By Darrell McKlaren
Last night on the train on my journey home from work I witnessed an example of racist and sexist bullying mixed with a bit of white privilege. To my disgust, none of the dozen or so fellow travellers in the carriage called it out for what it was. To my shame, neither did I.
This has prompted me to share this account as I feel that at the time I was right not to get involved, but I still feel that I could have, and should have, done more to help the young Indigenous girl involved.
After a 13-hour shift I was travelling home on the 10pm train to Bundamba (in Ipswich, Queensland). The Queensland Maroons had just won the decider in the State of Origin series so the train had a few people that were livelier than the usual crowd at this time. Being somewhat disillusioned with the football I was ignoring them and reading on my phone. I had noticed a young Indigenous girl, who may or may not have had a few too many drinks walking up and down the aisle in the carriage but thought nothing of it. Several stops passed and my attention was roused by a loud voice proclaiming that he was an angry man. It took me a couple of minutes to realise that this man was abusing the Aboriginal girl for waking him up. I did not see or hear that so I will reserve judgement on that but I believe he took it too far when he banished her to the far end of the carriage and threatened to bash her if she dared to move. The carriage had gone silent at this point while this drama played out and the young girl had moved to the end of the carriage as directed. He was not a small man so she was right to move away.
Content that he had displayed to the rest of us late night travellers that a large angry man was something that young Aboriginal girls should not upset, he put his feet up in a smug and self-satisfied manner and attempted to go back to sleep. At this point I thought that was the end of the matter so I continued reading on my phone.
Emboldened by the realization that they were not alone in their poor opinion of young Aboriginal girls who may or may not have had a few too many drinks, another couple sitting opposite started to voice some loud, aggressive and derogatory comments between themselves but obviously intended for the ears of this young girl. She appeared to be somewhat distressed and probably felt threatened by this and got up from her seat and began pacing up and down the aisle while waiting to arrive at her station. The loud bogan couple then stood up and waited by the door that the young girl had been sitting near and continued with their derogatory remarks. This was obviously meant to intimidate her, which it did, as she returned to her seat and did not get off the train at the next station with the bogans.
Conflicted within myself as to whether I should approach her and offer some support I sat and observed her behaviour with the intention of offering a safe lift home if she was still on the train when I reached my station. Somehow it doesn’t feel quite right for a middle-aged white man to be offering to drive home young girls regardless of the situation. She got off two stops later and the rest of the trip was uneventful. I remember thinking to myself at the time, this is not the Australia I grew up in. But actually, it is. We had racist and sexist bullies then, we still have them now.
This morning I can’t help but feel I should have spoken up or at least offered her a safe ride home. Would you have, and at what point?
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