RAGE FOR THE LIGHT
Dreams of Orstraya Outback
And towns like Kalgoorlie, Western Australia,
where once gold fever ran molten along the streets and
where now the gold Super Pit operates 24 hours a day
coughing up the ore of dreams, lost hopes and nightmares.
Where men are men,
and women are skimpy barmaids, topless or in transparent lingerie,
or whores tucked away in Hay Street where you can go
And watch the women sitting in brothel windows.
Kalgoorlie – where the wide streets and heritage hotels
Hide the underbelly of this outback gold-mining town:
where a white man can run over and kill an Aboriginal boy
– Joshua Doughty, 14 –
in a Nissan Navara SUV, because he believed the motorbike
Doughty was riding had been stolen from his home.
A white man gets sentenced to a pathetic three years in jail
by an all-white jury
and may be released just 18 months – 18 measly, pathetic months –
after taking the life of a son, grandson, friend to many,
because he’s got black skin.
That’s what is okay in Kalgoorlie – kill a child because a possession is worth
More than Elijah’s life.
The killer’s not alone in a town notorious for its racism:
A leaflet out the Kalgoorlie train station reads in large, red writing:
“If a thief was to steal my motorbike, I would run him down with my Nissan Navara”.
It then added “cull a thief day, justice is served”.
In this town swirling with the wealth of gold dust, a possession is worth more
Than a child’s life.
A black child’s life, that is.
Goddamn it, that child had the right to a life – to live, to laugh, to play,
To sing, to dance, to have a future, to be loved by his family.
Not to be crushed under an SUV for the sake of a thing, a possession.
Because when possessions outweigh human life
– a black kid’s life –
A society is sick, rancid and heartless.
Remember Joshua Doughty!
A pox on racism. A pox on racists.
Rage against the darkness of hate.
Rage for the light of tolerance and love of humanity,
For a better, kinder, loving world.
