistence that all police mistreat Indigenous people, or support those who do. This is a hugely divisive and untrue claim to make. Police culture has changed dramatically in the past 20 years and this statement is not longer acceptable. We’ve worked hard to change.
Mr Graham, why is it so offensive for a white police officer to film a drunk man dancing and singing, but there is no problem with white police being called ‘fat white c-nts’ or ‘white dogs’? I witnessed appalling racist behaviour from the Aboriginal people of Redfern. An Asian man used to leave left-over food from his shop at the top of the Block for the residents, and every day he would be told to ‘go back to your own f-ing country, you slope’. Even as he was putting the bags of food on the ground. Funny how that never made the Koori Mail.
Mr Graham, go with the NT cops on patrol one night. Perhaps police culture has changed a bit more than you think. Perhaps racism isn’t as black and white as you think.
“one of the worst, most troubled cultures on earth: police culture.” I stopped reading here. You lost me.
“Anyone that stupid should not be allowed to carry a firearm.”
Steady on Chris, where would the new recruitscome from?
Seriously, I lived in FNQ (on the pointy bit, not in Cairns!) for a few years and socialised regularly with QLD police. I understand the constant grind of policing in these areas (where it is a lifestyle, not a job) can be very wearing to say the least. The officers in the video however, show a singular lack of professionalism that clearly makes them unfit for the role. In my experience, no matter how disgusted or amused by a ‘client’, professional police go all out to maintain their dignity and that of the public’s. This would particularly apply where they may have personal views that clash with an aspect of the job they perform (be it an aversion for drunks or dislike for members of a particular ethnic group).
You don’t have to make judgement on the racist nature of the clip to see these clowns are unfit for the badges they are wearing. They’re simply not up to the job.
To those who would explain it away as a joke and dismiss complaints as ‘PC madness’ I’d be tempted to ask how they would feel if it was a family member they saw in the video.
Worst of all, the way this video was shared, the casual nature of the officers and the defensive tone of some of the posted comments below implies that this is a commonplace event, unworthy of comment. It’s only a problem now because ‘the latte set’ have got hold of it.
Perhaps a recent reading of The Fatal Shore has slanted my judgment but, unfortunately, it seems some things have not changed in the 200-odd years since the first Australia Day. I know Chris is wrong in tarring all cops with the same ‘police-culture’ brush, but I can’t blame him for doing so.
Note that all the racist comments are effectively anonymous - surprise,surprise!
Clearly a racist video and one that touches on a much deeper issue regarding racism and resentment towards Aboriginals in Australia.
Saying that though, the moral highground claimed by the writer was thrown away with that last line - “if you lay down with dogs, you wake up with … white Australians.”
Both racist and inflammatory, I’m not sure how Crikey’s editorial let that one through.
Funny, when Andrew O’Keefe did the same thing we all called him a bloody legend. Sure it wasn’t a cop who filmed it, but at the end of the day it was the same behaviour. Why does everyone seem so quick to play the race card?
“one of the worst, most troubled cultures on earth: police culture.”, this seems clear enough: violent, intimidating, racist and conscious of it`s impunity. This is self-evident unless you are living in that `culture`. That behaviour should be roundly condemned, and there are enough race vilification laws to bring the perpetrators to book, but don`t hold your breadth! More serious is the gratuitous support this egregious conduct gets from a wide section of the population including some `leaders`. Of course, it does not end there, police intimidation and brutality extends to other vulnerable sections of our community, such as migrants, refugees and poor whites. That`s why that last sentence is misplaced and unfortunate.
I’d also like to comment on this stunner:
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However there is no acknowledgement from Chris of the hard reality that many police, nurses, teachers, ambos and other people who give their service in aboriginal communities come to regard aborigines with clear and sometimes outspoken contempt. Either all people who enter those front line public services are racists when they join or their experiences with aborigines make them that way. I know which seems most likely.
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1) the whole premise of the article is that many white Australians regard Indigenous people with contempt - surely that is “an acknowledgment”?
2) maybe many do end with that contempt - but I’ve seen many people in those professions and others who start with no idea, continue with no idea and end with no idea, and blame all their own personal and professional failures on Indigenous people
3) many don’t end with that contempt, but leave with frustration at bureaucracies, dysfunctional organisations, ridiculous and unresponsive policy and with a deep and impotent sense of pity for community people whose lives are at the mercy of the whole Kafkaesque debacle of governmental machinery and the wider non-Indigenous refusal to engage with Indigenous people as human beings on their own terms.
To suggest that it’s “aborigines” fault that white people don’t like them is more or less saying Indigenous people are fatally flawed and have themselves to blame for our stupid incomprehension.
The “hard reality” is that non-Indigenous Australia would rather continue the status quo than look at itself honestly, admit a few faults, go out and get to know Indigenous people and start closing the gap in understanding of each other - and non-Indigenous people are a lot further behind in that than Indigenous people.