Chrissie Swan is in the news again, and the White Lady brigade is out in force to defend her. And so they should. Being hammered for being fat (last year) and for smoking while preggers (this year), is pretty crap and wrong, double-standard, body policing, sexist etc etc.
But, where are the White Lady Brigade (I’m here referring to the high profile, bit leftie bloggers, columnists, radio heads etc), when Aboriginal women are getting hammered?
I’m wrackin’ the Googles to find the blog posts that defended Larissa Behrendt from the Oz-Hounds. And I recall that when Anita Heiss and others were getting hammered, the lefties crapped on about free speech, and not the garbage spewing from He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Linked-To. And not to mention The Intervention. Oi, Chrissie, wanna know what it’s like to have your behaviour and body policed? Try being a black woman in community in this country, and they’ll police you like you never been policed before.
So while the White Lady Brigade use their radio spots, in between sponsored packages for K-Mart and other womanly brands, to launch their tearful and heartfelt defences, I wonder where are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s radio spots on mainstream radio? Oh that’s right, there is none.
Chrissie doesn’t deserve the shit she got last year, or this week. But I’m kinda over the ‘leave-Chrissie (and other sundry White Woman)-alone’ blogosphere. Speaking out for a White Woman is okay, but speaking out for Black Woman? Mmm.. perhaps I don’t know my “race” stuff as well as I thought ….
And if you know any deadly articles that I missed, please let me know… I’ll add them …
Note: Helen Razer is pretty awesome most of the time. Her twitter & FB posts show she has a bigger picture view.