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Female Firsts: Oodgeroo Noonuccal · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and welcome to Stephane. Never told
0:08
Speaker 1: your production of I Heart Radio. And it's time for
0:19
Speaker 1: another female first, which means we are once again delighted
0:23
Speaker 1: to be joined by the wonderful, magnificent Eaves. Welcome e Hey,
0:27
Speaker 1: thank you for the welcome back for another installment. I'm
0:30
Speaker 1: excited as usual. I'm excited too. I'm excited for a
0:34
Speaker 1: lot of reasons about this one. I did. I feel
0:37
Speaker 1: like we always have these really interesting conversations before we
0:40
Speaker 1: start recording this one. We talked a lot about teeth.
0:43
Speaker 1: But I want to ask you, Eves a couple of questions. One,
0:47
Speaker 1: are you a morning person? It depends on the time
0:50
Speaker 1: of year, in the phase of life, So right now
0:54
Speaker 1: I am because I really love starting my mornings with
0:57
Speaker 1: like yoga and meditation, So right now I am. And
1:01
Speaker 1: that's probably like, that's probably going to be an indefinite thing,
1:03
Speaker 1: because honestly, when I was younger, I wasn't a huge
1:06
Speaker 1: nighttime person. Like I knew people who could stay up
1:09
Speaker 1: all night working watching TV, and I was never like that.
1:13
Speaker 1: So I would say, yes, I'm more of a morning
1:15
Speaker 1: mid day and I also love sunlight, so I think
1:18
Speaker 1: I'll probably stay in that stay in that area. Yeah. Yeah,
1:22
Speaker 1: Samantha and I were curious because when we record these,
1:24
Speaker 1: you're always like, let's don't die, okay, So here's my
1:28
Speaker 1: apology for that. I do think about that because I
1:34
Speaker 1: do say ten thirty. It's because you know, I feel
1:37
Speaker 1: like it's at that time of day where it's like
1:39
Speaker 1: if I need to do any like refreshing, right before
1:42
Speaker 1: I have time to do that. I know my voice
1:45
Speaker 1: is woking up a little bit more, but it's not
1:46
Speaker 1: too late in the day where I'm like away with
1:53
Speaker 1: all of that other mess, like it's time for me
1:54
Speaker 1: to be with myself. So I just feel like it's
1:57
Speaker 1: a good time of day for me. But you know,
1:59
Speaker 1: if you're crazy, it's just let me no. No. I actually, um,
2:05
Speaker 1: I've kind of gone to a shift. When I was younger,
2:07
Speaker 1: I was very much like a night owl. I hated
2:10
Speaker 1: the more, like dreaded them. That might have had more
2:14
Speaker 1: to do with not being a morning person necessarily, but
2:17
Speaker 1: like not liking school, who knows. But I had a
2:20
Speaker 1: really dramatic shift after college where I've become much more
2:24
Speaker 1: I'm actually both a morning person and at night owl.
2:27
Speaker 1: But yeah, what what you're saying I don't sleep very much,
2:31
Speaker 1: but I am. I I'm somebody who's probably the most
2:34
Speaker 1: awake around this time. But almost everyone else I work
2:39
Speaker 1: with isn't. Morning recording session is just rary for me.
2:43
Speaker 1: I've got no qualms or completely. I was just scary. No,
2:47
Speaker 1: we had intended to start at but because of me
2:50
Speaker 1: and me not being a morning person, I'm like, let's
2:52
Speaker 1: do it at one one. Sounds good, no problems, and
2:57
Speaker 1: I this is not some weird way of trying to
3:02
Speaker 1: get you to change your roys. I was just curious.
3:05
Speaker 1: Oh no, it makes it better because it actually gets
3:07
Speaker 1: me to start the day because I am the procrastinator
3:09
Speaker 1: of the crew. But I'm like, huh, she likes to
3:12
Speaker 1: get into this, let's go. Yes. And I am excited
3:17
Speaker 1: to talk about this because I actually did spend about
3:22
Speaker 1: a year in Australia UM and I lived with an
3:26
Speaker 1: indigenous Aboriginal Australian community for four or five months. Uh,
3:32
Speaker 1: and it was one of the best, most rewarding learning
3:36
Speaker 1: experiences I've ever had. And I'm continually like, because I
3:39
Speaker 1: was kind of randomly assigned to that project, I'm continually
3:42
Speaker 1: grateful for it. So this really it brought back a
3:45
Speaker 1: lot of good memories and kind of the power of
3:47
Speaker 1: I think we all like traveling here in this crew
3:49
Speaker 1: and like that there's so many beautiful things there and
3:52
Speaker 1: I had such a good time, So I'm very, very
3:54
Speaker 1: excited to talk about this. Yeah, I remember you mentioning
3:57
Speaker 1: that I don't know a ton about Aboriginal culture, so
4:01
Speaker 1: you definitely obviously have way more living experience with it
4:04
Speaker 1: than I do. That I've never even been to Australia,
4:08
Speaker 1: so yeah, it seems like a really beautiful place though,
4:12
Speaker 1: and I know that there is a lot, a lot,
4:14
Speaker 1: a lot of history there when it comes to Aboriginal
4:17
Speaker 1: people and towards Straight Islanders, and it's a history that
4:22
Speaker 1: is greatly more about colonization and imperialism as are a
4:26
Speaker 1: lot of other places around the world, and that there
4:30
Speaker 1: is a lot of hardship but also a lot of
4:32
Speaker 1: beauty um in Aboriginal culture. So I'm excited to talk
4:36
Speaker 1: about it too. So, yes, who did you bring for
4:39
Speaker 1: us to discuss Today's So just a quick disclaimer before
4:43
Speaker 1: we begin. I understand that there may be some kind
4:46
Speaker 1: of sensitivity around hearing the names of deceased Aboriginal Australians
4:51
Speaker 1: for some people. So just wanted to put a content
4:53
Speaker 1: warning up front that some names will be mentioned here.
4:55
Speaker 1: If you are sensitive to listening to that kind of thing,
4:57
Speaker 1: then you might want to skip this episode at the time.
5:00
Speaker 1: And also just to say that there, as with naming
5:04
Speaker 1: and so many things, it's it's so influx so many times,
5:08
Speaker 1: and it's different for individuals as well as communities and
5:10
Speaker 1: societies when it comes to what we call these people's
5:14
Speaker 1: Aboriginal people's first nations, people's using specific cultural groups themselves.
5:21
Speaker 1: So the New Knuckle people, which are once we're going
5:24
Speaker 1: to be talking about today, I'll try to interchange them
5:27
Speaker 1: a lot as we're speaking, because I can't determine for
5:30
Speaker 1: anybody what they're comfortable with hearing. I'm just going by
5:33
Speaker 1: what is generally accepted to be good when it comes
5:36
Speaker 1: to usage for people who are not part of the cultures. Yeah,
5:41
Speaker 1: that's a really good point because when I was there,
5:45
Speaker 1: just with like any topic we talk about, you know,
5:47
Speaker 1: there's not it's not a monolith, and people prefer different terms.
5:51
Speaker 1: And I think when I was there, the way that
5:55
Speaker 1: people spoke about it has changed, just like a lot
5:58
Speaker 1: of us. There's been a lot of change, and I
6:00
Speaker 1: feel like for the better, mostly about like we need
6:03
Speaker 1: to be more aware of the words we use and
6:07
Speaker 1: why we use them. Uh So it's changed from when
6:10
Speaker 1: I was there. Uh So, Yeah, that's a great point
6:13
Speaker 1: of just it's still in flux um. There's still these
6:17
Speaker 1: conversations happening and not everyone agrees. Yeah, yes, thank you. Yeah.
6:22
Speaker 1: So I guess we'll get into it now. So we're
6:24
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about Ujaru New Knuckle, also known as
6:28
Speaker 1: Kath Walker. As a preface to all of that, I'll
6:31
Speaker 1: say that she was a poet, she was a storyteller,
6:34
Speaker 1: she was a visual artist, and she was an educator.
6:37
Speaker 1: So she had a long and storied life that we're
6:40
Speaker 1: going to talk about today. So we'll start with our birth.
6:43
Speaker 1: She was born on November third, nineteen twenty UM. She
6:47
Speaker 1: was from men Jariba, which is the name of what's
6:50
Speaker 1: now called North Stradbrooke Island, Um in a language that
6:54
Speaker 1: the New Knuckle people speak, which is the group that
6:56
Speaker 1: she was a part of. They're one of the people
6:59
Speaker 1: who were traditionally lived on the that island um and
7:03
Speaker 1: that islanded in more Tim Bay in Queensland. So I'll
7:07
Speaker 1: kind of start off calling her cath Walker, since her
7:09
Speaker 1: name did change over time, but at this point she
7:12
Speaker 1: was referred to as kath Walker. Her grandmother was the
7:17
Speaker 1: daughter of a white man and a new knuckle woman,
7:20
Speaker 1: and her kath Walker's grandmother married a German Man and
7:24
Speaker 1: one of their children was named Edward Edward A k
7:27
Speaker 1: A Tied and that was CAS's father. He lived and
7:31
Speaker 1: he worked on Manjarraba. She remarks very fondly about her
7:36
Speaker 1: time there and her time spent with him and the
7:39
Speaker 1: things that he taught her while they lived on the
7:42
Speaker 1: island together. So her mother, Cath's mother was Lucy. She
7:46
Speaker 1: also had a white father and an Aboriginal mother and
7:49
Speaker 1: together the two of them had seven children together. So yeah,
7:54
Speaker 1: he taught her things that are themes throughout her life. Nature, animals,
7:58
Speaker 1: community with nature. Her dad taught her and her siblings
8:02
Speaker 1: how to catch food like fish and bandicoots and all
8:05
Speaker 1: of these practical things that when it came to surviving
8:08
Speaker 1: and living in the area. And her totem is the
8:13
Speaker 1: carpet snake. So a totem is an object, a plant,
8:17
Speaker 1: or an animal that has passed down through a family
8:19
Speaker 1: as a sort of spiritual emblem and the carpet snake.
8:23
Speaker 1: There's a cute story that she tells about. There's also
8:26
Speaker 1: a poem she wrote regarding that totem, but she talks
8:30
Speaker 1: about how her dad they kept a snake around the house,
8:33
Speaker 1: which it's not something I would be fond of, but
8:38
Speaker 1: like she talks about how the snake just hung around
8:40
Speaker 1: the house and when her father passed away, the snake
8:43
Speaker 1: just kind of disappeared. And there was questioning around whether
8:47
Speaker 1: that snake left because you know, the person that it
8:51
Speaker 1: was attached to left, or if her mother really wasn't
8:54
Speaker 1: here for that snake was there. We don't know, But
9:00
Speaker 1: that was like a really cute story in her life.
9:03
Speaker 1: But yeah, she said that she was left handed, but
9:06
Speaker 1: her school teacher forced her to write with her right,
9:08
Speaker 1: which isn't an unusual thing. But she also said that
9:12
Speaker 1: from the time she was a child, she liked to
9:14
Speaker 1: play with words, like playing with a jigsaw puzzle, So
9:19
Speaker 1: her love for the like her interest in the arts
9:22
Speaker 1: and writing came on pretty early. When she was thirteen, though,
9:27
Speaker 1: her school education ended and she began live in domestic
9:31
Speaker 1: work to be able to provide and for context. This
9:36
Speaker 1: was during the time of the Great Depression, so there
9:41
Speaker 1: were a lot of economic hardships for a lot of people,
9:44
Speaker 1: and they were also Aboriginal Australians under authority who added
9:50
Speaker 1: a lot of hardships on top of that. So but
9:53
Speaker 1: she did talk about how much fun and how fondly
9:58
Speaker 1: she remembered her time on the island. So in nineteen
10:01
Speaker 1: forty two, during World War Two, she joined the Australian
10:05
Speaker 1: Women's Army Service. She also had other family members who
10:09
Speaker 1: were in the military, but she learned switchboard operation and
10:12
Speaker 1: soon became corporal and was put in charge of training
10:16
Speaker 1: new people. And she also soon married Bruce Walker, which
10:21
Speaker 1: is where that last name Walker comes in. He was
10:24
Speaker 1: a boxer and a wilder whom she had known since childhood.
10:28
Speaker 1: They settled in Brisbane and she worked with the a
10:31
Speaker 1: w a S until nineteen forty four, and she played sports.
10:36
Speaker 1: Um so a bunch of different sports. But one of
10:39
Speaker 1: them was Krikoh, which I hadn't heard of until I mean,
10:43
Speaker 1: maybe y'all have. I don't know if you had, maybe Annie,
10:46
Speaker 1: because you've been there. But it was a game that
10:48
Speaker 1: was based on cricket device specifically for women's teams in Australia.
10:52
Speaker 1: Oh I played some rounds you did? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
10:57
Speaker 1: I wasn't very good, but one time, one time I
11:00
Speaker 1: knocked it out of the part man and that that
11:03
Speaker 1: will be like my shining achievement. So it's essentially cricket
11:07
Speaker 1: but for women, and they just changed the name. I'm
11:11
Speaker 1: not the one to tell you about the mechanics of
11:12
Speaker 1: the sport. Complicated, okay, complicated, sticky, wicked. I know we
11:21
Speaker 1: have some Australian listeners, so if they can let us
11:23
Speaker 1: know that, because yes, I would love that. So she
11:41
Speaker 1: was interested in the Communist Party for hot minute, was
11:44
Speaker 1: a little involved in it read Communist works, but she
11:48
Speaker 1: never really latched on there or in general aligned with
11:52
Speaker 1: political parties much, though she did decades later running elections
11:56
Speaker 1: for the Labor Party and for the Australian Democrats. So
12:00
Speaker 1: she and Bruce Walker they did have a son together,
12:06
Speaker 1: who was born in ninety, but the couple separated and
12:11
Speaker 1: Kat had to turn back to domestic work and a
12:15
Speaker 1: family that she worked for encouraged her to pursue her
12:18
Speaker 1: interest in the arts, and she later had another son
12:21
Speaker 1: with a member of that family. So that's a little
12:26
Speaker 1: background on her early life. And how she started to
12:29
Speaker 1: veer into the arts space and into the activists space
12:32
Speaker 1: as well, because those things both ran parallel in her life,
12:36
Speaker 1: like they went hand in hand. A lot of her
12:37
Speaker 1: work referred to the things that she cared about in
12:40
Speaker 1: general in life that were important to her, but that
12:42
Speaker 1: were also big issues at the time when it came
12:45
Speaker 1: to Aboriginal rights. So she joyed the Brisbane Realist Writers Group,
12:50
Speaker 1: which was a group that met to read and critique
12:54
Speaker 1: each other's work, and she met this Australian writer named
12:58
Speaker 1: James Devaney who encouraged her to read and study other poets.
13:04
Speaker 1: So yeah, but pause for a little bit more context
13:08
Speaker 1: in terms of colonization there did what colonization does, um,
13:12
Speaker 1: Like you said earlier, Samantha, I know they're Australian listeners
13:15
Speaker 1: out there as well, but it's the thing that many
13:18
Speaker 1: people have been affected by around the world. And the
13:23
Speaker 1: European invaders who colonized the island brought with it a
13:27
Speaker 1: host of issues that are often universal issues that happen
13:31
Speaker 1: in other places, but once that are specific to that
13:33
Speaker 1: place as well. And obviously Aboriginal people existed and exist
13:38
Speaker 1: in that land, and among them there was all this
13:42
Speaker 1: government control that was happening of the Aboriginal people's and
13:46
Speaker 1: the tourist Straight Islanders. There were things like dispossession, movement, restriction,
13:53
Speaker 1: family separation, UM, poverty and hunger. I'm like laughing because
13:58
Speaker 1: these are things that like I can to us well
14:00
Speaker 1: when it comes to um colonization in the United States.
14:04
Speaker 1: But yeah, so legislation in Queensland that limited the rights
14:07
Speaker 1: of Aboriginal people's, called the Queensland Acts as a whole,
14:11
Speaker 1: was particularly devastating to them. There were once like the
14:15
Speaker 1: Aboriginals Preservation and Protection Act, which was later replaced by
14:19
Speaker 1: the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Affairs Act. UM. There
14:24
Speaker 1: were a bunch of different policies that were enacted under
14:27
Speaker 1: these acts. But for instance, just to mention some of them,
14:32
Speaker 1: officers could control how Aboriginal people spent and manage their money. Um.
14:37
Speaker 1: There was a Queensland Trust Fund that was under a
14:40
Speaker 1: lot of heat by a lot of the activists, including
14:43
Speaker 1: kath Walker, and you can go and read more about that.
14:47
Speaker 1: But there was also other things like the Director of
14:50
Speaker 1: Native Affairs was the legal guardian every Aboriginal child in
14:55
Speaker 1: the state. So there was a lot of paternalism happening,
15:00
Speaker 1: and a big part of Kath Walker's fight and other
15:04
Speaker 1: activists fight was pushing back against this really huge oppressive
15:09
Speaker 1: paternalistic force and letting First Nations people control their own lives,
15:17
Speaker 1: to not have white people speak for them in politics
15:19
Speaker 1: and on councils, in a step for them to speak
15:22
Speaker 1: for themselves, which sounds like the but you know that
15:27
Speaker 1: wasn't the case. She also campaigned for Aboriginal land rights
15:32
Speaker 1: and as she said in one nineteen seventies speech quote,
15:35
Speaker 1: the key requirements today are the return of land rights
15:39
Speaker 1: to the people and the implementing of legislation that will
15:42
Speaker 1: ensure independence and self determination for the Aborigines of Australia.
15:48
Speaker 1: So she began to get more involved in the community
15:53
Speaker 1: and in council. She began attending meetings of the Queensland
15:57
Speaker 1: Council for the Advancement of the Origins and Tourist Straight Islanders,
16:03
Speaker 1: also known as q KATSI. I think it's how you
16:05
Speaker 1: pronounced that. Years later she also became the Queensland State
16:09
Speaker 1: Secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines
16:13
Speaker 1: and Tours Straight Islanders. She has a long history of
16:16
Speaker 1: being involved with them. So over the year she was
16:19
Speaker 1: doing a lot of things with that organization. At the
16:22
Speaker 1: same time, she was still writing. So she sent the
16:25
Speaker 1: publisher of Jack Randa Press her poetry manuscript and he
16:30
Speaker 1: passed it on to reader Judith Wright, and she recommended
16:34
Speaker 1: publication and the two of them did have a relationship.
16:38
Speaker 1: Was interesting that Judith Wright wrote a poem for kath Walker,
16:42
Speaker 1: and then kath Walker was so affected or moved by
16:45
Speaker 1: that poem that she said that she couldn't write a
16:47
Speaker 1: response till years later. She did end up writing a
16:50
Speaker 1: response years later, but in nineteen sixty four, We Are
16:55
Speaker 1: Going was published, and that was the first that was
16:58
Speaker 1: her first which I really as we've been saying at
17:00
Speaker 1: the beginning, but the first surprise. It was the first
17:05
Speaker 1: published volume of poetry bout an Aboriginal Australian. I like
17:08
Speaker 1: the surprise first, You're like the whole time, like what
17:12
Speaker 1: is it? That's how a lot of the TV shows
17:15
Speaker 1: are going, where they give you a good point of
17:17
Speaker 1: the plot and then they do the like actual introductions
17:20
Speaker 1: like hey, here's what the show title is. This is
17:22
Speaker 1: what we're doing a little lot of before you can
17:25
Speaker 1: find it it's a surprise, surprise, It's like, oh yeah.
17:31
Speaker 1: It was well received, but there were also people who
17:33
Speaker 1: dismissed it as just like protest poetry, just propaganda. Some
17:38
Speaker 1: people even accused her of not writing it because she
17:41
Speaker 1: was an Aboriginal Australian. She later said, quote, one thing
17:45
Speaker 1: that happens when you have a bit of white blood
17:47
Speaker 1: and you and have a bit of white education is
17:50
Speaker 1: that when you misbehave people say ah, that's the Aboriginal
17:53
Speaker 1: in you, And when you accomplished something, they'll say, ah,
17:57
Speaker 1: that's the white coming out in you. It happened to
17:59
Speaker 1: as a child, and it still happens. She went on
18:02
Speaker 1: to publish more books. She published over the course of
18:05
Speaker 1: her life, children's books, more poetry, collections, essay, she did lectures,
18:09
Speaker 1: all those things. But in nineteen sixty six she published
18:12
Speaker 1: The Dawn Is at Hand Um. She also got plenty
18:16
Speaker 1: of awards, which we don't need to go through all
18:19
Speaker 1: of them, but for instance, in nineteen sixty seven she
18:21
Speaker 1: won the Jesse Litchfield Award for Literature and her work
18:25
Speaker 1: sold pretty well. So between all this work that she
18:29
Speaker 1: and other activists were doing and the type of work
18:33
Speaker 1: that she was putting out through her poetry. She was
18:36
Speaker 1: a big voice in getting other people involved in the
18:39
Speaker 1: Five for Aboriginal Rights, and eventually all of this movement
18:44
Speaker 1: work that people were doing led to the nineteen sixty
18:46
Speaker 1: seven referendum in which Australians voted to amend the Constitution
18:51
Speaker 1: to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for First Nations
18:54
Speaker 1: peoples and to include them and population counts. It did
18:58
Speaker 1: not though it had already been done, because it did
19:01
Speaker 1: not grant Aboriginal people's citizenship they had already had that.
19:05
Speaker 1: It didn't grant the wage of quality either or the
19:07
Speaker 1: right to vote they had already had the right to
19:08
Speaker 1: vote at that time in all states and Commonwealth elections.
19:12
Speaker 1: But hint, hint, there were still other repressive Queensland laws
19:17
Speaker 1: in place after that referendum was passed. In fact, Kath
19:21
Speaker 1: went on to say later that it was just like
19:24
Speaker 1: something that was done for white people's convenience, like it
19:27
Speaker 1: was something that made them feel a little bit better
19:29
Speaker 1: about themselves, but it was still a point in progress
19:34
Speaker 1: that was fought for by many people who have been
19:39
Speaker 1: doing work to get to something like this. So not
19:41
Speaker 1: to just be dismissive of that, but also to acknowledge
19:44
Speaker 1: the fact that it was something that didn't completely measurably
19:49
Speaker 1: change and improve all the really serious conditions that Aboriginal
19:55
Speaker 1: people were facing. So yeah, So she continued to travel
20:01
Speaker 1: and extensively nationally campaigning for Aboriginal rights, having conversations on
20:07
Speaker 1: things like racism around the world, Aboriginal culture, poetry, conservationism,
20:13
Speaker 1: like environmental issues. She spoke in places like Malaysia, the
20:17
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, Nigeria, and the United States. And in nineteen
20:22
Speaker 1: seventies she published My People. That first edition of My People,
20:27
Speaker 1: which is a collection of poetry, was dedicated to the
20:29
Speaker 1: Brisbane Aboriginal and Islander Council, whose policy is self determination.
20:34
Speaker 1: That was the dedication in the front of My People,
20:37
Speaker 1: so clearly how important it was to say that, and
20:40
Speaker 1: for her to mention self determination at the front of that,
20:43
Speaker 1: which was something that was a shift in thinking for
20:47
Speaker 1: her in a way she saw, you know, in the beginning,
20:52
Speaker 1: a lot of these organizations that she was working with
20:54
Speaker 1: was headed up by white people, and white people approached
20:57
Speaker 1: her and other Aboriginal people's to take part in these initiatives.
21:02
Speaker 1: But she also she began to see more of but
21:07
Speaker 1: over time, but she saw the benefit of union among
21:10
Speaker 1: Aboriginal peoples in them forming their own organizations rather than
21:13
Speaker 1: counting on the advocacy of white people in white dominated organizations,
21:18
Speaker 1: and the coalition between the groups also another parallel that
21:21
Speaker 1: can be formed in the United States as well, and
21:23
Speaker 1: how many institutions and organizations were headed up by well
21:27
Speaker 1: meaning white people. She believed in Aboriginal Australians advancing their
21:32
Speaker 1: own cause and that coalitions cannot be effective if they're
21:37
Speaker 1: based on what white people want in their customs. So
21:40
Speaker 1: you'll see that play out in her poetry as well,
21:42
Speaker 1: her talking about how she she she does have this
21:46
Speaker 1: all one race hi happening in her work, but she
21:50
Speaker 1: also talks about how there are fundamental differences and customs
21:54
Speaker 1: and quote what she calls moral behaviors that cannot be reconciled.
21:59
Speaker 1: So if somebody has come men, I want to say,
22:02
Speaker 1: somebody white people are coming in and making decisions based
22:05
Speaker 1: on their own customs and their own thoughts about things
22:07
Speaker 1: without letting Aboriginal Australians have their own say in policy
22:11
Speaker 1: and in the things that govern their lives and tell
22:14
Speaker 1: them how they should survive in the land that is
22:17
Speaker 1: originally there's it's not gonna work. So though she had
22:21
Speaker 1: been a key voice in the progress that led to
22:23
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty seven referendum, she came to think it
22:26
Speaker 1: was more for them, It was more them than us.
22:29
Speaker 1: And she remarks that the optimism that she and a
22:32
Speaker 1: lot of other people have previously had. There is a
22:35
Speaker 1: lot of hope in her poetry, a lot of future
22:38
Speaker 1: facing forwardness, like looking there's a lot of that in
22:42
Speaker 1: her poetry. But she and others at the same time,
22:46
Speaker 1: we're also understandably bending to the despair of facing the
22:50
Speaker 1: same problems, waiting hope in the third future, all the
22:54
Speaker 1: things that plagued us as humans. But of course, in
22:57
Speaker 1: her specific situation, after your trying so hard and being
23:02
Speaker 1: so vocal and and exerting so much life force toward
23:06
Speaker 1: her specific cause and not saying motion like you want
23:08
Speaker 1: to see it as can happen, then so yeah. She
23:12
Speaker 1: continued to publish things, and she published The Black Commandments
23:16
Speaker 1: in nine was, including commandments like thou shalt gather thy
23:21
Speaker 1: scattered people together and thou shalt work for Black liberation,
23:24
Speaker 1: and there are other ones you can go read it.
23:26
Speaker 1: But in ninety one she did start to face health
23:32
Speaker 1: challenges and challenges from younger Aboriginal leaders. She resigned from
23:38
Speaker 1: some of the committee she was on and she moved
23:41
Speaker 1: back to men Jaribah. And that did not mean that
23:47
Speaker 1: all of her work stopped, Like you know, she was
23:49
Speaker 1: just no longer involved in the community and the work
23:51
Speaker 1: that she was doing. She continued to do it, it
23:54
Speaker 1: just looked a little bit different. She did continue writing,
23:56
Speaker 1: although there was a gap in her work. Was a
24:00
Speaker 1: gap in her work that happened and when it came
24:02
Speaker 1: to her published work. So what happened when she went
24:05
Speaker 1: back to Manjariba. She submitted an application to lease and
24:11
Speaker 1: eventually purchased about five acres of land there with the
24:15
Speaker 1: hopes of constructing a museum and art gallery. And she
24:20
Speaker 1: did not get permanent ownership. She wasn't granted it, but
24:24
Speaker 1: she was granted a year lease that was later extended
24:28
Speaker 1: to a lifetime lease. And that place was called moon Galba.
24:33
Speaker 1: And that meant sitting down place is what I think
24:36
Speaker 1: that meant. And it became more than a museum and
24:39
Speaker 1: art gallery. It was a place for a learning and
24:42
Speaker 1: cultural exchange. And when I saw, like when I watched
24:46
Speaker 1: the videos of it in her in that space and
24:49
Speaker 1: her talking about it, and other people were marking on it.
24:52
Speaker 1: It just seems like such a magical place that I'm like, oh,
24:55
Speaker 1: I really wish that I could have gone there, because
24:58
Speaker 1: it seemed like it was really rich and fulfilling and
25:02
Speaker 1: also a place where cultural exchange happen. It happened for children,
25:09
Speaker 1: and it was just really nice to see her interacting
25:12
Speaker 1: with them and like, how how enlightening something like that
25:16
Speaker 1: can be. Um. She would put on holiday camps for
25:19
Speaker 1: their children, teach them how to be self sufficient, um.
25:23
Speaker 1: And and then it was also in such a beautiful space.
25:25
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I wish I could be there. But
25:28
Speaker 1: thousands of students visited. Their student teachers also went there
25:32
Speaker 1: learned about Aboriginal culture, conservation, poetry, and other things. So yeah,
25:51
Speaker 1: there is one story that had uh bit of traction
25:57
Speaker 1: in her life, and that was the story when she
25:59
Speaker 1: was on a plane was hijacked and they wanted Palestinian
26:05
Speaker 1: prisoners to be released, and while she was she wrote
26:08
Speaker 1: while she was on that plane on the back of
26:11
Speaker 1: a sick bag. So while she was on the plane
26:13
Speaker 1: she was writing poetry. One was about and you Can Go.
26:16
Speaker 1: There are two poems that she wrote one about the
26:19
Speaker 1: situation and another one about one of the hijackers. The
26:22
Speaker 1: name of the poems stuff, I believe that was the
26:24
Speaker 1: name of the hijacker who she found out had previously
26:28
Speaker 1: been a pediatrician, and she in that poem is remarking
26:32
Speaker 1: on how he once held children and instead now is
26:36
Speaker 1: holding a rifle and things like that. Um with a
26:40
Speaker 1: lot of compassion, Like there was a lot of compassion
26:43
Speaker 1: that ran through her poetry. So I will talk about
26:47
Speaker 1: her poetry for a little bit. She wrote about a
26:49
Speaker 1: bunch of different things. Obviously it was very intertwined, like
26:52
Speaker 1: I said, with her the causes that she cared about
26:56
Speaker 1: her activism, but there was a range of emotions and
27:02
Speaker 1: like human things that humans can relate to that she
27:04
Speaker 1: wrote about. So there were things like racism, assimilation and integration.
27:09
Speaker 1: She remarked a lot on the hypocrisy of white Christians,
27:13
Speaker 1: specifically denigrating First Nations Australians and how backward it was
27:20
Speaker 1: for them to proclaim to be a part of this
27:23
Speaker 1: religion and not expressed that in ways towards First Nations Australians.
27:29
Speaker 1: She talked a lot about living with nature, Aboriginal spirituality,
27:33
Speaker 1: and folklore being her own dedication to advancing Aboriginal rights.
27:39
Speaker 1: She talks about that in the poem I Love, and
27:41
Speaker 1: just how dedicated she is to it, and how it's inextricable,
27:45
Speaker 1: like from she she has to do it, and she's
27:50
Speaker 1: compelled to do it, and and how important it is
27:53
Speaker 1: to her, and the necessity of sorrow and grief, how
27:57
Speaker 1: they go hand in hand with love. That was one
28:00
Speaker 1: that I really liked. Aboriginal customs like Corrobboree, which was
28:04
Speaker 1: a dance ceremony um she talked about hope in the future,
28:08
Speaker 1: like I mentioned earlier. So a lot of her poems
28:11
Speaker 1: are technically simple but moving um and also obviously very
28:16
Speaker 1: meaningful to her and to her community in general. She
28:20
Speaker 1: published children's books like Strap Broke, dream Time and Father
28:24
Speaker 1: Sky and Mother Earth, and that was in the seventies
28:29
Speaker 1: and eighties. And she was also a visual artist and
28:32
Speaker 1: she created illustrations that accompanied her poetry. So she she
28:37
Speaker 1: did a lot. And in the documentary Shadow Sister, she
28:42
Speaker 1: said that she didn't have a lot of money, but
28:45
Speaker 1: that she was rich and peace and serenity when she
28:48
Speaker 1: was at Moon Galba. She seemed very content when she
28:51
Speaker 1: said that, like that I feel like a lot of
28:56
Speaker 1: the work that she was doing, especially as she was
28:59
Speaker 1: in all of her works, is a lot about preservation
29:02
Speaker 1: and making sure that her culture is remembered, because I'm
29:05
Speaker 1: guessing before she started all of this, she she knew
29:10
Speaker 1: a lot of things from her parents, her father who
29:12
Speaker 1: would teach them, but it was a word of the mouth.
29:14
Speaker 1: And we know we've lost so much because when we
29:17
Speaker 1: do see things like colonization, they take away history. That's
29:21
Speaker 1: kind of the point of colonization is to take one
29:23
Speaker 1: type of history and change it or remove it so
29:26
Speaker 1: that the oppressor's history can be the one that dominates it.
29:30
Speaker 1: So it seems like, uh, this is something that she
29:33
Speaker 1: was able to do in such a beautiful way, in
29:35
Speaker 1: a way that a lot of people don't have the talent,
29:37
Speaker 1: including myself, to do so to preserve her culture. And
29:42
Speaker 1: it makes me both happy and sad to know that
29:45
Speaker 1: this is this Like, I'm glad she was able to
29:47
Speaker 1: do it and in such an amazing way to express it,
29:50
Speaker 1: but also that it has to be this way and
29:52
Speaker 1: in order to for it to continue is for her
29:55
Speaker 1: to continue to fight and man, she was in her
29:58
Speaker 1: fifties when she kind of stopped quote un quote, that's
30:00
Speaker 1: a long time to be working as then, young as
30:04
Speaker 1: she was when she started to try to fight for
30:07
Speaker 1: just her existence and her people's existence. Yeah, it's um. Yeah,
30:12
Speaker 1: I like that she said preservation because that showed up
30:15
Speaker 1: in her work in so many different ways, like the
30:16
Speaker 1: actual preservation of the land, but also the preservation of
30:21
Speaker 1: her culture, you know, in a very tangible way, because
30:24
Speaker 1: she was writing things down, um about her life, specifically,
30:29
Speaker 1: so the preservation of her own singular history, but also
30:34
Speaker 1: of the traditions and the customs that she was familiar with.
30:38
Speaker 1: She was able to share those in person during her life,
30:41
Speaker 1: but also in works that lived a lot longer after
30:45
Speaker 1: she did so, like I said, she didn't she had
30:49
Speaker 1: a gap of of writing. She had written poetry in
30:52
Speaker 1: years when she went to China in nine, but she
30:56
Speaker 1: was inspired to write again when she was there, and
31:00
Speaker 1: those poems were published in English and Chinese. It was
31:04
Speaker 1: called kath Walker in China, so that year the year
31:07
Speaker 1: of publication was a nineteen eighty eight, but the books
31:10
Speaker 1: didn't get to Brisbane until late nineteen eighty nine. She
31:14
Speaker 1: also worked on a film as a consultant, the film
31:17
Speaker 1: The French Dwellers, and she had an acting role in
31:19
Speaker 1: that film, and she was known as Kath Walker up
31:24
Speaker 1: until nineteen eighty eight. Like I said, but upon the
31:27
Speaker 1: Australian by Centenary in nineteen eighty eight, which was a
31:31
Speaker 1: marker of the arrival of the first feet of British
31:34
Speaker 1: convict ships in Australia, u Drew handed back her Member
31:38
Speaker 1: of the Order of the British Empire, which she was
31:40
Speaker 1: awarded in nineteen seventy and she publicly changed her name
31:44
Speaker 1: to Udru, which is a word for the paper bark tree.
31:47
Speaker 1: And she did use the name privately before this. But
31:50
Speaker 1: this is when, in a symbol of protest um and solidarity,
31:56
Speaker 1: she did hand that medal that was awarded to her
32:00
Speaker 1: by the Empire, who still hadn't done who still hadn't
32:05
Speaker 1: done things well at the same time she was being
32:08
Speaker 1: given this medal for a thing. So as many people
32:12
Speaker 1: did return or reject their medals from the British Empire um,
32:17
Speaker 1: she did the same. In that moment, It's like it's
32:19
Speaker 1: been two hundred years and we're still fighting for the
32:22
Speaker 1: same things, and I just I don't need this empty
32:27
Speaker 1: um marker of achievement or accomplishment. UM, that's less important
32:33
Speaker 1: than what's more important. And she showed that by UM
32:36
Speaker 1: changed her name to So she was recognized during her
32:40
Speaker 1: lifetime and after she received honorary doctorates from several universities.
32:47
Speaker 1: And she passed away in September of But like I said,
32:53
Speaker 1: you can't still read her work, some of it. It's
32:55
Speaker 1: a little bit harder to access. But her book My
32:57
Speaker 1: People is actually still in print, and on the fifth addition,
33:01
Speaker 1: I believe I recommend that you read it so you
33:04
Speaker 1: get a chance to see some of the stuff that
33:06
Speaker 1: she did. Right. But I really connected to a lot
33:10
Speaker 1: of her poems, you know, UM, And even though I
33:14
Speaker 1: have no personal, lived experience of being an Aboriginal person,
33:21
Speaker 1: and I still was able to form a lot of
33:25
Speaker 1: connections with the poetry that she wrote as a person
33:27
Speaker 1: who cares about and as I experienced a lot of
33:33
Speaker 1: the same issues that she was talking about. For instance,
33:36
Speaker 1: one of her poems called the Past especially stood out
33:40
Speaker 1: to me specifically in this moment, because we are it's February,
33:43
Speaker 1: and we're in Black History Month, and I'm consistently thinking
33:47
Speaker 1: about the past. But of course in this moment is
33:50
Speaker 1: specifically appropriate. UM. The poem talks about nostalgia, communing with ancestors,
33:56
Speaker 1: her being in the space where she is today, in
33:58
Speaker 1: this mode of comfort her and I think she says
34:00
Speaker 1: she was by a heater, in a chair or something
34:02
Speaker 1: like that, these these technologies that we have today, her
34:06
Speaker 1: taking herself back to a place in the woods, in
34:09
Speaker 1: nature by fire, being able to commune with her ancestors
34:13
Speaker 1: and to be in a space that was in her blood.
34:16
Speaker 1: Also intimating that the past is not gone, that this
34:20
Speaker 1: moment that we're in is fleeting, and also that this
34:24
Speaker 1: moment that we're in is a culmination of so much history.
34:27
Speaker 1: And these are things that I think about all the time.
34:30
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that there's probably, well I won't
34:33
Speaker 1: say probably, because who am I have been on probability
34:36
Speaker 1: like that, but there's a good chance that a lot
34:39
Speaker 1: of people will find something in her work that they
34:44
Speaker 1: can emphasize with um have possibly experience, but also just appreciate.
34:49
Speaker 1: From seeing things from her standpoint and being able to
34:52
Speaker 1: understand why she cares so much about the things she did,
34:55
Speaker 1: is clear that she was a very passionate individual, very
34:59
Speaker 1: unapologetic about being who she was and caring about the
35:02
Speaker 1: things that she did and unendingly dedicated to them, and
35:08
Speaker 1: that shows up, that shows up in her work, and
35:12
Speaker 1: I'm glad that there were people who supported her and
35:15
Speaker 1: we're able to. Of course, she did a lot of
35:18
Speaker 1: the workers self. Book community is so important in her
35:21
Speaker 1: being able to form this sort of international community where
35:24
Speaker 1: she could share her thoughts with others, be an educator
35:28
Speaker 1: and create art. Right, I think as we're talking about
35:32
Speaker 1: all of this and her works and what she did
35:35
Speaker 1: in her fight and just finding peace, as you were
35:39
Speaker 1: talking about, I have a moment of trying to it's
35:42
Speaker 1: hard not to compare what we're going through or what
35:45
Speaker 1: we see today to pass things and for not to
35:48
Speaker 1: americanize it. I apologize, but I know many of the
35:51
Speaker 1: indigenous Native peoples here in the US are still fighting
35:55
Speaker 1: to have any kind of recognition as a community as
35:59
Speaker 1: the original Native Americans to this land, and the fact
36:04
Speaker 1: that they have still and continue to still be ignored today,
36:08
Speaker 1: and the constant conversation about land is still of battle
36:12
Speaker 1: here um in the US and trying to claim their
36:15
Speaker 1: own land and talking about reparations in any way whatsoever
36:19
Speaker 1: for the indigenous community. And I remember thinking, I remember
36:23
Speaker 1: hearing about the missing and murdered children Indigenous children of
36:26
Speaker 1: Australia before I did the US and realizing how big
36:28
Speaker 1: of a problem it still is, and how it's still
36:31
Speaker 1: not recognized and talked about, and why it's such a
36:34
Speaker 1: conversation piece, and why it's still shocking that people are
36:38
Speaker 1: still finding out for the first time that it's an
36:40
Speaker 1: issue though it's been obviously around for years, since the beginning,
36:44
Speaker 1: since the beginning of any type of colonization, and we
36:46
Speaker 1: talked about history, like I just can't like wrap my
36:50
Speaker 1: head around the fact that we're still here and as
36:53
Speaker 1: much work as she has done, as much work as
36:55
Speaker 1: so many other activists have done, we're still here, you know.
36:58
Speaker 1: And why that we're talking about their first is so
37:01
Speaker 1: important because we so often ignored or don't know by
37:04
Speaker 1: because I did not know about this poet, this activist
37:07
Speaker 1: until you brought her to us. Thank you very much, Ease.
37:10
Speaker 1: But the fact of the matter is we have to
37:12
Speaker 1: have these continued conversations because for so long there in
37:15
Speaker 1: the background, we pushed them. We as a society today
37:18
Speaker 1: me as a person of color, that it's not of
37:20
Speaker 1: the indigenous or the black community, have pushed them because
37:24
Speaker 1: we have not done the research or we don't we
37:27
Speaker 1: just don't know where to go sometimes, but the fact
37:29
Speaker 1: that that this is why this is so important because
37:32
Speaker 1: we're still here. Yeah, can you tell how I'm frustrated?
37:36
Speaker 1: And to add on top of that, also the you
37:39
Speaker 1: were mentioning the things that are still happening, like the
37:41
Speaker 1: destruction of natural resources as well, when you were drawing
37:44
Speaker 1: the parallel between what First nation people are struggling against
37:47
Speaker 1: in America's as well versus Australia, because that was a
37:51
Speaker 1: big part of what she cared about. Two, Like, there
37:53
Speaker 1: are things that are and that she acknowledged and that
37:59
Speaker 1: are lost over time in terms of the things that
38:02
Speaker 1: people can do in the practices that people are familiar with,
38:05
Speaker 1: how we treat the earth. So she talked about how
38:10
Speaker 1: much was being lost by colonization in the way that
38:15
Speaker 1: people were treating their natural resources in the earth and
38:19
Speaker 1: hoping that we would be able to see the light,
38:25
Speaker 1: so to saying and understand that there were things that
38:29
Speaker 1: we had to change in order to create a better
38:32
Speaker 1: future for all of us. Like there were the matters
38:34
Speaker 1: that were specifically important to First Nations peoples in Australia,
38:38
Speaker 1: but these were things that affected everybody. I said infected.
38:43
Speaker 1: That felt like a Freudian slit because I guess technically
38:46
Speaker 1: they were infecting the earth as well. Um So. But yes,
38:56
Speaker 1: to your point, Samantha, is there are so many things
38:59
Speaker 1: that um it can be discouraging to look and see
39:03
Speaker 1: that there were things that she cared about back into
39:08
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen hundred's and was talking about for decades
39:11
Speaker 1: of her lifetime and still haven't been addressed. Um Let
39:16
Speaker 1: alone changed because a lot of the things that you
39:20
Speaker 1: were mentioning just now, Samantha, in terms of not only
39:25
Speaker 1: is it just they haven't been addressed, it's also like
39:29
Speaker 1: a lot of people are still in denial of the
39:32
Speaker 1: fact that they exist and are even happening. And so
39:35
Speaker 1: to know that we have to go through that hurdle
39:39
Speaker 1: to be able to hit the point of meaningful change,
39:42
Speaker 1: it sounds like a huge task, and it is a
39:45
Speaker 1: huge task, But I think it's good too. It's it's
39:51
Speaker 1: it's this double edged sword of and I think about
39:53
Speaker 1: this in terms of my own blackness. This is what
39:55
Speaker 1: I can relate it to, but a double edged sword
39:57
Speaker 1: of knowing just how resilient I am and we are,
40:01
Speaker 1: but also how resilient. We have to be because of
40:03
Speaker 1: the circumstances. You know, I can't and I've been thinking
40:20
Speaker 1: on this a lot. We were about to do a
40:22
Speaker 1: book club is Bell Hooks, and of course you know,
40:23
Speaker 1: she makes you think on every level. But it's been
40:27
Speaker 1: the conversation and the word colonizer has been around for
40:31
Speaker 1: a long time, but it's kind of came back as
40:33
Speaker 1: a pointed argument to be like, hey, yes, colonization was bad,
40:39
Speaker 1: and this is why we need to talk about it.
40:41
Speaker 1: And now it's getting to the point that it's kind
40:42
Speaker 1: of in that crt conversation of like, don't call me
40:45
Speaker 1: a colonizer. That's rude, Like I'm not my ancestors. That
40:48
Speaker 1: that conversation has been coming around. And one of the
40:52
Speaker 1: things that I can't help but think of, especially when
40:54
Speaker 1: we're talking about like the First People's less indigenous people,
40:58
Speaker 1: is that fact that coloni is a partially is due
41:01
Speaker 1: to the fact that if we accept the status quo
41:05
Speaker 1: of the power of the people who are in power,
41:08
Speaker 1: that is the definition of what colonization did and has
41:11
Speaker 1: done it is continuing to do in that whole We
41:14
Speaker 1: need to just accept it and don't rock the boat
41:17
Speaker 1: and if you say it out loud and we can't
41:18
Speaker 1: just accept what is happening, what has been happening, then
41:22
Speaker 1: you're the problem. Why are you making this a problem?
41:25
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking about this as a person of color
41:27
Speaker 1: that was in a white community, my white family, and
41:29
Speaker 1: how often I would tiptoe around to make them comfortable
41:33
Speaker 1: to say you're right. When affirmative action was starting to
41:36
Speaker 1: be a conversation in the nineties, was it, especially when
41:40
Speaker 1: it came to colleges. I remember my family having a
41:43
Speaker 1: big debate about it. Me coming in as a teenager,
41:46
Speaker 1: being the model minority that I alway knew I was
41:49
Speaker 1: supposed to be, said, Oh, yeah, I definitely don't want
41:52
Speaker 1: anything based on my race. I want to be able
41:54
Speaker 1: to say I earned it, which is a whole lot
41:56
Speaker 1: of both. This is the narrative that a lot of
41:58
Speaker 1: the white community want us to have in order to say,
42:02
Speaker 1: you know, it's not about all these things. But we
42:04
Speaker 1: know now. As an older person, I was like, oh,
42:06
Speaker 1: the playing field was never equal. There was no equity
42:08
Speaker 1: to this at all, and it was based on who
42:11
Speaker 1: they liked, and it was based on a system that
42:14
Speaker 1: was corrupt and about who was in power. Okay, now
42:17
Speaker 1: I get it. But that conversation is the fact that
42:20
Speaker 1: this is a part of the colonization conversation that we
42:23
Speaker 1: have when we say that we have to accept what
42:27
Speaker 1: was there before us, and therefore if we rock the boat,
42:30
Speaker 1: then we are the problem. And we cannot talk about
42:33
Speaker 1: this in a manner which we are uncomfortable. And when
42:36
Speaker 1: we say we we mean white people, we mean those
42:39
Speaker 1: who are in power, and I feel like I'm being
42:41
Speaker 1: very anti white. I'm not necessarily saying that at all,
42:44
Speaker 1: but this is when we're talking about colonization and why
42:46
Speaker 1: we have to say what it is, and it makes
42:49
Speaker 1: you uncomfortable that we need to break down about why
42:51
Speaker 1: that was uncomfortable. And I'm going on a rant why
42:53
Speaker 1: that makes you uncomfortable because it has been this conversation
42:58
Speaker 1: once again, and it's cyclical, and I of like we
43:00
Speaker 1: are coming back to at least learning a little more,
43:02
Speaker 1: learning a little more. It took me to now, honestly
43:05
Speaker 1: to my forties to understand why this word is so
43:08
Speaker 1: important and that it should make everybody uncomfortable. As you added,
43:12
Speaker 1: as it is, and if you agree that you liked
43:15
Speaker 1: how it was, then you are on the side of colonization.
43:19
Speaker 1: That makes sense to my giant ran. I should have, yes,
43:23
Speaker 1: I should. I should have been taking notes because I
43:24
Speaker 1: had notes about a couple of things you said. But
43:26
Speaker 1: thinking about word colonizer, because you know, I do so
43:29
Speaker 1: many history podcasts and have done so many history podcasts.
43:33
Speaker 1: I think about that a lot, that word and invader
43:37
Speaker 1: and explorer and conqueror and all of those words that exist.
43:43
Speaker 1: A settler, Oh, that is a big one. I just
43:45
Speaker 1: uh word, the word settler, just just I feel it
43:50
Speaker 1: in my core. But um, yeah, I think about that
43:54
Speaker 1: a lot. And how how difficult it is to talk
43:57
Speaker 1: about language because it's something that is insformed so much,
44:01
Speaker 1: and it's also so important, and we all speak different
44:05
Speaker 1: languages in so many different ways. But also how one
44:10
Speaker 1: does not necessarsarily negate the other. I think that's a
44:13
Speaker 1: nuanced part of the conversation, where it's like words have
44:17
Speaker 1: connotations and they build connotations over time. But like, somebody
44:21
Speaker 1: is a colonizer because they are a colonizer because they
44:24
Speaker 1: did the deep you know, it's an active word, they
44:27
Speaker 1: did the deed of colonizing. And at the same time, okay,
44:30
Speaker 1: you can call them explore from from their perspective. You know,
44:34
Speaker 1: they were exploring. So I mean both of those things
44:38
Speaker 1: can exist at the same time. And of course both
44:40
Speaker 1: of those things have a lot of asterisks, um, beneath them.
44:44
Speaker 1: It's like more conversation that needs to happen. But that's
44:46
Speaker 1: what happens when you have such a large thing boiled
44:50
Speaker 1: down into however many letters. Is in those words, things
44:54
Speaker 1: deserve more conversation And that's okay, Like we don't have
44:57
Speaker 1: to be afraid of those conversations. And another that you
45:00
Speaker 1: reminded me of when you said, um, you use the
45:03
Speaker 1: words rocking the boat. Um, that was actually something that
45:07
Speaker 1: came up in Ujeru's story because she was involved in
45:11
Speaker 1: these councils that had a lot of white people and
45:12
Speaker 1: them like s Cossi and a lot of the people
45:15
Speaker 1: in there were trying to maintain the status quo and
45:18
Speaker 1: she and others had to fight back against that. But
45:21
Speaker 1: and that wasn't just other white people. That was other
45:24
Speaker 1: Aboriginal peoples as well who were who didn't know what
45:27
Speaker 1: to do, like is should I should should we form
45:31
Speaker 1: a council of just Aboriginal people's? Like, is that the
45:33
Speaker 1: thing that we should do? Should we what is the
45:35
Speaker 1: best way to advance. And it's like that's a question
45:37
Speaker 1: that we're forever going to be asking ourselves, like what
45:39
Speaker 1: is the right thing to do? We don't know until
45:42
Speaker 1: we do the thing, and even then I don't know
45:43
Speaker 1: what's right or what's wrong. Um so sometimes, but yeah,
45:48
Speaker 1: that was also a part of her story and what
45:51
Speaker 1: she was able to do or just exist in that
45:55
Speaker 1: lineage of people who she was able to do certain
45:58
Speaker 1: things because of other people who came up for her,
46:00
Speaker 1: and then other people were able to have some sort
46:03
Speaker 1: of guidance because she had already taken all this action
46:06
Speaker 1: before them. And so this idea of self determination, self sufficiency,
46:12
Speaker 1: the ideologies, the thoughts in her own practice of activism
46:17
Speaker 1: that changed over her time when it came to her
46:19
Speaker 1: being more about that solidarity UNI among Aboriginal people in
46:23
Speaker 1: that self determination was able to inspire and be a
46:31
Speaker 1: point on the timeline of that evolution, right Yeah, And
46:36
Speaker 1: her timing was right in there. She was obviously at
46:39
Speaker 1: the beginning of so many of the changes in Australia
46:42
Speaker 1: as you were talking about, because right and I was
46:44
Speaker 1: saying that the majority of voting rights for Aboriginal people
46:49
Speaker 1: did not happen until three and that though some states
46:53
Speaker 1: had it had the rights, it wasn't an overall countrywide thing.
46:57
Speaker 1: And she obviously was in the middle of that and
46:59
Speaker 1: a part of that, so she was in the fight.
47:01
Speaker 1: Now my question is because being active in so many
47:06
Speaker 1: of the communities, I'm like, I've also been the token
47:08
Speaker 1: person and in being told at least we got see,
47:10
Speaker 1: we got we got a person of color here she
47:12
Speaker 1: she exists. I wonder how oftentimes they would point be like, well,
47:15
Speaker 1: look we got we got one, which is also the
47:18
Speaker 1: whole like performative awarding. Like I understand why she was like, nah,
47:22
Speaker 1: I don't want to give it back. I don't want
47:24
Speaker 1: to do with this because of how I wonder how
47:26
Speaker 1: often that did happen in her life, being on the
47:29
Speaker 1: forefront of trying to make change but being blocked in
47:32
Speaker 1: so many ways. Yeah, yeah, I love that she was
47:37
Speaker 1: so active in the school and like with children. I
47:40
Speaker 1: really like that she wrote books for children and was
47:43
Speaker 1: trying to at a young age like have this influence
47:47
Speaker 1: and and have these conversations that are so so so important.
47:51
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite parts of her story. And
47:53
Speaker 1: working on podcasts. Yeah, language is so important. It's so important,
47:57
Speaker 1: and you have to think about what word you choose
47:59
Speaker 1: and why you chose it and what impact it has.
48:02
Speaker 1: And she seems like somebody. I really encourage people to
48:05
Speaker 1: go out and read her poetry because it's so it's
48:08
Speaker 1: easy to read, but she does so much with like
48:13
Speaker 1: so little, Like she immediately kind of like hooks you
48:16
Speaker 1: in and you even though the words might seem simple,
48:20
Speaker 1: like it just it resonates. And I think that shows
48:26
Speaker 1: like just how wonderful and of a writer she was,
48:31
Speaker 1: and how she knew like how to work with words
48:33
Speaker 1: and how to work with people's emotions and she was
48:36
Speaker 1: feeling these things and she was able to make you
48:38
Speaker 1: feel them too, and I think that's so much skill.
48:42
Speaker 1: And I loved I'm so happy when you bring someone
48:46
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of and like, oh I get to
48:47
Speaker 1: read poetry and I'm so moved. I love it. And
48:51
Speaker 1: that's the other thing about it, Like it's not necessarily
48:54
Speaker 1: easy read in terms of the context and what she's
48:56
Speaker 1: talking about, but it's you know, you can get to
49:00
Speaker 1: a book of poetry, you know, it goes pretty quickly.
49:02
Speaker 1: So if you're hesitant or skeptical about any of it,
49:06
Speaker 1: it's not hard to pick up, you know. Yeah, yeah,
49:11
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the one of my
49:12
Speaker 1: favorite things about art in all of its many forms,
49:15
Speaker 1: is when you can have something like that where you
49:18
Speaker 1: can bring people into this difficult subject matter but that
49:24
Speaker 1: in a way that they can connect to and we'll
49:27
Speaker 1: stick with them and make them think yes. Because if
49:30
Speaker 1: you're not particularly interested, and obviously, as we talked about
49:37
Speaker 1: her story, Ujaru was not steeped in the academic world,
49:40
Speaker 1: and that space can be so alienating to so many
49:44
Speaker 1: people and so foreign to so many people. And to
49:48
Speaker 1: say that because something is simple means that it's in
49:51
Speaker 1: it's not valuable. I mean, it doesn't make any sense
49:57
Speaker 1: to put it, to put it smartly. Um, So it's
50:04
Speaker 1: it's good. It's it's good. Like they're so they're so touching,
50:07
Speaker 1: so many so touching and so visceral. And it does
50:10
Speaker 1: what quote treat does, what poet try does. It does,
50:13
Speaker 1: it does highly recommend seeking it out. There's plenty of
50:17
Speaker 1: places that have a lot of samples if you just
50:20
Speaker 1: want to taste to see if you're into it. But yeah,
50:24
Speaker 1: I really loved it. Well, is that have we wrapped
50:28
Speaker 1: up the story? Eves. I think that's all I got.
50:31
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks as always for coming. We're always
50:35
Speaker 1: so happy to have you, happy to be here. Yes,
50:39
Speaker 1: thank you for bringing all these people who we need
50:41
Speaker 1: to know more of. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Where can
50:45
Speaker 1: the good listeners find you? You can find me online
50:49
Speaker 1: at Eve jeffc dot com, Instagram, not apologizing Twitter, I'm
50:55
Speaker 1: so I'm clearly jaded at Twitter at us Jeff Coe
51:00
Speaker 1: and on this very podcast here doing other episodes of
51:05
Speaker 1: Female First for a lot of people you can go
51:07
Speaker 1: check out. Yeah, I love it. I love the jaded,
51:10
Speaker 1: like fine me I am. If I exist. You should
51:15
Speaker 1: definitely seek eaves out if you haven't already. Listeners or
51:18
Speaker 1: content is amazing and you can seek us out as well.
51:23
Speaker 1: You can emails at Stuff to your Mom and stuff
51:24
Speaker 1: at ihart me dot com. You can find us on
51:26
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or Instagram and Stuff I've
51:28
Speaker 1: Never Told You. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
51:30
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