I shared my concerns with Jack as he was one of the few people I knew with whom I could discuss these ideas. ‘What also bothers me,’ I said, ‘is the complete absence of Blacks in these programs. Are we all destined to be proles?’ I had previously asked Chet Pierce, whose job as a scientific consultant at NASA, I understood, was to make the final selection of astronauts, why no Blacks had been sent into space.
‘Black candidates have been eliminated, for one reason or another, long before I ever get to see who the finalists are,’ he had informed me. ‘Each crop starts with several hundred, and some don’t make the physical, others can’t stand up to weightlessness, others might not have the right mix of skills—all sorts of reasons. When I’m called in, there are perhaps only half a dozen left, and they are all white by this time.’
‘The Russians have already sent a Black man into space, a Cuban,’ lack told me. ‘There was not a word about it in any of the American papers, of course. Cubans lined up on the beach and danced and waved as their satellite was going over, and it was even in the Cuban newspapers on sale on the newsstands. But then, you don’t read Spanish, do you?’
‘Jack, if Australia had had its way, I wouldn’t be able to read English, much less Spanish. No, Australia is so monolingual, I’m ashamed to say. But perhaps things will change in the future.’
‘Hey,’ I said, jubilant with the information Jack had just shared with me, and happy to have a fellow traveller with whom to chat about the big questions of our universe, ‘did you see a movie called The Spook Who Sat By The Door?’ Based on the book of the same name by Sam Greenlee, the story was about how the FBI had continued to exclude Blacks long after compulsory-integration had been brought in. Eventually one agent came along who was so able that, in the prevailing political climate, he could not be ignored. The FBI had attempted, as had been the fashion in those days, to put him, the only Black candidate they had ever let enter the Bureau, in a glass office so that everyone could see they had a Black on board, but to give him a job just working the photocopier. Instead, the Black agent had amassed a bank of organisational skills and taken these out into the streets where he put together a Black army, based on FBI methodology. With it he threatened the establishment, using their own weapons, unless equality of opportunity became a reality.
‘Yes, and read the book,’ replied Jack, ‘but I’m surprised you have. Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would be readily available in Australia.’
‘No, but we have our ways.’
‘Yes, and what we need now is another spook. Someone who will get us into the space program, ensure we don’t all end up as proles. You’ll see,’ Jack continued prophetically, ‘the US space program will put a dog and even a white woman up into space long before they consider a Black man.’
Later, when the Black community organised a demonstration in Washington DC to support the call for the declaration of a national holiday to honour Martin Luther King Junior, I along with hundreds of other students, Black and white, jumped on the train to attend. Here was a man whose influence had extended much further than the shores of the United States, and whose assassination had shocked the world. I wanted to take the opportunity to see and feel for myself the solidarity that his name engendered, and I was not at all disappointed.
From my vantage point high on a hill overlooking the square, but unfortunately out of earshot of most of the speakers, I could still sense the excitement and feeling of quest. Thousands of Americans of all races and all religions gathered, shoulder to shoulder as far as the eye could see, to demand that the nation should honour this great man.
Around me sat many families, far enough away from the centre of activity to protect their young children from the milling crowd, yet hoping to ensure that these youngsters would remember their participation in this as part of the struggle for equality. The segregation signs, marking out water fountains, toilets and schools as being either for Black or white—but not both—had long since disappeared, though not without bloodshed and great loss of life. But there was tacit acknowledgment, by the appearance of such a great mass of people, that racism was by no means dead.
I had witnessed many things during my time in Boston that I had found quite remarkable. At an award presentation held by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), I had seen an audience of Blacks weeping with sympathy when the parents of a white youth, who had lost his life defending a Black stranger whom he had seen being beaten up by a group of white men, was presented with the association’s highest award. On another occasion, I had been talking with friends at a Black restaurant when Michael Dukakis called in. He was running for some political office, having earlier lost his governorship. As he made his way around the room, chatting and shaking hands with each of us, including all the staff, it was obvious that the Black vote, even here in the north, was a sufficiently motivating incentive for political leaders to wish to court it.
So, struggle with it though I had, I’d found it difficult to make patterns emerge from North American race relations. A Black woman told me wryly that desegregation laws had forced the integration of buses, schools and workplaces, so that Black and white now spent their weekdays together, but that voluntary segregation was still the practice of the land, on the Sabbath, when each group trooped off to their separate churches. ‘The Lord cannot be very pleased,’ the woman had told me. I mused over this as I contemplated, and tried to make sense of, the enormous mixed crowd that had gathered there to honour a Black man on that memorable day.
The chasm between groups of people, and the search for ways to overcome it, continued to attract my attention in many other ways.
Shorty O’Neil, an Aboriginal colleague, was based in London for a year as part of a community effort, which was continued for some time, to try to maintain a presence in the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe through which to heighten awareness of Black Australia’s problems.
Though I had met him only briefly in Australia, Shorty wrote to me often, long letters of his trials and tribulations, which stemmed from his isolation. He was a classic ‘character’ in no small measure. He was determined to maintain his Australianness’ yet to also somehow, by whatever means possible, get his message across.
He wrote to me, initially, of his desperation in that cold English winter. Shorty, like me, had spent most of his life in Australia’s torrid north, so I could empathise with his plight. Despite his poor spelling and often complete absence of punctuation, I found the imagery he shared with me in his letters about his current life extremely compelling.
He was not, so he told me, able to give up wearing his rubber thongs, because his feet were so hardened from going barefoot that thongs were the most he could tolerate. He also had very little money, certainly not enough to spend on warm clothing. Instead, in his little flatette, which did not enjoy central heating, he put on all his garments at once, clothes over his pyjamas. He then looped cord and belts around the little single-bar heater, his only source of warmth, so that it dragged along behind him as he walked around his place to make himself a cup of tea.
Then quite suddenly, his fortunes seemed to briefly improve. He wrote to me that he had been to Europe, where he had socialised with the landed gentry and sat drinking and chatting over several days and nights with a baronet. As I deciphered it, his letter in part read: ‘The Europeans are more open to learning about our situation than the English. Probably this is because they don’t feel it was their ancestors who are responsible, and they are free from guilt so they can accept it more.’
Not long after that I was asked if I could meet up with an Aboriginal delegation arriving in New York City. From there we were to be bussed to the home of the Six Nations, at Oonandaga, in upper New York State, before being taken to Washington DC for a conference on Indigenous peoples. While waiting in New York for the arrival of the group, I was invited to attend an exhibition about Black Australia.
Imagine my surprise to see coming towards me in this
salubrious setting a vaguely familiar face. One quick glance at his feet, wearing his trademark thongs, and I recognised him immediately as my London correspondent!
Shorty had brought with him a large Aboriginal land rights flag, and as other delegates came out from the plane after their long journey, we held it aloft and they fell upon us with glee. This was a particularly exciting event for me, being with so many of my countryfolk. For so long I had been the only Black Australian on the entire east coast of America. Although I only knew some of the delegates slightly, and many of them not at all, we immediately fell in together and soon we were singing and making jokes as we were driven to our destination.
The Six Nation Indians welcomed us solemnly and took us into their homes. Their community appeared comparatively isolated, but they were not immune, so I was informed by my hosts, to the problems of alcoholism and alcohol-related violence faced by Indigenous communities everywhere. For this reason, a couple of wonderful Indian women took it upon themselves to accompany me wherever I went, and I can only guess that the same consideration and courtesy was extended to everyone else in our party.
Those of us who were not too exhausted were driven around the grounds and proudly shown the herd of buffalo which the Indians were reviving. Their traditional food had been almost made extinct by the white man, and this was one of the many ways in which they were going about their cultural revival. When the herd reached a certain size, a young pair was given as a gift to other tribes who were without any buffalo, so that they could also begin to breed their own herds.
A long ceremonial building had been built from solid wood, and stood majestically at the centre of their complex. It was here that we gathered during the days and in the evenings for many warm welcomes, introductions and cultural presentations. In honour of our visit, the Indians had slaughtered one of their precious buffalo, and we were treated to a range of foods containing this meat. It was not difficult to tell from the trouble they had taken with their preparations how much they appreciated that our delegation from halfway around the world had come to visit them.
In our party, as well as Shorty O’Neil, there was Pat Dodson, still a Catholic priest at the time, Yami Lester, Barbara Shaw, with traditional people from the Kimberleys and, as I recall, also the Centre, to complete the group. There were also one or two Balanda, though their names escape me.
Our visit being concluded, we were taken via an inland route to Washington DC, along a highway which provided us with a tremendous spectacle of autumn foliage in many earthy hues. I had already seen a little of this deciduous treat, so different from the countryside I was used to. Shorty told me that it made him feel uncomfortable to see the trees dying like this, even though he knew they would come alive again in spring.
We had barely reached Washington DC when I came down with a severe cold and fever, and had trouble keeping up with all the presentations and social events that had been planned for us. I felt a bit guilty to be missing things. Yami was also not feeling too well and some of the traditional people in our party felt obliged to stay with him in his room and keep him company. Yami, who had been blind since his childhood as a result of exposure to the Maralinga bombing in his traditional homelands, said he had not enjoyed the trip. He had been unable to see the things we saw and to him, the travel had meant just a great deal more noise than he was used to after the quiet of his Central Desert abode. As well, he was unable to identify all the sounds about him or make out what these unfamiliar sounds meant. I was suddenly struck with an understanding of what life outside the perimeters of home must mean to a person without sight. This knowledge was frightening to me because my mother’s mother had been blind and my own mother had been seeking out specialists to deal with her increasing blindness. Would my own world shrink as time passed, or would technology and medical advances come to my aid in the future and save me?
Another time, I was approached by Native American friends to ask if I would be willing to chair the international panel at a conference they were hosting at the Harvard Law School. When I agreed, they told me they would be back in touch with me shortly.
The conference dates drew near, and I was becoming concerned that I had heard nothing more when I received a phone call. ‘Do you,’ a man asked after introducing himself, ‘wish to pull out? We would understand if you do.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Have you had any death threats?’
‘What! What are you talking about? Death threats? What sort of death threats?’
‘Well, there’s been a bit of trouble. I thought you may have heard. Jewish students around the school have been objecting to the conference. They put pressure on the Dean of the Law School to try to make him ban the conference, said the Jewish alumni would stop giving money to the school. The Dean’s withdrawn from opening the conference, but he hasn’t banned us from going ahead. Are you still prepared? Can we count on you? There’s probably going to be a demonstration against us. Will you mind?’
Well, this is a strange turn of events, I thought, when Jewish people demonstrate against Native Americans.
‘What’s this all about?’
‘It’s your panel, actually. The international session. We’ve invited a representative from the PLO to attend.’
‘Oh, okay. That makes a bit more sense. But no, you’re the Indigenous people of this country, and you’ve a right to invite anybody you want to your conference. I’ll be there.’
The day dawned, and I was due at the Law School at 10.30 for my briefing; my panel was to begin at midday. As I was making my way through the Yard, some Indians whom I did not know hailed me.
‘Come back in an hour. We’re running an hour behind schedule. Security’s been holding everything up. There’s been a bomb threat and now they’ve got metal detectors on the doors and everything.’
‘Oh, okay,’ I replied, and wandered over to a nearby coffee shop in Harvard Square to kill some time.
Exactly an hour later I again headed around through the Yard. At the front door to the Law School, a demonstration was in progress and Security was keeping the demonstrators from blocking the door. The protesters were orderly, I can say that about them, as they marched around in a circle with their placards, although I was really annoyed to see anti-Indian signs being held high in the air.
As well as using metal detectors, Security were searching people at the door. I identified myself as the Chairperson and was immediately whisked upstairs to a room where some of the participants on my panel were already seated. Harvard detectives, coats off and shoulder holsters with guns on display, lounged around, gazing out the window, checking the halls and answering the door when anyone knocked. Those panellists who had arrived seemed very relaxed and were making jokes about what we might expect. I was introduced to the group and we began to make plans about how to run the agenda.
All our eyes turned when a sharp rap on the door announced the arrival of the one person still missing, the PLO representative. A very young white girl, slender and attractive though otherwise quite nondescript, entered, with an armed escort provided by Harvard preceding her.
‘Uh, you’re from the PLO?’ I asked her, quite amazed that such a to-do was being made over someone so seemingly innocent.
‘Well, I’m an assistant at the PLO Mission to the United Nations, and I’ve been sent up here to represent the Mission today’ she replied with a typical mid-western American accent. I almost fell about laughing.
‘Have you been to the Middle East?’ I asked.
‘No. I just work at the United Nations Mission. I don’t know what all this fuss is about. I’m an American.’
None of us present, we found as we talked amongst ourselves, knew what the fuss going on outside was about either. A young American woman arrives to talk about the policies of an agency which has accreditation status at the United Nations, and the Jewish students decide to take offence?
The hall where we were to give the presentation was very formal and
imposing, and we were accompanied on our short walk through the building by our armed guards. It all felt very strange.
Still, the panel ran smoothly, with me opening and introducing, acting as time-keeper, and summarising and closing. I was also required to advise the audience during my opening speech that, under the circumstances, we could only accept questions in writing following the presentations. None of the panellists raised anything that I regarded as controversial. I suppose I would not have necessarily objected if they had, but the goals for equity and equality of participation in international relations and affairs were quite standard fare.
Later, some Indian friends and I went off to have a drink, leaving the demonstrators still circling outside the Law School.
‘You’re the only one, then, who didn’t personally receive a death threat,’ I was informed by one of my smiling companions. ‘We had posters all over the school. I think they scoured the student enrolment at the Law School, probably even the Kennedy School, for your name, and when they couldn’t find it, they must have thought you were coming in from outside.’
This was very possible. Perhaps the student body did not see the Education School as a hotbed of political activism from whence a chairperson for such a panel would be likely to be drawn.
Snake Circle Page 24
