When it comes to racism perpetuated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country, one thing is for certain: we cannot rely on the mainstream media to tell the truth of the situation.
Consider what happened back in January when Network 10's Studio 10 panel show turned its attention to this year's Invasion Day protests. Attendances at the protests have been surging, with 80,000 people estimated to have been at the Melbourne one this year, and some 50,000 people attending the Sydney one.
I don’t think many of us were prepared for the vitriol displayed on Studio 10 by Kerri-Anne Kennerley the Monday after the rallies. Beginning by misrepresenting the rally numbers in Sydney as a mere 5000, she proceeded to attack the attendees, asking: 'Has any single one of those people been out to the Outback, where children, babies, five year olds, are being raped? Their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped. They get no education. What have you done?'
To Studio 10's shame, the only person to call out this statement was Yumi Stynes — the only woman of colour on the panel. Though she called out the statement calmly and accurately, highlighting Kennerley's racism, she was later vilified for daring to suggest that a white woman making racist generalisations with no knowledge of the protests themselves was a 'racist'. Stynes has not appeared on the show since.
Instead of learning from the fallout, Studio 10 doubled down. The following day, they allowed Kennerley an opportunity to criticise Stynes and repeat her racist comments. They additionally chose to hold a 'debate', engaging Aboriginal right wing figure and unsuccessful CLP candidate for the seat of Lingiari, Jacinta Price, whose very presence seemed designed to mollify Kennerly and to undermine any claims that her words had been racist.
Not only that, her presence allowed for the denigration of another Aboriginal woman on screen for their entertainment. Lidia Thorpe is a former Greens Politician, current community activist, women's advocate and a strong figure in the Indigenous rights movement in Victoria. She has additionally been open about having to rebuild her life after leaving a domestic violence situation.
Despite her expertise, attempts to silence Thorpe were a feature of this 'debate'. Price derided, mocked and rolled her eyes while Kennerley repeated her offensive line from the previous day and showed 'offence' at Thorpe daring to bring up the topic of white privilege. It was an appalling display which showed there really was no care for Aboriginal women victims. The goal was purely to undermine Indigenous rights movements using Aboriginal women and children as a trump card.
"It's a sad state of affairs that it took the woman who had been abused relentlessly for pointing out Kennerley's racism to speak up before we finally got some accurate reporting on the ACMA findings."
I think back to that 'debate' and I wish it could have been investigated. At least the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) elected to investigate the segment containing Kennerley's initial offence. Its findings were handed down a couple of days ago. Again the mainstream media sprang into action.
A report in the Sydney Morning Herald claimed Kennerley had been cleared. It quoted some mealy-mouthed comments from Kennerley claiming she had been vindicated and that she had looked up a dictionary definition of 'racism' so she knew she was not racist.
As a final insult, the report referred glowingly to Kennerley's visit to the Northern Territory at the invitation of the Tangentyere Women's Family Safety Group, highlighting Kennerley's thoughts on the work of these women while failing to report group spokeswoman Shirleen Campbell's more nuanced and, at times, critical views of this exchange.
Many, including myself, were critical of the alleged ACMA findings outlined in this report until Yumi Stynes took to social media to correct the record. Rather than Kennerley, it was found that Channel 10 itself had not breached any standards by airing the segment, purely for the reason that 'the segment included material which offered counterpoints to Ms Kennerley's views and thereby contextualised them as one of many views on the panel'.
The findings singled out Stynes' challenge to Kennerley as the mitigating factor. Kennerley's comments, on the other hand, were found to be based on race and were noted to be 'capable of provoking strong negative feelings in a reasonable person'.
It's a sad state of affairs that it took the woman who had been abused relentlessly for pointing out Kennerley's racism to speak up before we finally got some accurate reporting on the ACMA findings. Yet despite great articles correcting the record by James Hall and Amanda Meade, ultimately this entire process has left me cold.
Does all this mean that it's always going to be perfectly fine to make racist generalisations about Aboriginal people on television while concurrently showing complete ignorance of our social justice movements provided that there is at least one other panellist there with enough knowledge on racism to call it out?
If no other panellist is willing to take a stand, will such comments be found to be in breach of ACMA standards or will the ACMA find some other way to mitigate them according to their 'high threshold tests of "intense dislike" or "serious" contempt'? Finally, if the media cannot even be counted on to report racism as actual racism and instead bends over backwards to exonerate those who have offended, what is the media actually for?
I know one thing: this fiasco has done nothing to address the racism that Aboriginal people face, nor has it remotely helped the plight of Aboriginal abuse sufferers. Considering another January is just around the corner, I am therefore certain that a repeat performance, by Kennerley or any other number of white media commentators unwilling to take responsibility for their actions, is inevitable.
Celeste Liddle is a trade unionist, a freelance opinion writer and social commentator. She blogs at Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist.
Main image: Kerri-Anne Kennerley in Sydney in February 2018. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images)