I am finally home in El Paso
to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family.
After almost a year away from home, I spent the last month in the
tropical savannah of northern Australia. Upon coming home, I had many stories to tell
my family from this amazing place on the other side of the world. But for this blog, I will share a story that
I have not yet shared with anybody.
I was picking up supplies in Darwin
before heading back into the outback for field work. This meant a trip to LiquorLand for a crate
of delicious and expensive Carlton Draught.
The liquor store was crowded, and I was standing in line with a case of
beer and a credit card. Suddenly I heard
a ruckus behind me. I spun around and
saw a young white LiquorLand cashier scold a young black Aboriginal Australian.
“Why are you doing that?!?
Why are you waving your arms around?!?”
The cashier thrust his face inches from the black man and stared him
dead in the eye. “Answer me!!”
The Aborigine mumbled something I could not hear.
“That is not an answer!!
Why are you waving your arms around?!!?
Are you trying to cause trouble?!!?”
Without saying another word, the Aborigine immediately
walked out of the liquor store. I only
noticed the customers in line paying any attention. All others continued scanning the shelves for
their favorite brew. After chasing the black
man out of the store, the cashier went back to his register and faced the young
woman waiting at the front of the line.
She was another black Aboriginal.
The cashier’s eyes glared at the woman with razor
concentration. “Are you with
him?!!? What did he do?!!? Why was he waving his arms?!!? “
The Aborigine mumbled something I could not hear.
“ ‘nah’ is not an answer!!
Answer me!! Why was he waving his
arms like that?!!? What trouble is he
causing!!”
The Aboriginal woman mumbled. “He is not with me.”
“Now that is an answer.
That is better. When you see him,
tell him to stay out of this store!!”
I have seen small hints of racism in my travels this
year. I felt uncomfortable when my
Slovene friends made degrading racial jokes against Serbians. But this encounter left me dumbfounded. Worse yet was the reaction, or rather
inaction, of all the other customers in the store. Judging by their casual attitude to
unwarranted interrogation of two Aborigines, I figure this scene is still
common between the two races of Australia. I did not know what to do as I stood in
line. When my turn came up to purchase
the beer, the cashier was perfectly pleasant and professional. It is such a dichotomy in my mind when an
otherwise likable young man was a blatant, unapologetic racist at the flick of
a switch. How can these two
personalities exist under the same skin?
I can just imagine such a scene occurring here in a local El
Paso liquor store between a White cashier and a black
customer. All customers would protest
and scream bloody hell! The cashier
would be lucky to get away with just a firing but would more likely get a
couple of good fists to the face behind the store alley. The complacency of the Australian customers
was what unnerved me the most about the whole episode.
I got the impression that the relation between Whites and
Aboriginals in Australia
was one of mere toleration and not complete acceptance. They got along because they had to get
along. While I was escorted by my
Australian hosts deep in the Outback, we passed a group of Aboriginal people,
including men, women and children, trying to flag us down by their parked car
by the road. The engine hood was up; a
sure sign of car trouble. Although we
had a toolbox and an emergency satellite phone, we passed them by. I have lived in rural regions of New
Mexico most of my life, and a rule of hospitality is
to stop and help if you are able when you see a person in distress by the
road. There are too many sparsely
populated areas up there and car trouble could be more danger for the driver
than the car.
As he drove past them, my host turned to me and said, “Some
advice – when you see them trying to flag you down, don’t stop. Just keep driving.”
I understood the rationale.
It could be a trap. They could be
armed. They may rob us of our cash! But as
the days passed, I traveled that same stretch of road numerous times, and while
the Aboriginal family had long since left the scene, their abandoned car never
left that spot on the side of the road.
Each day we passed, the car lost a little more value due to human
scavengers and vandals. If this were a
trap, the thieves were certainly dedicated to keeping up the front, even at the
expense of their own vehicle.
I only stayed in northern Australia
for a month, and never spoke to a single Aborigine, so I have a very biased,
ignorant and myopic view of the race relations that I witnessed there. But I
do know that the British first colonized southern Australia
around 1800, and the northern Darwin
region of Australia
around 1830 or so. The invasion of White
colonists is extremely recent in the history of the ancient Aboriginal
culture. It is only 200 years or so,
give or take, that they have had to share the same land. At only 200 years of relations, I suspect
that the current relation between Australian Whites and Australian Aborigines
is about the same relation that existed in the United
States say about the year 1830 between
American Whites and American Aborigines.
Just a hunch …
With all the traveling I did this year, Rosemary suggested I
get a gig on TV like Anthony Bourdain. Nah, that would not work for me. My travel show would be too much like my blog
articles: instead of writing about the amazing tropical wildlife that I saw, I
instead write about what made me nervous and uncomfortable. Who wants to watch that? Besides, I can’t eat all the food that he
does in his show.
I am glad to be back home.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
