In the interest of transparency and community accountability I’d like to talk about some of the white passing privileges I’ve received in my career. This isn’t intended as a humble-brag: these are opportunities I received I’m convinced we’re derived from my perceived palatability

I bet you anything my narrative has been very different to the experiences of a dark-skinned Blak woman, or a Blak woman with high community visibility and association. And we all know why that is - the arts places a premium on palatable diversity.

In 2016, at the age of 22, I was shortlisted for a First Nations writing prize. Within a week of the announcement, before my poem was even publicly available, a leading international publisher contacted me to ask about a book deal. I had only student publications at this time.

This was my headshot. I loved this photo and still do, but it’s a version of me that people who do this for a living would seize upon. This is palatable: young and sultry and at best, a bit racially ambiguous.

In following weeks I received several offers for different projects from nonAboriginal organisations to do writing workshops, public readings, commissions etc., who asked me specifically to write in language, altho they had no to few outcomes targeted towards Aboriginal audiences

I declined almost all. One org I did work with suggested a project I thought could be better filled by another blackfella, a dark skinned Blak woman I knew. At the time I didn’t understand, but the response I was given was a tactful “no we’d rather you ”

Had I unpacked that response, or known what to look for, I would have understood it for what it was - basically an implication that I’m a more palatable version of the blakness they want for their brand.

I’d probably say I’ve been asked for work from most Australian and several international publications. Many of those opportunities were organised and directed by mob, but some of those big ones who contacted me way too early in my career for it to even be a decent bet.

I’d say about half of what I published until around 2018 was mediocre, but it was still published. In a big way I feel like that’s because that writing was again, palatable - spoke about culture in tender and spiritual ways. You knew I was Blak, but not angry.

To be allowed to take up so much space when I was ridiculously young and underdeveloped for it is testament to how much the industry wants the right kind of Blak voice for the job of selling Blak culture to a white monied elite.

The industry is improving, but I can assure you that dark skinned writers don’t get the luxury of mediocrity, of work that is mostly valued because of its proximity to issues this industry wants to be seen as caring about.

Between 2016-2019 I’d probably say I was wooed by about six or seven publishers, one of which had actively screwed over my own father’s angry, not-white-passing research without realising the connection.

I was asked to judge a huge literary prize when I only had two legitimate publications to my name.

I was offered podcasts and television appearances and columns by major news syndicates. I was offered a photo shoot with a Gucci wardrobe. A major news syndicate, when I said I was too busy to write, offered to ghost-write articles for me that I’d lend my name and picture to.

I’m so proud of so many of my achievements, and of how much I worked on building myself to be a better writer. But these are not the kind of offers that a 22, 23, 23, 25 year old white passing Blak poet with an unfinished thesis and no book or mandate to her name should receive.

I know an incredibly talented dark skinned Blak poet whose manuscript was solicited by a publisher for months, only for them to take the work and literally never reply to her ever again.

I want to emphasise - these opportunities are NOT good things! I’m lucky that I had good people around me to tell me to say no as much as I did. These opportunities, had I taken them, would have ruined my career and development. I never would have found my voice and confidence.

They are absolutely traps. Industries who has an active hand in silencing and erasing Blak bodies and suffering not all that long ago now want a piece of what the last few generations struggled to give us - a voice, a space, a sense of ourselves.

Don’t sell that voice, that struggle, so that a publisher can write you a cheque for your cultural capital, only for you to be set up for failure when you try to show your face in your community again.

Right now Blak women who have no other choice but to be visibly and vulnerably BLACK, who have never received any of the support or opportunities white orgs have sent my way, are speaking up about representation and being harassed as a result.

White orgs and institutions are still trying to buy palatable versions of blackness so they don’t have to expose themselves to the possibility of being called out. No hate to white passing mob who speak up, just to say that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask who isn’t being included

This is why we need to ensure that the opportunities that come for our emerging creatives in the arts and media are led by mob. It’s too easy to be led astray, to never reach your potential. To perpetuate the cycle.

I’m at a stage now where I feel like I’ve earn’t my opportunities. Where I need to improve is on better support for others in this industry. I need to improve my communication, because I often get overwhelmed and shut down without don’t following up conversations.

My protocol has always been to give as much as I take. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s one I’m working on implementing in all my processes. If we’re going to break the cycle here, we all need to take up responsibilities, be honest about what we can change and how.