"We live racism everyday of our lives, it takes its toll on us.” “I don’t understand why the media did not pay attention to our own, they do for everyone else. Does being Black get in the way? This is as huge a tragedy as one could imagine. What worth does a Black life have?”

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""Geraldton’s racial tension – “colour should not matter”
by Gerry Georgatos
October 19th, 2013

With racial tensions boiling over in the West Australian coastal town of Geraldton over the hit-and-run death of two 40-year-old Yamatjis, police finally charged the young non-Aboriginal driver eleven days after the tragic incident. The Yamatji community gathered in the hundreds outside Geraldton police station to protest, and the next day the young driver was formally charged. Family and community members said that if the driver had been a Yamatji, he or she “would have been locked up, denied bail and would be facing a jail time.”

The Yamatji community became enraged by the fact that the double fatality of two Yamatjis who were on an evening stroll, and with children, did not make much of a stir in the mainstream news. Community members could not understand -within them brewed the stir of “copping more racism.” Geraldton’s Yamatji community is one of mixed blessings, close family and community ties but also of much disadvantage, the disproportionate sort, acute and chronic for many.

The National Indigenous Radio Service and the National Indigenous Times were contacted by the Yamatji community as they begged for their story to be told, because no-one else was telling it they said, and we did. One of the grieving fathers, Wayne Warner said that he could not understand how in the same week as his daughter’s kerbside death there was ever so little news coverage however a truck tipping over received extensive coverage. The West Australian news media, broadcast and print, often dedicate their lead stories to victims of these vehicular tragedies but not so on this occasion. “What worth does a Black life have,” said Mr Warner.

“Do we not matter? Does my daughter’s life not matter?”

After the protest by more than 200 Yamatjis outside Geraldton police station over what they alleged as the police mishandling of the investigation, a 27 year old man was charged with causing the October 5 tragedy. He was charged with failing to stop, leaving the scene, failing to render assistance and for driving in excess of 0.5.

Geraldton’s Acting Police Inspector, Senior Sergeant Tony Longhorn said that police needed time to investigate and to ensure the investigation had been done properly. Sergeant Longhorn apologised to the families and the Yamatji community for the delays and that he understood the grieving they were enduring and the questions they must have.

The victims, Horace Bynder and Christine Ryan were walking along a kerbside when the vehicle collided with them, early evening. They were known as Ozzie and Pie, and their deaths culminated in an outpouring of grief the scene of the collision, more than 100 mourners gathered for a vigil and prayer that lasted through the evening.

Two days later, Geraldton resident and former 20 year Aboriginal Visitors Scheme officer, Joyce Capewell and a dozen members from the grieving families turned up to the police station to find out what happened and why the driver, who turned himself in hours after the incident, had not been charged. By the Wednesday tensions had escalated, and more than 200 Yamatjis protested outside the police station on the Wednesday morning.

Seargeant Longhorn came out of the police station and addressed the crowd assuring that justice would not be perverted. But many from within the crowd argued “inequality”, “one rule for Aboriginal people, another for white people.”

“When will we be treated equally?” said another.

“We are all equal, colour should not matter,” said another.

Seargent Longhon said that because there were no witnesses he had to allow for forensic investigations which he said are time-consuming, and apologised where offence had been taken.

Mr Warner is an Assistant Professor in Rural Health, and he has been devastated by his daughter’s death, who leaves behind seven children. Professor Warner is known as a social justice advocate, dedicated to community development. His work with the Bundiyarra Aboriginal Community Aboriginal and the Yamatji Land and Sea Council are well-known throughout the region. He has been an interim chair of both these organisations. His work has taken him to national meetings, parliamentary committees and on international tours.

“I don’t understand why the media did not pay attention to our own, they do for everyone else. Does being Black get in the way? This is as huge a tragedy as one could imagine. What worth does a Black life have?”

“They were beautiful people, much loved.”

“We are grieving, we are hurting. We need to know what happened, how it happened, why?”

Mr Capewell said the racial tensions felt in the first week since the tragedy escalated by what she said was non-reporting by the media generated rage among Yamatjis. “People were stirred up by the media not reporting this, for not dignifying their human worth, it was salt into grievous wounds.”

“We thank the National Indigenous Radio Service, the National Indigenous Times for taking the story out, and now others have stepped up because of this. But it should not be this way. We live racism everyday of our lives, it takes its toll on us.”

“It brought back to us 1988 when young Eddie Cameron, a champion footballer in our town, was locked up one night and found dead the next morning. There were race riots, the police station stormed. We did not want to go back to then, but everyone was talking about Eddie Cameron all over again. We felt in us was the same anger as then, and this is indicative that little has changed for us that we still feel the racism, the inequality, the injustices,” said Ms Capewell.

The Yamatji community will rally in the town centre in the next week. “If a couple of hundred turned out to the police station, I assure you that hundreds more will turn out at the rally. Inequality and racism have to be done away with once and for all, we don’t have to take it.”

There is a lot of racial angst in Geraldton according to Ms Capewell. Till mid-last year she worked at Geraldton’s Greenough Prison, but has lost her job after whistleblowing about two Yamatji brothers who attempted suicide within 12 hours of each other at Greenough – a prison with 70 per cent of the prison population comprising Aboriginal peoples. This story of the double suicide attempt was published in the National Indigenous Times, mid last year, the only news media in the nation to carry the story and the concerns of Ms Capewell.

Last week, an Australian National University report written by Dr Nicholas Biddle and Francis Markham studied 43 regions in trying to pinpoint the worst of concentrated Aboriginal disadvantage. The report found that a third of Aboriginal peoples live in poverty. Geraldton, and another West Australian town, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, were found to have the highest percentage of disadvantaged Aboriginal peoples.

Ms Capewell said a young non-Aboriginal person is facing his own personal crisis, he panicked and drove away, but Ms Capewell said the real issues are why the media, till the National Indigenous Radio Service and National Indigenous Times came along, why they did not cover this tragedy, and that this would have “given no-end of respect to the victims and the families”. She said “the vigilantes would have been out to lynch us had it been one of us.”

“Our families do not get the care this young man got, and it is about time we do. If our children were treated equally before the law, maybe like this young driver, there’d be half less of our people in prisons. We will be one people in one country when all people are respected equally.”

Ms Capewell said that people should do what they can to help the grieving families “with support for funeral expenses and with financial care for the children, like they do all too often with white families victim to these tragedies. Colour should not matter. When will we live that day in Australia?”