The Australian Network of Student Anthropologists stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protests happening across the US, following the murder of George Floyd by Minnesota Police.
We stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in Australia as it continues to campaign against Aboriginal deaths in custody and racially-driven police brutality. Since the inquiry into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, there have been 432 lives lost. No police officers have ever been convicted in relation to these deaths.
As these injustices have been brought into the spotlight, we have also learned that a 46,000 year old sacred site at Juukan Gorge, WA had been destroyed by Rio Tinto during their Pilbarra mine expansion. Rather than commenting separately on this, we believe that this is very much connected. The legal processes and cultural devaluation that allowed this occur derive from the same system of colonial violence. As researchers who not only work closely with Aboriginal communities, but whose own discipline has played a historical role in the Australian colonial system, we must work to support the movement, as we work to decolonise our own academic spaces.
We would also like to acknowledge those black and indigenous communities in surrounding nations as they march and protest against their own injustices. We send solidarity to our Maori neighbours and to Indigenous communities across the South Pacific and South-East Asian Archipelago. In particular, we stand with the Indigenous populations of Papua New Guinea and the protests against the ongoing West Papuan genocide. We must acknoledge that the systemic mistreatment of black and indigenous communities across the globe functions as interconnected systems of white supremacy and imperialism.
We encourage our members to support these movements, especially that against Aboriginal deaths in custody here in so-called Australia. Learn, Educate, Donate, March.
Here is a more detailed list of practical ways to support the Aboriginal Lives Matter movement.
And remember:
"No one is free, until we are all free."
- Martin Luther King Jnr.
"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
- Gangulu woman Lilla Watson
Yours in solidarity,
ANSA Executive
Hanne, Bronwyn & Leela
Written in Meanjin/Brisbane, home to the Jagera/Yagera and Turrbal people. This land was never ceded.