Small White Child

Long long time ago, in the land where the ancient Wiradjuri people lived and thrived for over 40,000 years, a story unfolds delivered by a small white child who was born in the land but didn’t belong to the land or the ancient culture.

The small white child grew to the age of 4 and then moved away for 5 years to a place where the sea glistened on the shore…. she found she loved the sea better than the bushlands of the Wiradjuri people and later on she learned her name translates to ‘yarra seagull’ which seemed to fit just right.

Flash back to the year 1974 – the small white child returns with her family to a small township in the region of the Wiradjuri.

The child and her family were unaware at the time of the degree of underlying tension and unrest in the community, particularly towards the law and those who upheld it. The child’s father was a policeman and the news of the new arrivals spread quickly throughout the indigenous community and the school and before long ‘everyone knew’ the small white child represented the law in the town and just as a teacher establishes the pecking order in his classroom, so it was that the pecking order was established swiftly, and the white child came to know her place.

Of course, the white child knew not of the past history of the valley and the missions that were set up there in the 1830’s, nor was she aware of the hatred, distrust and resentment toward the police, nevertheless, whatever had gone before was to be revisited upon the child’s head and would go on to have both a disturbing and profound effect on the child’s life in the following ways.

1. The child would learn to fear the indigenous community and feel stressed to see an indigenous person approaching
2. The child would find healing through the indigenous community and become known to and loved by an indigenous/islander family in later years, annulling the fear and bringing about a yearning that all peoples of all nations, colours and creeds could learn the value of diversity in community and nurture a spirit of tolerance and inclusion for one another, finding joy in learning about one another’s cultures, without wishing to change or remove any part of them, a yearning for the world to move beyond the pain of past.

Back to 1974, the white child was not cunning or clever or wise, she was by all means niave and unsophisticated in her small experience of life and the world.

The first day, the child’s innocence was stripped as she received a death threat from a large indigenous girl, and there were many more threats thereafter from other individuals both white and black:

’I’m gonna kill you’ , she whispered and as she moved on past, the girl who towered above the other children would just turn back every so often to give the smaller child a confirmatory nod….that what had been said would be carried out, but not knowing where and when was the worst part, and created a heavy burden that almost overcame the small white child.

The child was half the size of the indigenous girl and the threat came as such a shock that she stopped speaking and told no-one. Fear enveloped her heart and there was no courage to be found, she felt like a coward. A new emotion was born.

After a couple of years, the small white child grew in years but not in height. She didn’t have physical strength on her side, and the taunts continued. They seemed not only to come now from the indigenous community but also from the white people. The hatred grew and grew and grew and the child inside was thwarted and stopped growing, stopped learning, stopped thinking about anything but how to survive through another long day of being pushed, sworn at, hated. Never once did the child ask for help. Never once did the child tell her parents. Never once did the child break down and cry. Emotions were bottled as they were weakness. One had to be tough and show it.

The child reasoned with herself and thought up a plan, she thought she would become so tough so that people would leave her alone.

The small white child became someone she wasn’t, as the child turned 12 she thought I will talk tough (swear) I will walk tough (with a swagger) I will smoke durries/cigarettes (steal them from my parents) I will befriend the toughest indigenous girl at the school and the small white child thought, this at least will afford me some protection and so the plan was put into action.

As time went on, the plan worked well for the small white child. She swore the F word on every occasion possible, she was cheeky to her teachers, she stole her parents cigarettes and befriended the toughest indigenous girl at school… and this did work. The people respected the small white child and stopped taunting and threatening her.

But the small white child lost something valuable. Her family didn’t understand why the child changed and that was difficult and there was a new wall, one between the child and her family. The child could not communicate to her family why she’d stolen all those cigarettes, why she was behaving so badly. The only thing the child knew was, she had to survive and there was the threat of death if she didn’t toughen up. At the time, it seemed irrelevant to tell her parents that, because the feelings that welled within the child were ones of self loathing and disrespect. She had long learnt that there must be something offensive within her, for only a person that is very offensive would be under the threat of death for breathing. And so, the child never discussed these things, thoughts, feelings and situations that she was going through with anyone. She knew she must be resilient to survive. But it was a lie she had to live and she never really believed that’s who she really was. Whether or not the others saw through the mask, she does not know…but the mask she wore did protect her for a while. Eventually, it had to come off, like all masks do, to reveal the true person underneath….

The small white child left the valley in the bush to live in the place where the sea glistened by the shore. The family knew they had come home. This was the place where ‘yarra seagull’ thrived.

Turning 14 now, the small white child begins a new journey and a new life by the sea..living directly across from the ocean, she can visit it whenever she likes, and it gives her a renewed spirit. Deep within she develops an insatiable desire to be loved and accepted for who she is, and who she is alone.

This is where the healing begins.

In the place where the sea glistened by the shore, a young indigenous girl from the Bundjalung people befriends the small white girl of 14, and takes her home to meet her family …. The family embraced the small white child who loved the sea and they themselves were people of the sea.

The small white child belonged and became herself. The new people liked the small white child and felt protective over her, she was always welcome in their home and treated like one of the family.

And so it was, the small white child, is now a small white woman…. The young indigenous girl is proud Bundjalung Woman, her mother is beautiful Bundjalung Elder and the small white woman’s family was healed through the love of the Bundjalung family.

Susan’s Birthday Party
a screenplay/short movie written, directed and produced by my indigenous friends Maureen and Marvette Logan (yes the ones in the story)

NB This youtube video is about an idigenous child with white skin and how she endures teasing and finds strength through resilience. It’s another viewpoint, another way of looking at this through a different set of eyes. I as a white child was taunted because my father was a policeman, this little girl is taunted because she doesn’t have black skin, and therefore the children doubt her indigenous authenticity.

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*my story is the story of what happened to me, and is from my experience, it is in no way intended to insult the Wiradjuri or Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island Peoples of Australia and I sincerely hope no one will take offence. *

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Tags:

bully, bullying, bundjalung, community, healing, hope, indigenous, karen, karin, karin taylor, pain, people, red bubble, redbubble and valley