WEBVTT - Read This: Santilla Chingaipe is Rewriting History 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.920 Hey there, it's Ruby Jones and I'm back to introduce 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:07.040 another episode of Read This Our Sister podcast, hosted by 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.120 Editor of The Monthly and King of the Book Nerdes 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:13.280 Michael Williams. It features conversations with some of the best 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.720 and most beloved writers from Australia and around the world. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.400 In this episode, we're going to hear from filmmaker, historian 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.680 and writer Sanila Ginape. She's just released her first nonfiction book, 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.080 it's called Black Convicts. Before we do, Michael is here 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:33.720 to share a bit about their conversation. So, Michael, Sandila 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.080 Chin Gabe's new book. It's this fascinating and fresh look 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.760 into Australia's colonial history and it challenges some long held 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:45.280 preconceptions about the way that our nation was shaped. 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:47.880 Can you tell me a bit about how the book 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:48.320 does this? 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.720 Yeah. Sandy is an extraordinary storyteller and has been working 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.880 as a journalist and a filmmaker for many years now. 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.720 She writes regularly for both the Saturday Paper and The 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.240 Monthly and I'm a big fan of her work. And 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.640 part of what's so exciting about this novel is, in 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:06.680 many ways, it's the culmination of a whole lot of 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.679 the stuff she's done before. You may have seen a 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.559 few years ago on SBS a documentary that she made 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.800 called Our African Roots and won a number of awards, 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.800 It was critically acclaimed. It's back up on SBS on 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:20.680 demand at the moment if you want to catch it. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.039 But in it, she looks at the unrelenting whiteness of 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.840 the way in which we talk about the First Fleet 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.680 and the first wave of kind of invasion and settlement 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.280 into Australia. The point that Santy makes is that actually 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.119 amongst those convicts were a number of people of African descent. 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:40.959 In the First Fleet, at least fifteen of the convicts 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.920 were of African descent, and by eighteen forty that number 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.480 had risen to about five hundred. So it was a 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.000 significant part of our history, but one that never features 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.880 in the conventional way Australian history is told in the 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.920 pictures we see, in the stories we tell. 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.040 And Michael, you're someone who's curious about the world. You 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.840 read a lot, you know a lot about Australian history. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:06.120 So did what Sanchi discover Did any of it come 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:07.080 as a surprise to you? 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.959 Yeah? Look, I mean I think as a lot of 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.480 our listeners would have experienced themselves ruby. The way in 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:18.000 which Australian history is taught in school follow certain conventions 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.320 and expectations. I think it's improved since I was at school, 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.000 but you know, my memory is it was all stories 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.520 about bush rangers and Burke and Wills disappearing into the 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.760 desert and a whole lot of white convicts coming over 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:33.880 here and speaking with broad Cockney accents about how they 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.600 stole some apples back in London streets. There's a kind 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.240 of sepier toned idea about Australian history. And while we've 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:44.080 gotten perhaps a little bit better about understanding the dispossession 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.919 of First Nations people in this country, we still don't 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:52.320 understand the full implications of the British Empire, of the 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:54.880 way in which the colonial project was built on things 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.600 like slavery, and that did play a part in the 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.639 founding of the nation I know as Australia. And what 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.480 Sandy does is brings that to the fore again in 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:09.000 a way that is bracing and challenging but also incredibly enlightening. 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:26.680 Coming up in just a moment, Santilla Chigabe is rewriting history. 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.400 Santilla is a natural born storyteller, but she grew up 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.560 learning stories about her life through a largely white European lens. 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.840 It seemed to Sandy that people like her got to 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.840 read about history, but never to write about it. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.400 I'd always loved reading and writing when I was a kid, 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.200 and I was obsessed with writing. I remember my family 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.960 got our first computer. My brother would always play like 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.240 video games like FIFA, and I would always write pleas 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.240 and like that was the thing that always excited me. 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.200 And I didn't really think about writing as a career. 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.880 I didn't really think, but I remember being fascinated by 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.280 people that told stories. And then journalism became like a 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.920 very accessible entry point for me because I saw people 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.520 that looked like me doing and I was like, Oh, 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.560 that looks like a really interesting career. Like I think 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:15.119 I want to do that because I get to tell 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.680 stories and I get to be curious, and I get 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:21.240 to meet people. And I remember thinking, Okay, where do 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.159 you go if you want to be a journalist? And 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:26.919 you know, growing up in the nineties and dear and 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.480 I do. She was on SBS and she had a 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:31.760 name that most people couldn't pronounce, kind of like me. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:34.040 And I was like, I think that's that's where I 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:35.680 want to go. I want to end up at SBS. 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:37.599 And it was a bit of a detour because I 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:42.280 had to classic sort of like migrant thing of studying 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.560 to become a doctor and then realizing that that's not 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.400 what I wanted to do. And I loved community radio. 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.280 I did a lot of stuff with SIN and then 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.240 that summer I remember having the very difficult conversation with 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.680 my mum and saying, I don't I don't think I 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.880 want to do this medicine thing. I think I want 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:03.640 to pursue a career in journalism. And my mom, you know, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.520 reacted anyway that I think most parents would. I mean, 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.880 she was worried because she was like, I don't know 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.360 if youre gon't make any money doing this. Also, she 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.920 was also looking at it from a you know, you're 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:16.800 a black woman. I don't really know if there are 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.400 any opportunities for you in the world and things like that. 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.400 But you'll be unsurprised to hear Sandy made those opportunities happen. 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.479 On lunch breaks from r MIT, She'd walked to fed 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.400 Square to the SBS officers and asked to do work 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:36.000 experience knocked back rebuff told they didn't offer such things. Eventually, 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.479 through sheer, bloody mindedness and tenacity, she got them to 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.960 give her an unpaid internship, an internship that led to 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.279 her first full time job as a junior radio journalist. 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.640 And I remember this one day I was assigned to 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.200 a story and it was an elderly couple and had 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.839 gone to their house and they were retired and the 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:02.599 wife had health issues, and they were so excited to 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.200 have visitors in their home because it's that thing of like, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.600 we don't get to talk to anyone. And this man 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:10.600 used to be a photographer when he was younger, and 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.160 he'd taken photos of all of these amazing people. And 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.560 he starts to bring out the books, and his wife's 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.800 like making tea and bringing out the biscuits and stuff. 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.040 And I remember the Camo just being so irritated because 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.320 he was like, you came here to ask three questions, 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.520 We have to go. And I'm thinking, blessed, isn't this love? 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.279 Like you know what I just felt? It just felt 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.919 so extractive, like to go in, particularly sometimes going in 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.200 on the worst days of people's lives and knowing that 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.919 you're only asking three questions for a story that's going 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.120 to be a minute and a half that most people 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.880 probably won't even pay attention to. And I sort of thought, gosh, 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:45.320 do I want to do this for the rest of 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.160 my life? What I did enjoy was the time that 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.000 I got to spend with people. I was like, I 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:52.280 like this, how do I find a way of being 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:57.560 able to spend more time with people? And at the time, 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:02.279 as luck would have it, I was moderating a conversation 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.120 with a filmmaker at a film festival and we got 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:06.680 off the stage and she grabs my hand and she's like, 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.800 we need to talk, and she says to me, you 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:12.640 should be making documentaries. And I was like, what she 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.600 was like, you should be making documentaries, Like I've never 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.880 really thought about that because I've never seen anyone that 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.800 looks like me making documentaries. And that's how I started 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.080 making documentaries. And then that then exposed me to the 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:28.440 wider narrative storytelling, and that was when I was like, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.520 I've found my groove. This is where I'm meant to be. 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.960 But that thing about representation, honestly, I. 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.080 Was going to say twice, now you've mentioned that idea 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.600 when trying to work out a path for yourself of 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.080 having not seen people who look like you in those 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.600 roles in the telling the story and the ways in 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:49.280 which anywhere, but particularly acute in Australia, the idea of 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.560 being a migrant voice, the idea of being a person 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:56.680 of color, the idea of your blackness defining and potentially 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.800 limiting the opportunities that are available to you. Is that 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:03.520 a sense that you've had right through your career that 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.320 this is an option for you, this is not or 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.440 you have to model it before you can do it. 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:10.640 I think it's both. To be honest, you know, we 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:12.840 talk about representation a lot, and I think in a 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:17.040 sense it's kind of lost some of that just because 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.920 it's so of used as a term. But what I 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.040 will say, when you are young, you're so impressionable, and 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:28.960 you're looking to people around you for clues about how 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.960 to do this life thing, and when your options are 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.960 very limited because you're not seeing people that look like you, 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:36.920 and then your family also want seeing people that look 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.120 like you, and they're also helping to shape how you're 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:40.920 moving through the world and the choices that you're making 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:44.920 what tends to be available. Then becomes very limited. And 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.240 that's even before you enter an industry and start to 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.199 sort of kind of go, Okay, I think this might 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:51.480 not be what I want to do, and I might 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:53.920 want to do something else. But even before you attempt 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:59.400 to try, there isn't an option available, right, And I think, 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:03.079 what has helped me. I've just always been curious. I've 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:05.120 always kind of gone, let me just try it, let 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.360 me see what's going to happen. But I also know 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:12.280 that not everyone is necessarily motivated by that kind of instinct, 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.760 and for some people, not seeing themselves in a certain 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.400 industry or in a certain role already eliminates that completely, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:22.240 and you don't try. 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.240 You delivered the twenty twenty three ew cole lecture around 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.800 the question of who gets to tell history, and as 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:36.080 you recount in Black Convicts and elsewhere, for you, that 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.640 question about permission to be a historian is a really 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:45.840 important one that, maybe more even than journalism or documentary 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.840 filmmaking or other forms of storytelling, being the kind of 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:54.200 gatekeeper who's allowed to write and tell history was a 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:59.120 sanctified category that you felt you had to find your 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.079 way into and accidentally did. 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:07.040 And when that Fenny dropped. I was like, oh, my gosh, 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.920 why have we certainly is marginalized, and I say this, 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.200 you know, not on behalf of other marginalized people. 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:18.720 What do they all think? 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:26.840 But you go through life having your narrative written on 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:28.959 your behalf and you don't question it at all, And 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:30.719 you get to a point and I had a moment 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.360 where I went, why did I believe the history that 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.080 I was told in school that was written by white men? 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.480 And not to say that that history isn't valid, but 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.600 I thought that I couldn't write history. I just thought 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.800 I couldn't write history. History was told to me. I 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:54.719 couldn't tell history. And when I can't overstate how liberating 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:57.320 that realization. 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:57.320 Was for me. 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.720 And it's changed how I moved through the world because 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:05.800 now I feel like I am in control of my 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.079 life in a way that I did not think before. 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.520 Before I felt like the world was shaping my life 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:13.000 for me, and in many ways it still does. I 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.480 mean structurally and systemically, all these things still continue to 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:20.000 dictate the outcomes of your life. But in terms of going, oh, 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:24.880 actually I can determine what my life looks like to 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.320 a degree because it is not being written for me, 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.760 you know, and history has a way of convincing you 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.280 that you are a certain thing, and particularly histories around 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:43.720 colonization and colonialism where, certainly from the African perspective, majority 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:45.400 of the histories that I read growing up and that 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.720 I was told it was almost as though black people 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.240 were passive and there were submit and they just kind 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.600 of accepted that. But obviously when you think about it now, 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:55.200 it's like, yeah, who is just going to be like, yeah, 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.600 take take my house without any kind of resistance, right, 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.160 You will get people that all fight back, But that 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.160 wasn't the center of the story. The story was always 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.880 about the people that came and what they did and 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.960 the so called good that they did. And then you 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:14.400 move through the world and having that then still being reinforced, 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.520 Oh you should actually be just grateful, you know, And 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:22.360 you don't realize how much that subconsciously shapes how you 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.640 move through the world, and so you enter spaces not 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.920 feeling like have a sense of ownership when you do, 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.640 like this world belongs to all of us, right, And 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.240 so when I had that realization, I was like, oh, 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.920 my gosh, I don't have to be in the passenger's 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.920 seat of the world. That I want to live in 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.319 I can contribute to kind of reimagining what that looks 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.640 like and my position, my viewpoint is valid, you know, 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.600 for something like that to happen for me in my thirties, 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.480 like my late thirties, I was like, gosh, it's still 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.599 something that I still try to process about how it 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.720 has impact to me and how I moved through the world. 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.320 But it really we talk about stories and sometimes don't 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.280 realize just the power of stories. And for me, the 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:13.600 process of this really really really reinforced like words, stories, 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:19.200 language are incredibly powerful, and it made me realize just 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.959 how important it is for those of us that are 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:35.520 creating stories to be very aware of that power the 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:37.720 whole process of writing. So I was incredibly scared. I 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.800 was like, here, I am upending how wide Australia has 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.720 seen itself for a very long time and the mythologies 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.440 it's told itself about itself, and it's not used to 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:52.360 people like me telling it. We're the ones that get 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:58.000 told right, and that triggers emotions and feelings in people. 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.760 And I was aware that the work was going to 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.040 be scrutinized and I was like, well, I don't want 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.760 to give them the reason to dismiss these people's stories. 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:09.840 And so as much as I would have liked to 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:13.160 push some things further, I just pulled back and I went, 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.400 We're going to stay with what the Colonial Archive is saying, 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.560 and within that try and move and try and make 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.840 certain points. It was hard because of that, like, I 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:27.280 don't ever want to write anything that limits me in 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:27.640 that way. 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:32.240 Again. When we come back, Sandy shares the inciting incident 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.040 that set her on the path to writing Black Conducts 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.840 and reveals how the ghosts of the Archives lived with 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.840 her during the writing of this book. We'll be back 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:54.920 in a minute. While the idea of black convicts had 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.440 been percolating in Santilla ching Gabe's mind for many years, 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.920 was during the summer of twenty eighteen that things shifted 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.600 into focus. You might remember it was January of that 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.440 year and Peter Dutton, who was Minister of Home Affairs 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.440 at the time, announced that Victorians were scared to go 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.680 out to restaurants because of African gang violence. It was 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:22.200 idiotic and transparently racist, this attempt to scare white Australians 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:26.240 into demonizing their neighbors, and it scared Sandy too. But 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:28.200 for very different reasons. 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.840 I remember I was overseas at the time and I 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.000 got a call to be on a panel to discuss 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:40.480 that incident, because at that point I've been writing about 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.360 those narratives and how the media was also complicit in 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.880 essentially perpetuating racist narratives because you know, he's saying that 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.400 people of African descent are predisposed to commit crime because 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:56.200 of the color of their skin is racist and yeah, 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.080 and I remember thinking, I've been talking about this and 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.480 nothing's changing, it's not cutting through, and I don't know 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.080 what it was. And then I remember returning and just 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.120 feeling so and I said, I can't, I don't want 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.760 to be part of this panel. But I remember being 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.040 very frustrated about it. And then I remember being at 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:18.800 an event, the Broadside Dinner. There were people there who 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.840 had very strong opinions about what was happening and why 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.440 the media was reporting on it, and a few commentators 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.560 were saying to me, oh, well, you know, it's like 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.080 an Aussie rite of passage. Basically, we do this for 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.640 every wave of migration. The Greeks, the Italians, they've all 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.680 copped at the Vietnamese. It's now the Africans turn and 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.120 people would say to me in a way that was 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:43.560 very dismissive of my contribution. And when I had that conversation, 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:45.800 I was like, this is dumb. And also I was like, 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.760 there's an element of anti blackness here and why aren't 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.120 we talking about this? And I just sort of thought, 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.840 there has to be a place of thinking and how 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:56.320 do we talk about this in a way that gets 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.480 people to realize that people of reckons don have been 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.400 here for a while and if you want to talk 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.600 about our place within the contemporary sense, that has to 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.880 be considered, and that if you are going to sort 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.159 of start talking about it in the way that the 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.959 media have reported on it, that is very racist. Because 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.600 people don't commit crime because of the color of their skin. 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.760 A lot of factors contribute to that in any community, 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.400 but most of the time it's failures and government policy. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.920 So this thing happens and I return home and I 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:29.400 knew because I've done a story when I was working 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.720 at SBS as a journalist about a South African convict, 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:34.439 David Steerman, So I knew that there was a convict 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.200 in colonial history. But then I just sort of thought, 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.880 if I can find evidence of people on the first 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:41.720 fleet because I'd heard about it and then I'd gone 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.439 to an exhibition and seeing a label, then maybe, just 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.400 maybe we can stop talking about this and then start 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.200 thinking about wolf people have been here at the same 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.560 time as white people. What does that then mean. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:01.080 The book shifts very gracefully between the kind of bigger 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:06.680 picture of the early colonial project and the various factors 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.320 that led to it, the various implements of British Empire 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:14.119 that ran through it all. And so it tells that 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:15.880 story on the one hand, and then it also tells 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.320 these individual stories of these figures who are part of it. 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.359 And one of the tensions that's apparent from very early 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:27.600 on is by placing these black convicts in that story 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.320 where we've forgotten to include them for so long, or 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.080 they've been wilfully kept out of it for so long, 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.480 one of the things that happens there is their involvement 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.920 or complicity in the dispossession that was the early colonial project. 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:44.879 You know that this is not a story about goodies 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:46.560 and bad is this not a story about you know, 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:51.640 the righteous or the damned. It's a story about what 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.399 happens in a colonial context when people are trying to 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.240 make a life for themselves, sometimes at the expense of 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:01.080 one another. How tricky was that part of telling the story. 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:02.640 Probably the hardest chapter for me, and I would say 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.960 writing about encounters that these black comics had with first 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.080 people's But it also did a wonderful thing, which is 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.320 it reminded me that history is not the place that 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.480 you go to be comforted. 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:16.119 Or absolved. 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.440 Oh yeah, And I think because we are so used 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:24.639 to these narratives that center figures individuals in history that 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.680 have done remarkable things, and we look to them as 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.320 kind of like I want to be like this person 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:36.399 or whatever. And the problem with that flawed kind of 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.080 obsession that we have with that sort of narrative is 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:43.760 that it dismisses the fact that humans, by our nature, 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.480 are incredibly flawed and incredibly complex, and that on the 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:52.800 one hand, you can do something incredibly remarkable but also 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:58.080 make decisions that centuries down the line people look at. 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:02.800 And there's a story that I tell of this black 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:07.399 comic from Barbados, Robert James, and how he is involved 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.120 in one of the biggest legal cases of the time 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:11.560 during the period of slavery, And the interesting thing with 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.480 him was that he was effectively found guilty and what 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.440 should have happened, because this is just what happened during slavery, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.680 was he should have been executed. But at the time 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.320 there was this governor who was sort of like a 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:28.000 temp that can put it that way, And if you 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.679 were governor, you were also head of the judicial system 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:34.160 in a lot of these British colonies. And so he 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.800 reviewed the case and he feels like there's been a 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:41.439 miscarage of justice. He doesn't pardon Robert James, but he 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:43.600 does send the case to London for a review because 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:45.440 he's kind of going, I really don't think this guy 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.080 got a fairtra and that puts him in the ship 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.480 because all of the white people on the island are going, 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:53.320 what are you doing? This guy should have been like executed, 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.959 Like what are you doing? And so he puts his 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:01.280 own life in jeopardy. But yet he only believes that 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:06.000 there is a rule of law here and I'm adhering 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.080 to what is required of me in this capacity. But 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.880 at the same time, this acting governor, he was also 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:14.560 a slave owner. It wasn't like he was going to 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:16.080 invite Robt James over to his house for a cup 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.240 of tea right, and both these things can be true. 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.880 And I think how that helps me in thinking about 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:26.760 even in the contemporary sense, particularly when we get obsessed 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.040 with a binary way of thinking and looking at people 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:34.560 and essentially expecting morally perfect humans, particularly when people do 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:37.439 things that we don't like and we're very quick to 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:38.840 put them in the bin. It's not to say that 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.919 we shouldn't critique and challenge, but I do think that 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.880 history does show us that there is so much complexity 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.560 in how humans show up in the world, and it's 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:52.560 neither right or wrong. It is just a very complicated experience. 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.520 But it does lead in the book, and one of 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:57.440 the great strengths of the book, because it leads to that, 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.120 you know you have the big questions, to address them 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:06.639 sufficiently requires very deliberate, narrow decisions, right down to the 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:10.439 level of individual words. It's really interesting to me that 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:16.159 you very consciously, when talking about slavery, resist using slave 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:21.520 as a noun, but instead talk about it adjectivally enslaved 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.000 people rather than slave, and that the deliberateness of that 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:29.119 in this book I really appreciate and respect hugely. I 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.440 think it's terrific. Can you talk about decisions like that 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:32.920