Identity tags

Hughie: I didn't say that.

Sattler: He said that.

There is no place in society for racist remarks such as these and it continues to amaze me how this repeat offender is able to hold down his job. I guess the same level of disrespect towards Indigenous people can be heard on most prime-time radio programs running simultaneously across the country.

When I think of these people I'm reminded of a saying Irish professor, psychiatrist and broadcaster Dr Anthony Clare made in 1989, "Apart from the occasional saint, it is difficult for people who have the smallest amount of power to be nice". People like Sattler, and to a lesser degree Colman, have probably never met an Indigenous person socially and if their inappropriate comments sell papers or radio time why would they want to reveal compassionate thoughts now?

But why should all Indigenous people have to endure the barbs of society because non-Indigenous people wish to apply stereotypical values on all of us? Is this a reflection on the lack of progress made on race relations in this country over the past 217 years? Audre Lord (1934-1992) explained eloquently why she did not want to be given a tag as part of her identity:

As a black, lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity … I find I am constantly asked to pluck out one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of myself. But … my fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all of the parts of who I am … without the restrictions of externally imposed definitions.

In much the same manner, I have fond memories of powerful words from renowned academic and high-profile Indigenous activist Grace Smallwood. A journalist asked her recently why other Indigenous people couldn't be like her, in reference to her hard work gaining tertiary qualifications and a sound vocation in life. Grace's one-liner of "Why can't you swim like Kieren Perkins?" had the white journalist stuck for words.

One week post-Colman’s article, I read in the same Murdoch owned paper a review - by Dr Martin Crotty from the Australian Studies Centre, University of Queensland - of my book (The Courier-Mail, August 13) "The N Word: One Man's Stand". He writes, "Does such a story merit an autobiography? Not by classical standards - Hagan has not had the longstanding public profile, nor the outstanding record of achievement that usually justifies publishing one's own story."

Strange how the book, an Indigenous journey of three generations from 1895, is doing well nationally and is currently receiving rave reviews internationally.

And still they try to tag us.