When I was in prison, an officer who i had reported to a case manager visited me in my cell & left a green sheet on my bed & pointed out every hanging point in my cell. He knew I had a history of not just suicidal ideation, but also attempted suicides. He wanted me dead.
Most people who die by suicide in prison die by hanging.
This week I asked the government when they’ll finally remove hanging points from prison cells — things like protruding shower heads and curtain fixtures.
Labor couldn’t answer the question.
The only thing that kept me from killing my self that night was a promise to my kids that I would do my best to survive and make it home to them.
These prison officers are actively killing us. The state wants us eliminated.There are no deaths in custody. We are killed in custody
Today, I submit my Masters thesis.
I started this post grad study while in prison. I am the first Aboriginal woman in SA to go to university from prison, & my cousins inside celebrated my first few ‘day leaves’ from prison to university by clapping me in & out of the prison gate
Yesterday I posted a picture of me at my graduation because I was proud of what I had achieved. I started this degree from my jail cell & completed it while still held captive by the state.
🧵
My mate just got sacked from her job because a total Karen saw her Home D bracelet peak out from beneath her long pants & complained. She is doing so well, 2 promotions, full time job, clean for 6 months. The company knew about the home d. This is what we face when we start again
Ummm so ok, but just low key excited because I may have gotten an HD for my Masters thesis….I just logged onto the uni website and there’s a grade sitting next to the thesis submission…and it’s an HD….
I don’t want to change the date, I want to abolish celebrating genocide
I don’t want to raise the age, I want to abolish caging all kids
I don’t want symbolic recognition, I want my kids to have a place in this nation that isn’t a jail cell
So, it’s my kids birthday next week, but he’ll be on Kaurna country and I’ll be on Boandik lands so I gave him his birthday present early.
I homemade him this skateboard which I painted with his story. It was a big hit! He loved it
#BrokeMamasMakeGifts
#BlakMumsHaveBigHearts
I’ve withdrawn from TEDX. This was a really hard decision for me...but to be told that talking about my people being killed in custody is too political or that my language had to be softer, I can’t in good faith be a part of a platform that requires that of me
How do you make more than 440 Blak deaths in custody palatable?
...asking for a committee who just told me my draft talk for their platform is “too political” and will make people “too uncomfortable” and maybe if I spoke softer and used less forceful language it would be better
*squeal*
Today we get the keys to our new home!
An actual rental with a proper lease & a really nice house with a room for each of my kids!
(Formerly incarcerated people will understand how monumentous this is for me, others may think it’s just normal but it’s not for us mob)
Sharing because I am crazy excited: We got a house!!! A house with an actual lease and for the first time since coming home from prison my little family will have stable housing which is nice AND clean and my kids will each have their own room!
❤️
And this…as an act of protest against the imposition of colonialism on Indigenous knowledges, as well as an act of sovereignty, I have presented my thesis as scars on this roo skin.
With amnesia day fast approaching, people often ask what they can do as allies to support Aboriginal people. I’ve come up with a few suggestions (by no means is this list exhaustive!), including ways to pay the rent: (thread)
Dear non-Aboriginal people,
Two more of my people have been killed in custody...in your system...a system which functions in your name to keep people like you safe from people like me-when the fuck are you going to stand up and say enough. When will our lives matter?
Just a mini reminder for everyone...prison visits have been closed since March....that’s more than 6 months since mothers have held their kids, more than 6 months since kids have hugged their dads.....
Every day that I went to university from prison was a blessing, & while university has not been the emancipatory pathway I imagined (its actually been another site of violence) I am relieved & excited to have achieved something, & nervous that what I have presented wont be enough
A community announcement:
I am 44 years old & have never been able to ride a bike, today I hopped on & can magically ride
I mean I can’t work out how to brake & I do this awkward stop with both feet on the ground, but I CAN RIDE A BIKE!!
Ps no-one applauded so feel free to 😂
I am the first Aboriginal person to attend university from an SA prison. I did this degree for myself, for my family, for my community and for every single body held in a cage.
I paved my own damned emancipatory pathway out of that hellhole
I just want to speak a little about why social workers are not a good alternative to the cops…and it’s important we have these yarns as we actively work to defund the police.
My 15 year old son just got pulled over by the cops today while riding his push bike....on the phone to me after the “encounter”, he was audibly shaken & scared...he says, “at least they didn’t bash me mum”
THIS IS THE REALITY FOR BLAK KIDS & why we must abolish the police
And my thesis comes with a big fuck you to the system that caged me. To the officer who told me I wouldn’t ever amount to anything because I was nothing more than trash, to the officers that touched me, swore at me, abused me, stripped me & violated me – Fuck you
I will never forget my cousin Naomi saying, “sis, it’s deadly to see one of our own getting out of this place to do something booey. Kill it sis. You doin’ this for all of us now.”
Cuz, I took that responsibility seriously
Ok, I’m shameless and hugely proud that my nine year old daughter, Mabel, won the design competition for Survival Day 2020 here in SA. Her design is on posters, T-shirt’s and on a massive banner at Tandanya. Soooo proud!!!
Today is a bad day and I have nothing intelligent to contribute to Twitter today, so I’m putting up the last painting I did, to remind me that when words fail you, art is a faithful companion...
...to the women who let me go ahead of them in the phone line so I could have that sweet ten-minute yarn with my baby girl and the women who made every single day in hell less torturous.
Because, to those women I am indebted.
it is because of them, I am alive
So the work that I did is dedicated to all of the women inside: to the women who smiled at me when I cried, the women who told me that “the prison can’t keep you forever, bub”, the women who braided my hair...
I’ve been to prison, I can tell you about the conditions, the healthcare (or lack of), the violence, the torture, the brutality, the dehumanisation, the racism ... do not tell me my people die of natural causes inside.
YOUR SYSTEM KILLS US
We don’t die. You TAKE our lives
Aboriginal people have been studied, stolen, catalogued, displayed, exotified, eroticized, homogenised, classified and marginalised for 233 years. I cannot willingly submit my people, my experiences (or theirs) to that same level of exploitation.
Like most people, I’ve been watching on with interest and admiration at the way
@TamePunk
and
@BrittHiggins_
are speaking truth to power.
It’s about fucking time that the halls of white political privilege have the harsh light of day shone on them
🧵
@agnesfrim
Once I was on the bus crying all the way back from the cardiologist after being told I had to have heart surgery. I was the only person on the bus. The driver pulled over and sat with me and told me it would all be ok. I will never forget that
Instead, I present a paper filled with poetic offerings, stories and commentary, accompanied by a scarred Kangaroo skin exploring my findings, presented as my old people will it.
While women in this country take to the streets to march on stolen land, I’m going to remember my sistas sitting in cages being violated by the State every single day & I’ll wonder whether any thought will be given to them today: will their emancipation or lives matter?
Just another reminder for those of you that have forgotten, prisoners serving a sentence longer than three years can’t vote in this referendum.
That means mob can’t have a say in their own future…their voices are snuffed out in a vote about whether they can have a voice …
🤷🏽♀️
But lets not muck arround here – those of you that racially vilified me, or thought you were “outing” me through my criminal record or diminished my achievement because of “who” or “what” I was, or poked fun at my roo skin – you are straight up THUGS.
As we bear witness to two more people killed in custody, I’m again wondering how this is not a national emergency....and then I realise, oh yeah our Blak lives don’t actually matter
Raise the roof “allies”, we need you to rip this house apart
So weird when someone assumes you’re bragging or when being proud of what you have achieved is a bad thing. When I started my Masters I was in prison. I am the first Aboriginal person to ever attend university from an SA prison. 1/5
@haveachattabs
I would never tweet to brag about grades, but I am happy for others when they do it. Congratulations! I bet you really stuck it to the status quo.
You are the foot soldiers of a White supremacist carceral system that relies on ununiformed civilian self-deputised soldiers to dole out pain & humiliation to subjugate & control people like me. The system may have decided I am a criminal but it is you that chooses to be a thug.
To use my people’s pain & suffering to gain my degree would make me just as dishonorable as the white researcher who has made their career off the backs of Blacks.
Unsure who needs to hear this, but your positive experience with the police does not outweigh the fact that the entire colonial criminal punishment system in this country was built upon a bedrock of white supremacy and institutionalised racism and it’s killing some of us
How do you make more than 440 Blak deaths in custody palatable?
...asking for a committee who just told me my draft talk for their platform is “too political” and will make people “too uncomfortable” and maybe if I spoke softer and used less forceful language it would be better
Look, thanks Jenny Morrison for waking your husband up to the suffering people with endometriosis endure, but could you do me a solid and let him know my mob are dying from rheumatic heart disease when no one else in this hell hole of a colony is?
My kids have just found out that their dad in prison has Covid…
Fuck this system. As if my kids don’t have to deal with enough, and now this stress is added to their shoulders.
If you’re happy to be a thug, that's your choice. But put away your self righteous, holier than now rubbish and admit you’re a grub like all the others.
PS: I overcame a lot of shit to make something of my life, what have you overcome lately?
It’s trans day of visibility today. Check out these images and be better. Fuck off with your trans exclusionary behaviour and non intersectional feminism and JUST BE BETTER. People’s lives depend on it
4 people killed in a fortnight & we don’t hear a whisper, let alone a roar.
Where are all of you feminists who marched for yt women? Where are you when the system is lynching my people?
Allies? Pfft-We don’t need allies, or accomplices, we need you to get out of the fucking way
Yesterday, I got taken to hospital by ambulance because of my heart condition (thanks prison health), as I came around in the ambo I had a full on PTSD attack thinking they were taking me back to prison....
But posting that photo of me in the kangaroo skin I scarred myself, that held the story of my name – Budhin Mingaan – with Bunjil, the creator - brought all of the racists to my inbox. Actually, not just racists but carceral apologists.
When I went to jail I lost me, I lost my identity and everything I am. I gave up and thought my life was over. I was beaten, assaulted, abused and all of that was before I was locked in that teeny, tiny cage.
I want to talk a little bit about juries, because I’m really pissed off reading statuses and tweets from yt fullas shocked that the Rolfe trial was an all white jury.
🧵
I see it all the time on twitter. The question gets thrown at fellow abolitionists like an arrow meant to wound: “but what are you going to do with all of the rapists & murderers?”
🧵
Being a landlord on stolen and occupied lands means you should be demonised in the “housing debate”
And ps, Karen: it’s not a self funded retirement if we’re all out here funding your damned retirement
Last time I had a mammogram I was in prison & was escorted to hospital by officers, one of which stood next to me the entire time my breasts got squished. Today I had one & I can’t even tell you how much better it is to do this test in private while being treated like a human
I have been thinking about this requirement for us to always show gratitude to the colony. Recently my son won an award from the state govt. He was one of 15 Aboriginal kids in the state to receive it and the govt wanted to present it at the school assembly
This kid.
Mabel is
@UndercoverKind1
and is a beautiful human being.
She’s had the hardest start to life, losing both her parents to prison (one is still in jail).
Last year she averaged less than 50% attendance at school. This year she is the top attendee 🧵
A little thread about the impact of carceral trauma…
Last night laying in bed with my partner. You know in that quiet time just before you’re about to submit to sleep, relaxed and chatting…
Pls stop saying:
“too many Aboriginal deaths in custody” or “unacceptably high numbers of deaths in custody” in your reports & funding apps...
The quantity IS a problem, but in our view NO Aboriginal person should die in custody, there is no acceptable amount of Blak deaths
I have never denied I have a criminal record and I have never denied that I am Blak. I know you will treat me as though I am disposable, I expect it (hence my twitter handle), because that is exactly the way the system is designed.
I know my current station in life.
Just a Wednesday morning reminder that wealth accumulation in this country is inextricably linked to the slavery, genocide and exploitation of Aboriginal people
1/3
I am happy
Like happier than I’ve ever been
My kids are rad
I’m in love with a guy who is gentle & kind & loving & doesn’t cut the corners off my quirky self
I have a new house
I report to a new corrections office so 🤞🏽 it’s less assholish
That’s it. That’s my broadcast ❤️
Since coming home from prison, my focus has been on abolition of the prison industrial complex. I am convinced that it is the only common-sense option we have. I am certain it is the only safe way for my people to endure this colony.
I'm now so disengaged from the Voice stuff because I feel entirely unrepresented by it. The more Yt fullas talk it up, the more it feels like a mechanism to assuage white guilt & nothing more...I want land back, I want reparations & I want abolition, not inclusion in the colony
As an abolitionist the 1st question I am asked is “what will you do with all the rapists?” Well let me tell you, right now they’re in the parliament, police forces, football teams, boardrooms, our homes...
Police & prisons do not prevent or solve violence, they perpetrate it
As we bear witness to another death in custody & collective silence from the white black lives matter social media crew...know that our hearts are heavy. This grief changes us on a molecular level. We are not ok. Our community has been in a state of perpetual mourning for 232 yrs
When you are property of the state, there are constant reminders that the state owns you & your body becomes theirs to do as they will.
I am getting married next month and we have been deep in the throes of planning a very simple, totally understated, very low budget wedding
🧵
Just completed my routine drug testing at parole....and the officer recorded down on my form that I was “polite and compliant”...why does that make me feel so gross?
(Ps: my disdain must have been well disguised today)
One of the things I don’t talk about much in all of the re-entry struggles is the effect on my kids.
My 10yo daughter has a huge amount of trauma from my incarceration.
This is a thread about one of the manifestations of her trauma...
We drove out of Meeanjin today to Toowoomba to visit my mothers grave for the very first time in my whole life.
And I cried. I cried fat ugly years. Ugly tears because I was close to her, for the first time in 45 years
Today was a big day. My Aunty Mina (on my mother’s side) visited me and took me to the river’s edge for healing. She brought with her messages from my Mother who rests in the dreaming.
I am so blessed to be Blak. Honestly, I LOVE my people
Is anyones else’s facebook feed full of white fullas super excited about the Uluṟu statement being implemented, or is it just me? And are these fullas reading the room and wondering why it’s only them getting excited?
I’m glad that cops are out of Mardi Gras, can we now work on getting them out of our schools, our sports programs, our community events like NAIDOC, Rec Week, etc.
They have NO place in our communities.
We do not feel safe in their presence.
A question I’m asked as an abolitionist is ‘what will you do with all the rapists?’
As a rape victim, I am sensitive to this question & understand people’s concerns
Here is some of my thoughts on the matter
(these are my thoughts, I do not speak for all rape victims)
A thread
Even though I’m not held in a physical cage anymore, I find myself still using some of the coping techniques I developed inside.
People inside are ingenious at developing "work arounds" for all kinds of things.
I want to tell you about this thing called a “prison shower”
🧵
The Nunga kids group at my daughter’s school is collecting bottles & cans to raise money to buy Aboriginal authored books for the school library. I am so proud of them BUT it makes me wild that Blak kids must do the labour daily just to see themselves represented in spaces.
1. Contribute to the Free her campaign by
@DebKilroy
which pays off the court debts of Aboriginal women incarcerated in Western Australia for defaulting on fines. Poverty must never be a crime:
I’ve had around twenty messages from ppl telling me to watch the 4corners ep from last night, which I had, and I’m going to lay out some of my thoughts here...
My kid this morning: “I don’t want to go to school today, it’s clean up Australia Day, and you know what, I didn’t make this mess, they did, so I’m gonna tell them they can clean this place up and then give me my country back” 😂
This is Blak brilliance: My kid graduates tonight from his program with the state Aboriginal basketball academy...and he’s just been selected to play another year in the academy in 2021 and I’m so freaking proud that my heart could literally burst open right now
#SAASTA
Cops are not our saviours.
Criminalising CC will not make women like me safer, nor will it pave a path to safety or liberation. It will put us directly in the firing line for more carceral violence and even death.
So listen to us. Just listen. Stand down, stand back & listen