Dumbo Feather – July 2019

You know. Don’t worry about it so much, don’t beat yourself up. The opportunity for you to

mentor there or do different things that come across your path, they come. They come when

they’re meant to. You worrying about what you’re doing and where you’re sitting in amongst

it all really doesn’t do anything. You’ve already put it out to the universe and the universe has

put it to you. Your place in culture and how you feel where you’re at. That’s enough. Spirit

will bring the rest. That’s your Dreaming.

Well I feel like human beings labelling each other all the time goes

against the grain of our Dreaming stories and the way that the

spiritual side of life works. ’Cause it’s not even relevant. It doesn’t

exist. We all belong to country, all Australians that live in a space

where that spirit’s passing through them at times, they’re caretakers

of that land. You can draw from the mob up in Arnhem Land. The

way it works up there. You go up there, they’ll adopt you into clan

straight away. They’ll just assess your heart first and then once that

call is made, once that sign’s given, “This fella’s all right,” you’re brought in. And they don’t

question. There’s no questioning, there’s no judgment after that. You’re related to so-and-so

and you can’t talk to Aunty. Blah, blah, blah. And so I feel like that alone is a problem: that

we’re constantly looking at each other as black and white. You see it in America all the time.

It gives me the shits actually when I see American comedians and there’s always jokes about

who’s black and who’s white. And you know, sometimes it’s funny. Like I get it. People are

funny. But the sad part about it is it’s always a highlight. There’s always a racial joke. And

it’s in order to smooth the wrongs of the past and I totally get it, there’s nothing wrong with

it, it’s normal. But it’s always that judgment thing. It’s always us judging each other. Now

on a spiritual level in terms of country, it doesn’t exist. So I feel like that bitterness is there

with our Aboriginal Elders. There’s been so much shit that’s happened on both sides of the

fence. People have inherited bad ways that aren’t helpful on the Aboriginal side and on the

white side. So I feel personally that the change has to come with kids. And the kids have to

reconstruct how our culture is portrayed. And the fact is that our culture now has changed.

It is about black and white. It’s not about just black. But obviously Aboriginal Australia needs

to be teachers.

Yeah. And so the only way that I see

that happening, we tried it down

Wathaurong country. We raised a bunch of money, we did some festivals and it was all about

putting money in towards education and getting our elders into schools. But that’s the thing.

I feel like

They feel part of it, you know. They feel they understand that story, it gets them out of the

classroom, they get out and go into the scrub and it’s fun. And everyone can connect with it

and women can go here and men can go here and dah, dah, dah, they learn that story. Well

instantly the Aboriginal kids who often feel alienated from the white kids in their culture

Yeah!

Well exactly. And if this other way

of working was at all impactful we’d

keep doing it, but it hasn’t been that

successful so far! You’ve kind of

referenced this before, but what do you

think it means for Indigenous and non-

Indigenous people to belong together?

Well this is it. It’s got to come from that honouring place doesn’t it?

if languages and stories were taught in schools

to both black and white Australia and to young

kids, then kids would feel part of the culture as

they do in New Zealand.

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XAVIER RUDD

DUMBO FEATHER