I’ve spent a year in one of Australia’s whitest towns and I’ve learnt they don’t like talking about colour.
As a brown person, that’s a problem.
My complexion, darker than most residents here, is an integral part of my identity — and in the past couple of weeks, it’s been the subject of racist vitriol.
“I’m getting a little bit sick of this diversity crap,” one comment said, on a post featuring a picture of me, uploaded on a Facebook group with around 10,000 followers.
It’s a group I’m part of, a small-town community’s one-stop-social networking forum, where they discuss chooks for sale, nostalgic scenes from the town’s golden years, spectral fiery sunsets.
And now? They’ve also opened up the platform to question the circumstances behind my hiring as a journalist at the local paper in the Victorian town — “Why wasn’t this job given to someone that lives in Maryborough, why did it have to go to a person of “COLOUR”.
An egregious question that belongs in an ignorant past.
They were no doubt alluding to the picture’s caption which noted I am the first journalist of colour to work at the town’s local paper in its 150-year history.
“No such thing as black and white we are all human beings…” another commenter wrote.
Being a person of colour, often means that our ethnicity bleeds into our professional lives — heightened discrimination, limited job prospects and the ongoing task of navigating subtle, undermining micro-aggressions.
To take away our colour is to pale the significance of the obstacles we’ve encountered.
This unsolicited social media commentary followed the release of SBS’ Meet the Neighbours documentary, a series that shadowed me and seven other diverse migrant households as we settled in Maryborough, the backdrop of the show.
Maryborough, like many regional Australian towns, is sitting at the precipice of decline unless it works towards tipping the scales in its favour. With an ageing population, skilled worker shortages and declining birthrates, an invaluable solution emerges, one that is worth its weight in gold: the inclusion of migrants.
Hoping to integrate with the locals in the town, migrants, like the series’ participants, can bring a plurality of ideas and the resulting diversity makes host communities more resilient as the inevitable future ordeals roll in — together, we can fortify.
Theoretical appeal aside, there are still barriers in getting skilled migrants to settle in these regional areas, but the most formidable obstacle, in my experience, has been the outright refusal to acknowledge, let alone address, these hurdles.
Since the series aired, I’ve been approached countless times by well-meaning locals, and all the conversations we have, often sidestep the challenges I and the other households faced.
More than a face on their TV screens, I’ve become a sounding board — they talk to me about their own relationship with the town, eager to tell me that racism doesn’t exist in Maryborough.
Every day a caucasian person parrots the same sentence and yet, no one has asked me if I think that’s true.
If they did, I, who has been on the receiving end of many casually racist remarks in the past year, would tell them otherwise.
But is Maryborough and indeed the entire country, ready to have that conversation?
With the rest of the nation watching on, Meet the Neighbours is reflective of Maryborough’s courage in confronting its lack of diversity.
Now, the town needs to maintain its pace and set a course of action by embracing the insights mirrored in the documentary, leveraging its strengths and addressing its weaknesses.
The town, once again has an opportunity to set an example.
Change, an undeniable constant, is coming and like Maryborough, other struggling regional Australian towns, are at an important juncture — they hold the reins of their transition, away or towards invigoration.
If faced with those Facebook comments a year ago, I would’ve considered leaving immediately.
But continuing to stay in Maryborough meant I had the privilege of sharing the community’s stories, while fostering connections that still deeply resonate with me.
These ties have also revealed that grappling with misguided prejudices isn’t as straightforward as I once believed – opening doors to conversations I never imagined I’d have.
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I can only that, along with the other participants, I have influenced the town similarly, sparking at the very least, acknowledgment of the challenges we’ve had to contend with.
And in doing so, together we might have just kickstarted a crucial conversation all of Australia can join in.
Meet the Neighbours is available now to stream free on SBS On Demand
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