Steven Oliver - REAL

Today, Steven Oliver has summed up in these poetic lines, what I tried to do in 90,000 words of my memoir. The next person who asks you about Aboriginal identity, simply give  them this poem!

Real

Half caste, he said to me

That I wasn’t one of those real Aborigines

Said he spent some time with them in the outback

Then he looked at my skin said I wasn’t even black

I was more of a brown he went onto explain

His voice, the whole time, a certain disdain

He stared a bit longer then said I suppose

When I look at your face I see a bit of the nose

Oh, I said, a bit taken aback

To this obvious expert on everything black

My head in a muddle just trying to see

Why this man had a need to be questioning me

I thought for a minute then said to the guy

Are you waiting for me to try and justify

The complexities of identity

When it comes to Aboriginality?

Well, he said in a know it all voice

I don’t understand how you made a choice

Proclaiming that you’re an Aboriginal

When it’s obvious that you’re not really a full

Okay I thought, I’ll play this game

And proceeded to ask him what was his name?

Christopher Smith he said full of pride

A name revealing his English side

So calmly I said, my friend what are you?

He said I’m Australian mate through and through

Now come on I said, is that not a myth?

From the Great land of England comes the name Smith

Your heritage lies in a faraway land

So to say you’re from here, I don’t understand

You’re English, you said it, it’s there in your name

And that’s when all the obscenities came

You Abo, you boong, you know it all coon

It seemed that my friend had spoken too soon

Just moments ago I was not the real thing

Yet now by his words my heritage clings

Of course he was Aussie, I knew that he was

But I wanted to show him that simply because

I have other bloodlines flowing in me

It does not alter my Identity

The lifestyle I’ve lived, the way that I’ve grown

My identity is all that I’ve ever known

Just in the way he is Anglo Saxon

But yet in his heart he is Australian

I don’t question his call, I accept it as fact

So why do his questions feel like an attack

Relentlessly judging to prove he is right

When the truth is, I’ll never be white

It seemed that the man would go back to the days

When classification was all of the craze

A quarter, a sixteenth, an eighth or a half

Fuck all that shit cos I’m full in my heart

I’m full and I’m rich thanks to my history

The roots firmly planted in my family tree

Yet he wants to judge for he learns with his eyes

Too ignorant to learn from his mind

He can’t understand what it means to be black

Yet he passes his judgement so matter of fact

I bid him good day, okay that’s a lie

I wasn’t really that nice or polite

It’s just so annoying when fools come along

Who spend their time trying to prove that you’re wrong

I don’t understand what gives them this drive

Believing that they have this God given right

To tell me what I am yet don’t know my life

The arrogance just unbelievably rife

See, there are some members in my family

Who are blessed with the gene where they’re darker than me

But to say that I’m less because my skin’s not as black

Just shows how much knowledge these idiots lack

I speak the same language, share the same roots

So why from my colour do I have to prove?

To someone who never has given a day

To sit with my family and learn of our ways

Whose eyes will not open for fear they will see

How wrong that they were in labelling me

Part Aboriginal, not really full

Sickening terms that I never will

Use to describe me or those of my peers

So to those would be experts let me make this clear

What’s in my heart, the connection I feel

Is something unseen but totally real

And unless you have lived it you don’t know it’s strength

And you’ll never disprove it no matter what length

You go to because is it something so true

Just as is the Australian in you

No matter your last name whatever it be

McGuire or Tomic or Andrews or Lee

Names that arrived from a foreign shore

Yet you are Australian to your very core

So please understand when I say that I am

A proud Australian, Aboriginal Man

And because I have other bloodlines in me

It does not alter my identity.

© Steven Oliver