On guard against racism

A recent incident involving the ARIA award-winning Indigenous artist, Christine Anu and some of Redfern Local Area Command's finest, was beat-up from non-event into a smorgasbord of rhetoric by online readers of the Daily Telegraph's society pages.

The story is that the loud speaker of a police car blasted the 13-year old son of Dianne Nyoni, a friend of Ms Anu, as he and another boy played with cap guns in Alexandria Park. The boys became petrified by the action of the police, raising fear in Ms Nyoni that the police may draw their weapons in response.

The reason the race card comes out is because the boy is of an African-American background. it goes further when Ms Anu's intervention into the incident led to the officer asking whether she and Ms Nyoni were partners. The assumption caused a reaction from the two to which a second officer replied, "It's the area that we live in."

And that area is South Sydney - an area with a high indigenous population. So, drawing on the officer's comment, it would be wise to assume that police in South Sydney are under instruction to view all women in pairs as likely to be in same-sex relationships, or should this assumption only be applied to those with a dark complexion?

Another incident that involved local police unfairly targeting some young Aboriginal boys occurred outside Erskineville Oval earlier this year. It was alleged that two young Souths players were unfairly targeted by a police officer simply because of the colour of their skin.

In recent years, NSW Police have been making efforts to ensure better relations between Local Area Commands and their indigenous populations, including a white paper on how this is being pursued, though in reality it would seem that little has changed since the days of the doco Cop it Sweet. And while the recent Aboriginal Strategic Direction affirms "communication and understanding between police and Aboriginal people" and an "environment free of racial discrimination and harassment" there may be further work to do.

Source: South Sydney Herald November 2007 www.southsydneyherald.com.au