Ben's Blog

Feb ‘25
According to The Encyclopedia Britannica no less, racism is the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”
Until recently I was unaware that races are a social construct with no scientific basis, silly me! When we talk about racism what we really mean is Nationalism or ‘colourism’. Racists tend to discriminate against members of a particular Nation or skin colour, in the mistaken belief that people who happen to live within an area drawn on a map by some colonial cartographer, all share the same negative behavioral traits. Common sense tells us otherwise! White Racists also like to separate people according to their complexion. Believing those with the most pallid and anaemic skin, drained of all colour, share a superior intellect. Believing that sort of nonsense is actually a good indication that YOU are of inferior intellect.
Those of us who are capable of understanding basic biology, know that the colour of your skin has no bearing what-so-ever on any of your other characteristics. That is just common sense. There is far more genetic diversity in one African village than all of Europe. That is also just plain common sense. Europeans have been diversifying for a much shorter time than those African villagers. Our DNA is not written on our foreheads!
Quite recently Australia was officially confirmed as a racist nation, based on the results of our referendum on ‘A voice to Parliament.’ When asked if indigenous Australians should be allowed a say in how their lives are governed, the Australian people answered emphatically, “NO, they should not be allowed any say in how their lives are governed what-so-ever!” This is because we know what they would say is unpalatable. It must be suppressed because it would open old wounds. Wounds that we inflicted and continue to inflict. Wounds that make us feel ikky in our tummies.
Our particular form of racism, while resembling collective racism, does take on local hues. Hues about hues, we could say. There are those who loath all black people simply because they are black. They assume that all people with a similar complexion behave in similar ways, their behaviour becoming more extreme the darker their complexion. So light brown people, including those who have achieved their complexion via unnatural means, will behave moderately badly, whereas those with jet black skin are bound to behave atrociously. People who think this are stupid! Or maybe they just find black skin uglier than less black skin. Just like some people prefer blondes to brunettes, but I doubt it.

Australian racists tend to loath and detest  ‘blackfullas’ (a  colloquial term the local indigenous people often use to describe themselves) most of all.

There is a historical reason for this, that it would require a PHD to unravel, something I lack, nor can I be bothered reading one. So I will give you my version, based on the data I have gleaned by talking to old blackfullas in the pub. In a nut shell, the blackfullas were massacred so we could steal their land. Those massacres were justified by claiming the blackfullas did not deserve their land because they were savages, less than human, so their extirpation was not a crime against humanity, but merely an irksome chore. Once the number of blackfullas had been reduced to a manageable size, their wanton slaughter was no longer officially condoned. They were allowed to exist. Many totally traumatized, alienated, disorientated blackfullas managed to survive the holocaust by living as fringe dwellers on the outskirts of white settlements and ingratiating themselves to their more powerful neighbors. Inevitably they lost their dignity and most of their culture along the way. Many succumbed to the demon drink and neglected their appearance, becoming ‘the dregs of society’ they were always judged to be. A self-fulfilling prophesy! Thus proving by empirical evidence that the blackfullas were an inferior race that did not deserve the protection of their white, Christian superiors. This was enshrined in British Law. Even though the blackfullas were British subjects, they were not Christians, so they could not give evidence in court. This often led to their conviction and public hanging. Such is life.

So as we can see, racism is a construct deployed in order to justify barbaric acts.

Acts of colonial wars of territorial conquest were usually instigated against proud and noble indigenous cultures. People with far higher moral standards than even the English aristocracy pretended to. (with a few notable exceptions, like the notorious head-hunters of PNG) Every ignoble act by any indigenous group was shared throughout the empire in order to justify heinous crimes against any other indigenous group they happened to come across in their bloodthirsty adventures.*

It was necessary, once the ‘natives’ had been pacified, to maintain the myth of their racial inferiority. A list was drawn up, the English aristocracy placed at the very top and the blackfullas placed at the very bottom, t so far down they were not even considered to be human, but classified as wild beasts of the forest. Here in Australia, where the ideas of the enlightenment took a couple of hundred years to filter down to the antipodes, it was not until 1967 that the blackfullas were moved from the list of native fauna and flora to the list of human races. I kid you not!

But even though they had been shifted up a notch in the hierarchy, it was still necessary to maintain the myth of their biological inferiority in order to justify their extirpation and subsequent subjugation and persecution. As social attitudes progressed  over the years, it became more and more obvious that the blackfullas were not actually inferior at all. Some outliers were even claiming there are many elements of their culture that superior to our own. As  the barbaric behaviour of those at the pinnacle of their self-proclaimed hierarchy becomes ever more apparent and  even more extreme it is making blackfulla culture look pretty damn good! A lot of folks are seriously thinking of switching sides.

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* In 1920, Daisy Bates a self taught anthropologist and journalist, who lived for many years with the Pitjantjatjara in Ooldea, South Australia claimed that Nyan-ngauera, a pregnant Aboriginal woman, “had given birth then killed and shared the baby with her surviving child.” To support her story, she sent a box of bones to the South Australian Museum but the bones were identified as those of a cat. That story was widely and gleefully published through out Australia, and repeated by bates in an address tot eh British Parliament, where it was ‘music to their ears.’

Ben Boyang February ’25

That story was widely and gleefully published through out Australia, and repeated by bates in an address tot eh British Parliament, where it was ‘music to their ears.’

In 1920, Daisy Bates a self taught anthropologist and journalist, who lived for many years with the Pitjantjatjara in Ooldea, South Australia claimed that Nyan-ngauera, a pregnant Aboriginal woman, “had given birth then killed and shared the baby with her surviving child.” To support her story, she sent a box of bones to the South Australian Museum but the bones were identified as those of a cat.