Warning: images of now deceased Aboriginal persons are used in this article in a discussion of slavery.
In the latest show of our government’s racist double standards, Scott Morrison has condemned the Black Lives Matter protests as setting back efforts to lift the coronavirus restrictions, but has given the green light for NRL crowds.
Despite the fact that the Ruby Princess bungle was the biggest set back of them all, being linked to 22 deaths and almost 700 cases of the coronavirus as 2,700 potential positive cases were allowed to land. Where is the accountability for that? Why has this been forgotten in the wake of protests?
What about the fact that the North Sydney markets are back on and packed to the rim? What about busy Westfields?
The point is that politicians and pundits with an axe to grind are exploiting health concerns to dog whistle about BLM protests. Where was this outrage for 5G conspiracy rallies or the Ruby Princess?
— Joshua Badge (@joshuabadge) June 8, 2020
In May when coronavirus rates were far worse than they are now, Scott Morrison defended 5G protesters, saying “it’s a free country”, “people are dealing with the anxieties and frustrations that they’re feeling” and that “people can make their protests and their voices heard.”
Why is the same understanding and sympathy for dangerous and radical conspiracy theories not extended to the very real plight of Indigenous/Black people? These double standards sound like racial gaslighting and deflection, as health concerns are weaponised to silence the masses.
Someone Give Scott Morrison A History Lesson Please
My great grandmother was a slave. She went from a mission & was forced to work by the state on a farm and the govt took her money. Any time she wanted a new piece of clothing she had to write to the Chief Protector. Thank you for erasing her history & many others @ScottMorrisonMP https://t.co/8TndVY5Tak
— Roxy Moore (@Roxy_Moore_) June 10, 2020
What’s even more controversial and honestly, ridiculously ignorant, was Scott Morrison’s assertion that there was never slavery in Australia.
Speaking on 2GB (ugh), Scott Morrison defended Captain Cook as “one of the most enlightened persons on these issues, you could imagine”.
He went on to state that “Australia when it was founded as a settlement, as New South Wales, was on the basis that there’d be no slavery” and that there was “no slavery in Australia.”
If the PM doesn’t know that slavery existed in Australia surely it’s time to update the curriculum 😳
Blissfully ignorant or completely uneducated?#auspol #ScottyFromMarketing #slavery
— Emma Husar (@emmahusarmp) June 11, 2020
Um, excuse me?
How are we forgetting all the horrors of what Captain Cook and white settlers did to Aboriginal people and their land?
Scott Morrison: “There was no slavery in Australia”
What does he think the chains were for, PPE? #BlackLivesMatter #ScottyFromMarketing #Grub pic.twitter.com/BRLmVzsiAG
— Solo Monk (@JJKALE2) June 10, 2020
There wasn’t Slavery in Australia. Blackfullas worked for free, for the love of it. Bit of sun, bit of air, bit of a chain around your neck, bit of a stolen wage.
— Senator Briggs (@Briggs) June 11, 2020
Professor Bruce Pascoe, the author of award-winning book Dark Emu (about Aboriginal history), said slavery absolutely was present in Australia after colonisation.
“When you capture people, and put chains around their necks, and make them walk 300 kilometres and then set them to work of cattle stations, what’s that called?” Professor Pascoe said. “That’s what happened in Western Australia and in the [Northern] Territory and in Queensland.”
“It doesn’t matter what you call it,” he added. “It’s brutality and I think a lot of Australia are in denial about the real history of the country.”
Morrison’s slavery denialism is insideous. Australia was home to professional slavers & slaving fleets visited its ports. Queensland was literally known as a “second Louisiana”
— Joshua Badge (@joshuabadge) June 11, 2020
Forcing people to work unpaid, dehumanising them, chaining them – is this not exactly what slavery is? The blatant refusal to acknowledge facts that could tarnish Morrison’s own perception of the perfect Australia are ignorant and offensive.
It just goes to show how far Scott Morrison will go to gaslight BLM protesters – resorting to lies and misinformation in order to preserve a version of Australia that doesn’t exist.
Here’s a short article that can give you a few quick examples of slavery in Australia. Here’s a more in-depth article on how slavery worked in Australia. Maybe someone should send these links to Scott Morrison.
Image Sources: Twitter
