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With all these bonkers visa restrictions, I've been thinking a lot about Aboriginal English. I used to be so shame about how my mum chose to speak it (chose, because like me, she could of course code-switch). This shame was really taught to me at school, and by ~nice~ white folks
Thing is, a phrase like 'what for good that?' isn't actually an English construction. It's a Gamilaraay construction forced onto English. For a person that wasn't permitted to speak her tongue, under threat of serious violence, this is rebellion. Clever, cunning, cheeky rebellion
She took English, and filled it from the inside with Gamilaraay almost to the point that it burst. But just not quite. A just not quite that protected her. It took me so long to realise how truly clever this was. And how really it was no less than solid anti-colonial work.
Aboriginal English is not wrong or lesser. It's clever. But a type of clever that would for sure fail the visa test.
Point is, this suggested visa test and the linguistic unsalted chicken it's aiming for is so backward. White Australia policy backward. The same shame backward.
Point is, this suggested visa test and the linguistic unsalted chicken it's aiming for is so backward. White Australia policy backward. The same shame backward.
