RIGHT-WING REACTIONARIES ARE A DISTRACTION.

I remember my father telling me about an occasion where he and the inspiration for the character of Redmond Mountford were driving (Redmond was behind the wheel) when they saw an Asian woman whose car had broken down. Dad said that they should stop and give her a hand, to which Redmond replied, “No, she’s only a (insert racist term). Leave her.” This was a man, who, later, bought a Japanese vehicle, came on a road trip with a Korean television set (a Samsung), ate Chinese food, and was to learn that his great-grandfather was Chinese. He became more racist after learning the latter.

I remember when the police officers who bashed Rodney King were acquitted and the killing of Floyd George and how the latter gave birth to the Black Lives Matter Movement. I also remember, in November, 1987, when a schoolgirl living in Noosa Heads, Queensland, was abducted, raped and murdered by a First Nations Man. What wasn’t known by some is, while the schoolgirl was blonde with blue eyes and fair skin, she had Maori ancestry.

My grandfather used to say that if someone’s going to be bad, they’re going to be bad, regardless of ethnicity. The man who murdered the Noosa schoolgirl did so because he was a sexually depraved individual, not because he was a First Nations Person.

A good starting point for people should be To Kill A Mockingbird. Tom Robinson is unjustly accused and convicted of a rape he didn’t commit due to racism. Nobody is saying that there aren’t POC who don’t do bad things, it’s the systemic racism and othering that is being called out!

All the right-wingers who try to pass motions that all lives matter are doing is ensuring prejudice and privilege are retained! And let us not forget in Australia that one right-wing reactionary tried to move a motion that all lives matter yet claimed that she was fed up to the back teeth with hearing about how we need to protect the vulnerable and that they should stay at home and let others have a life. Well, what a hypocrite! It’s not that all lives matter, just that privileged lives matter.

This was the same ignoramus who stood up and ranted that autistic kids were a strain on classrooms. Autistic kids can, in some cases, be the ones wanting to get ahead. I remember, at school, doing really well in the school spell-a-thon, but unfortunately, prizes were awarded to kids who raised the most money or had the most sponsors and those who came top in their class were overlooked. Even my own mother told someone that she wasn’t sure how I spelt words and that I must visualize them.

Another right-winger speaks from a position of privilege by saying that state governments are acting like health economists and that people should be permitted to die naturally. Again, a distraction.

All lives will not matter until all lives matter equally, and in that area, as the fictional Redmond Mountford demonstrates, society has a long way to go. We may never be able to convince enough people that the Right is wrong, but hopefully, we can.