The experience, on both sides of that door, tells me something about the damage that has been done. I've been in shops where people keep their eyes on us. I've had police pull up our car. I listen to talkback radio, and I know the lines. People claim an Aboriginal identity to get on the gravy train that leads to all the supposedly massive financial benefits of being Aboriginal.
Some people sneer at black armband history.
And here I am wearing my little black heart on my sleeve. I read one of the case studies in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. A young man found that he was of Aboriginal descent. In the days before his death he'd made a boomerang, and someone had seen him standing in front of a mirror in a one-legged stance, one foot resting on the thigh of the other leg. You know, like the image on tea towels.