There’s no post today. It’s Wednesday here but in the USA it’s the Tuesday where the music industry, a business that has its own history of exploitation and abuse of black people, is loosely observing a day of #theshowmustbepaused, a stepping back from regular work for some kind of recognition of and resistance to a systemic, society-wide abuse of power and people.
As someone with a sister, brother-in-law, nephew and niece in the USA on the very frontline of a place where for them being black can be lethal; as someone who has watched racism here in governments, media and the police; and just as someone who lives and reads and feels, it’s not a distant issue.
Yes, this is just a gesture, especially from Australia, but not only are we not short of racial injustice – as if on cue a NSW policeman only two days ago was filmed slamming an unarmed teenager face-first into the footpath – we are not short of ways to do more than make a gesture here. So if you’re reading this in Australia consider donating to:
Debbie Kilroy’s fundraising for Sisters Inside which pays the fines of Indigenous women who have been imprisoned because they can’t pay – what money they had going to food, shelter, their children.