IMMERSED IN WHITENESS

An Indigenous Woman's Journey through the Australian Education System.
by Dr Aileen Moreton-Robinson

In white supremacist society, White people can safely imagine that they are invisible to Black People since the power they have historically asserted, and even collectively assert over Black people, accorded to them the right to control the black gaze. As fantastic as it may seem, racist White people find it easy to imagine that black people cannot see them if within their desire they do not want to be seen by the dark other (Hook 1992:168).
I will share with you some collective experiences of living with Whiteness in Australia. I will illustrate how those experiences have shaped my perceptions of Whiteness. My journey begins with reflections on the structural location of Whiteness. In narrating my journey I am returning the black Indigenous gaze on the experiences of Whiteness.

Living with Whiteness in Aboriginal Australia.
Australia is a former British colony. It is estimated that 3 million Indigenous people were living on their lands at the time of invasion. Today we number approximately three hundred and fifty thousand out of a national population of seventeen point nine million. We constitute roughly 2% of the nation's population. The dispossession of our lands was based on the legal fiction of Terra Nullius (land belonging to no one). We were massacred, poisoned and forcibly removed from our homelands, and those who survived were incarcerated on reserves where our slave labour was used to build Australia's cattle and pastoral industries (Kidd 1996).
In terms of western domination, our history has much in common with the Indigenous and African-American peoples of the United States of America. We are the most socio-economically impoverished group in Australian society; we have no guaranteed Indigenous rights enshrined in the Constitution and have never been offered treaties with governments. Our life expectancy is 15-20 years less than the general population and our infant mortality is 3 to 5 times higher (Antonio 1997:24).
The Indigenous retention rate for schooling is 33% compared to 77% of the non Indigenous population and our unemployment rate is 38% compared to 8.7%. We are 17.3 times more likely to be arrested than non Indigenous Australians. Our chances of dying in custody are 16.5 times higher and our likelihood of being imprisoned is 14.7 times greater than other Australians. Australia has been and still is a predominantly White-controlled society. Whiteness was actively pursued as a racial policy from Australia's early beginnings. After Federation in 1901 the Commonwealth Government introduced the Immigration Restriction Act which was the legislative base of the White Australia policy {McGrath 1993: 104).
Immigrants to Australia were predominantly from Britain, New Zealand, Northern Europe, Canada and the United Stares of America and this continues to be the predominant pattern of immigration. After the abandonment of the White Australia policy in 1966 due in part to economic necessity and the international de-colonization movement sponsored by the United Nations, Immigrants from Southern Europe, Asia and Africa were allowed entry to citizenship in this country (Antonios 1997:5).
The idea of a multicultural society emerged in public policy and discourse in the 1970s. In the international arena, Australia prides itself on being a tolerant and egalitarian nation. However, tolerance does not necessarily translate into being valued nor does egalitarianism mean equality for all. Living with Whiteness in Australia means that our knowledge and rights as Indigenous people are neither respected nor seen as legitimate. Indigenous people are reminded of our marginalized place in Australian society on a daily basis; we are to be tolerated but not valued.
It was not until 1992 that the existence of Indigenous proprietary rights in land was recognized by the High Court of Australia in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992). What is not understood by most White people, however, is that under the Mabo decision and the subsequent Native Title Act we have, in effect, become trespassers in our own land until we can prove our native title. Tragically and ironically, even though we were dispossessed of our lands by White people, burden of proof for repossession of our lands is now placed on us, and it must be demonstrated on the basis of the White legal structure in courts controlled by White Australians. Despite the High Court ruling on our proprietary rights, they are being challenged by White interests. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard is moving to reduce our rights through amendments to the Native Title Act legislation because he believes that 'the native title mess' has to he cleaned up to ensure certainty. The Howard led Liberal-National party government has devised a ten point plan in the interests of the nation to ensure certainty. But what are these interests of the nation? The Prime Minister and his government are reducing our rights to protect the rights of predominantly White pastoralists and White owned and controlled mining companies. The interests of White men symbolise the interests of the nation. The Prime Minister places Indigenous people outside the nation's boundary by not including and defining our interests as interests of the nation. Repeating history, White race privilege is to be reinscribed and preserved at our expense.
As I stated earlier, Indigenous people are in effect trespassers in our lands until we can prove our native title. This burden of proof takes its toll in our communities because Native title often means fighting over scarce resources and facing emotional, psychological and physical conflict over family secrets, stolen children and different and competing family and community histories. There are no mental health strategies in place for communities to cope with the requirements of the White burden of proof. Furthermore, elements of our material culture, which are required as part of the proof of ownership, have been stolen from us in over two centuries of White occupation. The skeletal and soft tissue remains of our people, for example, which were acquired by theft or coercion, now lie in museums throughout the world as the property of White people.
Even today our material culture and intellectual property continue to be stolen from us because it is not protected under international and national copyright and patent laws. Thus we have been legally separated from the very property that could help prove our Native Title. These Native Title issues in Australia demonstrate the inconsistency in application of White principles of justice and equality for all citizens. Race is a salient factor in shaping divisions in society through exclusion and the maintenance of White privilege and domination. For Indigenous people living with Whiteness means experiencing a society wherein crimes against our humanity and cultural integrity for the most part, go unnoticed, unheard and unpunished.

Interrogating Whiteness
Although my PhD thesis is a systematic study of Whiteness in Australian feminism, it is informed by conversations I have shared with Indigenous Women about our experiences, and the experiences of our mothers and grandmothers, of White people. Whiteness is highly visible for Indigenous people. We all have different stories to tell, but there is similarity in our shared experiences.

In these conversations we know that our understandings of Whiteness are of little interest to White people. White people are often shocked to discover that Indigenous women think critically and have opinions about them. We are often positioned as children or lesser human beings who lack the ability to comprehend, understand and see the way White-power gets exercised in our daily lives. White people think they are only seen by Indigenous women as they wish to appear, but our shared history has taught us that appearances are rarely what they seem.
In my experiences White people give little or no thought to the way that Whiteness makes its presence felt, or how stressful it can be for Indigenous women, men and children living in their country controlled by White people. This is because Whiteness is perceived as being natural and normal. Such normalization means race privilege gives White people the choice as to whether or not they wish to bother themselves with the opinions or concerns of Indigenous people. Sometimes even those who listen do not hear because what we say is perceived as being unpalatable. Our opinions are often not the representations White people want to hear about themselves. White culture is antagonistic to Indigenous people who contradict its value or who can elucidate the hypocrisy of White values in practice.
White responses, to such criticisms, usually results in either the suppression or re-interpretation of efforts to discuss injustice, dominance and exploitation. For example, when an Indigenous woman speaks back to White people in relation to such issues more often than not she is positioned as the 'trouble- maker', the 'big mouth' or 'the angry black woman'. By positioning her in this way Whites utilize their race privilege to dismiss the issues and questions being raised. Such a positioning allows them to feel good about themselves while re-inscribing their White superiority. They represent White values as being morally correct and the values of the Indigenous woman as being less morally sound. These responses are historically constituted race discourses about inferiority and subservience in relation to the Indigenous woman.
In Australia, the discipline of Anthropology has informed such discourses and Indigenous people have been left to grapple with the effects of such mythologizing in their daily lives. White race privilege is something we experience from the time we are born. White race privilege in Australia is based on the theft of our lands, the murder of our people and the use of slave labour. White's position in our land and the benefits they reap have resulted from the historical fact of White dominance, which was built upon a belief in White racial superiority. If White people today share the beliefs and values of their White ancestors and enjoy race privileges established by those ancestors, then by 'Whitefella' logic they are complicit in that historical dominance.
White people in Australia have choices not accorded Indigenous people. Whites can exclude or include other racial groups from their company most of the time(McIntosh 1992). They can live in areas where they will be welcomed and can go shopping without being followed or harassed by security guards or police. Their children can wear Nike clothes and shoes and not be stopped by police to explain where they got them. They can send their children to schools where they will be taught that their race discovered and built the Australian nation. They can criticize the government without it being seen as racially motivated. They do not have to teach their children about racism for their physical and psychological protection. If they require medical or legal help their race will not work against them. They can organize their life without experiencing rejection because of race. They can decide when and if they want to be involved in anti-racism work. Whites, for the most part, see positive images of themselves reinforced in the media and popular press, and their existence is affirmed everyday in this nation. Indigenous people do not enjoy these privileges.

Witnessing Whiteness: A Lived Experience
My first conscious recollection of Whiteness occurred when I was very young, probably three years of age. It was the 1950s in the city of Brisbane, where my Grandmother, who was a big woman, had fallen over after getting her high-healed shoe caught in a tram track. As she lay on the ground I began to scream and shout because no one stopped to help her. White men and women walked on her and over her, and White people in cars tooted for her to get out of the road. Finally she managed to crawl to the nearest lamp post to pull herself up. By this stage, I was distressed and sobbing as I saw the blood running down from her knees through her torn stockings. Despite what had happened to her, my Grand- mother was more concerned about me. She picked me up, and between sobs I asked her why no one tried to help her? "Why did they walk away?" I asked. She said to me, "They are not like us". As she uttered this statement, I looked around and noticed for the first time in my life I was surrounded by a sea of White faces. I cannot forget that moment, and as I revisit this memory Whiteness is associated with indifference, cruelty, anguish and fear.
Fear of White people carried over to the White men who came on behalf of the Department of Native Affairs to inspect my grandparent's home and our living conditions. As they examined our home for cleanliness their eyes did not disguise their lack of respect, nor did their behaviour hide their assumed racial superiority. I would hide under the bed, angered by their presence, while at the same time being afraid they would use their power to take me away from my family, my home and my country. Other memories of Whiteness haunt me. I recollect my Grandmother being accosted in the streets of Brisbane city by White women who wanted to know what she was doing with me the "half- caste" child. I thought these women should mind their own business and I often pulled faces and spat at them as they interrogated my Grandmother. Throughout such assault's, my Grandmother remained calm, and with great dignity she answered their questions. I never ever witnessed Indigenous women do this to White women. I was learning that unlike Indigenous people, Whites had rights and privileges and whenever they wanted to, they exercised them. Other memories of Whiteness surface. Every time we came to the city we patiently waited in line at the taxi rank and watched while White people jumped the queue. On several occasions, I saw my Grandfather being pulled out of taxis and shoved out of the way by White men. He would pick himself up, dust his hat and continue to look for a taxi until one agreed to take us ahead of the White people. Through experiences such as these Whiteness created social spaces outside my home and community, where cruelty and fear wounded me. Returning to my memories and the memories of the Indigenous women before me, I re-inhabit these spaces and am reminded of the personal costs of living with Whiteness. As Indigenous people, we understand that acts of cruelty are nor only possible, they are probable. Whiteness for Indigenous people is highly visible and imbued with power.

Conclusion
I have found that my journey in the White education system has provided me with tools to understand how Whiteness is socially constructed and constituted through systemic racial classification and race difference discourses. While I now have some understanding of White behaviour, this does not lessen my fears and anxieties. I have lived with White dominance through out my life and these experiences are a permanent part of my living memory. While my experiences of Whiteness are different now, it's effects still wound. Indigenous people in Australia are immersed in White dominance and experience the effects of racism in their daily lives. We do not create racial oppression, but we have to resist unconsciously and consciously in order to protect our cultures and survive as a people. Even though there is no word for race in our Indigenous languages, racism is an ever-present reality for us.
Throughout the history of colonisation, the education system has been and still is, one of the most effective mechanisms for racialising Whiteness as normative and natural. It is not decontextualised from society and it is no surprise that the forms of racialisation that are given carriage in public discourse are also operating within the education system and the minds and behaviour of its pedagogical practitioners. Racial oppression is perpetuated intentionally, consciously and unconsciously, subjectively and institutionally through the processes of schooling in Australia.
If they wish to help us transform such practices, White educators need to deconstruct and interrogate the historically constituted relationship between White race privilege and racial oppression. Such a journey requires White educators to acknowledge the limits of their own way of knowing. We can have knowledge about each other but we can never fully know each other's experience. The limits to our knowledge and the differences in our ways of knowing imply that we must all be cautious about our assumptions and communications. When White educators wish to speak to Indigenous people, for example, it is important for them to know that their words will be under constant surveillance. Because of our rich history of oral tradition, words are carefully listened to, interpreted and remembered. And White educators must be mindful that Indigenous people do not necessary value White knowledge. We do not want to hear White opinions about us without asking for them. It is important for White educators to realize that their presence among Indigenous people does not lead to automatic acceptance, respect, or trust.
Whites who are effective in our Indigenous communities have learned to put themselves in a "discomfort zone", from which they are able to live with uncertainty, incommensurability, and initial mistrust. They have learned to endure their culture being criticized, scrutinized and sometimes dismissed by those who have been harmed by it. Such a journey can sometimes lead to being "othered" as a race traitor in the eyes of their White peers. Learning to live and work effectively in our communities does not necessary mean that White educators will lose their race privilege, but they may never again see the world in quite the same way

Bibliography
Antonios A. 1997, Face the Facts: Some Questions and Answers about Immigra tion, Refugees and Indigenous Affairs. Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission National Office, Sydney.
Cowlishaw C. 1986b, Colour, Culture and the Anthropologists. Man (N .5.) 22, pp221-237.
Hooks B. 1992, Representations of Whiteness in Black Looks, Race and Representation. South End Press. Boston, MA pp 165-178
Kidd R. 1996, The Way We Civilize: Aboriginal Affairs -the Untold Story. University of Queensland Press. St Lucia
Mabo v Queensland (NO2) (1992) Australian Commonwealth Law Report No.1. Australian Government publishers, Canberra
McGrath A. 1993, Beneath the Skin: Australian Citizenship, Rights and Aboriginal Women. Journal of Australian Studies. No.37 pp 99-114.
Mclntosh P. 1992, White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies in Race, Class and Gender: an Anthology, eds. M.L. Andersen & P. Hill-Collins. Wadsworth Publishing, California. Pp 70-81.

This Article can be found in "The Gathering of the Voices", along with all of the Presentations given at the three day Conference: The National Ecumenical Gathering for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, held at Banyo Queensland in June 2001.
Copies of the Gathering of the Voices ( for approx $25) can be obtained from the
Indigenous Ministries Unit,
The Congregation of the Christian Brothers,
P O Box 923,
Indooroopilly, QLD 4068

Biographical Profile of Dr Moreton-Robinson:
Previous to her appointment as Lecturer in Indigenous Studies at Griffith's University in Brisbane, Dr Moreton-Robinson taught women's studies at Flinders University, Adelaide. She has been involved in the struggle for Indigenous Rights at local, state and national levels, and has worked for a number of Indigenous organizations. Her writing in the area of native title, whiteness, race, and feminism has been published in anthologies both here and abroad.
" Unlike the majority of immigrants in Australia, I belong to the Geonpul people of the country known as Quandamooka. White people who thought they discovered our land, named it Moreton Bay. It is a bay formed by a group of islands surrounding the coastline, from north of the Brisbane River to 'Southport on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia."
" I am Yulubirribah which means I come from the sand and salt water place. I am also mopoke and Kabool the carpet snake. I was raised on Minjerribah (Stradbroke island), and was born in the 1950s, a time when the government was separating "half-caste" children from their families and home country. I was fortunate to be placed in the hands of my grandparents as a ward of the state."
" I attended Primary School on Minjerribah Island, and travelled eight miles by boat to attend Secondary School on the mainland. As a mature age student I completed a Bachelor of Arts with First Class honours in sociology, and some years later enrolled full time in a doctoral program in Women's studies."

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