"With us, not about us" - Reflections from a whitefella on allyship
A learning journey where I consider what the phrase means for me, and how best to honor it.
I don’t want to write these articles alone, but I don’t know how else to start. In truth, I am not alone, but it’s a feeling worth unpacking.
Positionality statement.
Who am I? Why am I writing any of this? What is my motivation?
Before delving into the reflections shared in this post, it's crucial to introduce myself and acknowledge my positionality. I plan to write a much deeper version of a positionality statement in time, one that details the journey I’ve been on, and that hopefully gives some deeper sense of who I am and what I care about – and why, and how I came to.
But that’s a work in progress. That’ll take some time. It’s daunting to think about, and even more daunting to try writing about. I am the type of person who can get easily overwhelmed by things, so I try taking one small step at a time.
In my opening post, I said I have a lot of things I want to talk about, but the first thing on the list was this deeper positionality statement. It’s my priority, but because it’s a big undertaking for me, that means it probably won’t come first – even though I wish it could, and even though it probably should.
In the meantime, I hope this shorter account will do. It comes from the heart. It is honest if nothing else.
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I am Nick Blood. I am non-Indigenous. I’m Irish-descended, but I have no meaningful connection at this point to Irish country or culture. I have no meaningful connection to Australian country or culture either, and this makes me feel homeless and stateless, without any real identity.
My family history is one of ongoing settler colonisation in Australia (and that too is something I plan to detail further in time). My family history is one of working with Aboriginal people too, and I want to honour that work my ancestors did, alongside working to undo the harms that settler colonisation – which I am an ongoing participant in and beneficiary of – have brought.
I’m writing from Yuin Country on the South Coast of NSW where I moved recently. Life here is isolated. I’ve started this blog because I want to learn, but also because it’s one way to feeling less disconnected from the world. Writing, researching, engaging with people about what I write here is a way for me to learn, and to connect.
I have social anxiety. I am socially awkward. I find it difficult to make friends, and don’t have many. I find it harder than I think most people do to make friends, connect with community, and be social. That’s another reason I turn to expressing myself like this. Here in a quiet room, I can gather my thoughts, and communicate with others at a pace, and in a way, that I find less overwhelming.
I do all this for many other reasons. One big reason is because I find it healing. I latched onto an Indigenous Studies major at uni because I found it healing. Before that, I was studying Corporate Sustainability. The idea that I’d gone to uni to learn how to greenwash for capitalist corporations made me very sick, and very unhappy.
Being a white person brought up in white culture and surrounded by it for four decades has made me sick in the same way white culture has made our planet sick. I feel polluted, in my thoughts, in my body, in my heart. Living in a colony makes me sick. Being surrounded everywhere by the signs of late-stage capitalism makes me sick. Patriarchy makes me sick (I’m non-binary).
I turn to Aboriginal ideas partly out of necessity, because like our planet, being soaked in this white way of being is slowly killing me. I am no white saviour. I am much closer to someone in need of saving. I do not have some ‘noble savage’ idea of Aboriginal culture and people where I see them as some utopian thing, some panacea to all my problems. All I know for sure is that it doesn’t make me sick and unhappy like those other things did. It gives me hope for a different way, a different future. That is where the healing comes from.
I have no real connection to Country, not like mob do. I harm it more than I care for it, and that harms me too. I want to change those patterns.
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My intent in sharing these reflections today is rooted in a genuine commitment and striving toward understanding and respecting the 'with us, not about us' concept in Aboriginal contexts. I need to grapple with this, and I need to do it early in this undertaking because it’s a question that hangs over my head, making me second-guess whether I should be writing any of this at all.
I don't claim to represent Indigenous perspectives, obviously I can’t claim to, shouldn’t claim to. But I hope I can still quote from Indigenous voices and bring them into this conversation in ways that I hope centre Indigenous perspectives.
I hope to contribute to conversations around allyship, collaboration, and the interconnectedness of our struggles. I don’t need this contribution to be big, or groundbreaking. I don’t need to say anything new or revelatory. I just need to say something, to start, to do something more than just sleepwalk into a planetary ecological oblivion, into a personal spiritual annihilation.
I recognize the importance of acknowledging my position as a non-Indigenous person and am open to feedback, insights, and learning from the diverse voices that make up our community.
I will make mistakes. I will try not to, but I will. I can only hope to learn from them, and I can only ask for people’s patience as I continue to learn.
Introduction
Today’s reflection is on the phrase “with us, not about us”. It’s an older saying than I realized and has been used more broadly than I first thought. According to some light research into the etymology, the phrase dates back to at least the 1500’s in Central Europe, where the original "Nothing about us without us" (Latin: Nihil de nobis, sine nobis) spoke to democratic norms of consultation and inclusion. It picked up modern popularity in the 90s as disability advocates employed the term, and since then, has continued to expand into new spaces.
I wanted to talk about its use in Indigenous spaces. I reflect often on how exactly to think about it, so I wanted to share those thoughts and invite others to provide theirs. Writing this was a learning journey. I feel differently about it now, having finished the piece, but I wanted to chart this learning journey publicly so folks can see where I landed, and how.
“With us, not about us” from Aboriginal perspectives.
‘Nothing about us, without us is a phrase that represents our rightful call as Indigenous peoples to control our own destinies and to be given decision-making power over things that affect us at all levels of government and leadership.’ – Jessa Rogers (Wiradjuri) for Woroni
"...good intentions are not enough. What settlers need to understand are the principles of proper allyship. This requires not acting on behalf of someone, but ceding space and decisional authority to others, and privileging the voices and experiences of First Nations Peoples and communities. First Nations communities get to decide on all matters related to themselves and their knowledges. Allies need to understand this is not negotiable." - Kelly Menzel (Ngadjuri, Bundjalung Nation) and Richard Matthews, for The Conversation.
‘I can assure you that we as Aboriginal people want to be on a journey with you. This journey however, must be one that enables us to be the best that ‘we’ want to be, not a journey in which we are forced to be who ‘you’ want us to be. Let me assure you that as Aboriginal people we have an interest in being the exceptional people that we can be and often are. None of us aspire to be downtrodden, uneducated, disempowered and dysfunctional.’ - Chris Sarra (Goreng Gorgen) for NITV.
‘The Prime Minister and Minister for Indigenous Affairs never tire of talking about how they want to do things with us, not to us. That they want new ways of working with Aboriginal people. Yet here is a program that affects the lives of 29,000 Indigenous people and has caused immense harm, and we still can’t get confirmation of a process that includes us.’ – John Paterson (Ngalakan), for The Mandarin
‘We have a simple truth here: believe it or not, Aboriginal people know what’s best for Aboriginal people. All we want is a say in our own affairs, not a veto, not an advantage over others. We want a fair go. And a voice will help us get it
...The majority of Australians already agree that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should have a say on policies and programs that have a significant impact on us. But we need this to be an enduring agreement from Australians.
Saying yes to this being included in our constitution is a decision about what kind of Australia we want to live in. A decision on what kind of future we want for all of us, not just for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.’ – Pat Turner (Arrernte and Gurdanji) speaking on the Aboriginal Voice to Parliament, for The Guardian
‘Young Aboriginal people in this study expressed a desire to be involved in making “white-fella law” and said their involvement could produce “better laws” that are more attuned to Aboriginal culture and their community’s needs. And yet, these same young people confirmed they had never been asked for their views about any proposed policy that will impact their lives (such as the Intervention and alcohol regulations) by any government official. Significantly, they said they felt valued, listened to and heard in their family, community and school.
Governments should respond to the call from a young person (16 years old) in this research, when she invited Australian governments to: “Just ask us. Come and see us”.’ - Bhiamie Williamson (Euahlayi) and Holly Doel-Mackaway, on the NT intervention and media coverage of young Aboriginal people, for The Conversation.
Grappling with the idea as a white settler colonizer.
I often understand this idea, in this space, to be a warning of sorts for whitefellas like me: don’t just talk about Aboriginal people and Aboriginal issues, talk with Aboriginal people about their issues – do things with us, not to us. The logic and ethic here is intuitive and hard to disagree with: it’s better to bring the people being talked about into the discussion. This is for all kinds of good reasons.
For one, inclusion is generally a good thing – doubly so in contexts where exclusion of Indigenous peoples has been a historical (often ongoing) norm. Australians recently voted in a referendum on an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament that – among myriad aims – sought to redress that exclusion by creating a body that could make it easier for policymakers to work with Aboriginal people. From that perspective, it is tragic that our country voted “no” in the referendum, against the Voice, because without it we’ve arguably made it harder for policymakers to work with Aboriginal people.
Working with people directly involved in an issue also ensures a more genuine representation of their experiences and perspectives. Throughout Australia’s history, from policymaking to anthropology, white people have often passed laws concerning Aboriginal people, or spoken authoritatively about Aboriginal peoples and cultures in their papers, without meaningfully including Aboriginal experience and perspectives. The result has often been harmful laws, and harmful claims presented as “knowledge” that misunderstand, stereotype, or misrepresent.
A ”with” approach also can be about empowerment, about recognizing Aboriginal agency to influence and contribute to discussions. It can mean recognizing Aboriginal expertise in Aboriginal matters – seeing Aboriginal people as intellectual, cultural, and moral authorities. In this way, a “with” approach might help inclusion extend beyond a box-checking PR exercise to become something more substantive and meaningful, where Eurocentric thinking and leadership is decentered in recognition of that authority. A “with” approach can act as a pathway to authentic contribution and Indigenous leadership, rather than just symbolic representation. Autonomy and self-determination are related factors. A “with” approach helps me avoid speaking for Aboriginal people and instead cultivates a respect for Aboriginal people’s capacity to speak for themselves.
When Aboriginal issues are human issues.
The waters can feel muddied somewhat here for me, because on a great many issues involving Aboriginal people and ideas, I feel they concern all of us. For example, when comparing Aboriginal ontologies to Eurocentric ones, I often want to make a point about sustainability, longevity, and the ecological crises that Eurocentric ontologies of incommensurability with nature have wrought (I plan to write a piece on this eventually, it’s one of the Things I Want to Talk About). In this way, an ostensibly Aboriginal issue is also a human issue – when we turn our backs on a relationship with nature, we are all harmed. The dying planet that created is everyone’s concern (or it should be).
This idea is powerfully reflected in the words of Lilla Watson, a Gangulu artist, academic and activist from Central Queensland. At the 1985 UN Decade for Women Conference in Nairobi, she (and others, as I will note) birthed a famous quote that would inspire countless people and organizations to come:
‘If you have come to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together.’
What this quote does for someone like me, in the position I am, with the worries I have – it’s immense. It is liberating, empowering, and enabling for me to see an Aboriginal woman of great intellectual and cultural authority arrive at the same conclusion I have almost 40 years later. I feel it gives me permission to view ostensibly Aboriginal issues as ones that concern me – all of us – too. It’s enabling because without it, I don’t know if I’d have the confidence to do that. In the Pat Turner quote that leads this article, I find that same inspiration.
I want to note briefly that I wasn’t aware of this quote – nor any of the starting quotes in this piece –until I began writing this article. That speaks to why I’m doing any of this at all. My learning journey is always ongoing. I’ve come here to learn, more than teach. If I do engage in teaching moments, it is because that is a pathway to further learning. On a recent cultural tour of Yuin Country where I live, I had the pleasure of chatting with a local high school teacher. She helpfully shared with me that teaching is recognized as one of the best ways to retain information and learn it. Like Lilla’s words, that also reassures me. It encourages me to go on with this.
I found my way to Lilla’s quote through an article by Luke Pearson, a Gamilaroi man responsible for founding IndigenousX. Nothing about us, without us. That's why we need Indigenous-owned media states the headline of the Guardian article, and at the end of it, are “her” words. Interestingly, they are attributed to a ‘collective of Aboriginal voices’ and not just the one individual in Lilla Watson. This was corrected in the article by an amendment that followed 11 days after publication. That correction may have something to teach me too.
Nobody truly works or walks alone.
I know Luke well – not personally, but through his teachings. I once sat in a University of Canberra media studies class in which he was a memorable guest lecturer, talking us through the journey he’d been on establishing IndigenousX, about life as a fair-skinned Aboriginal man, and about media more generally. It was an incredibly illuminating lecture, and from that moment on, his name flashes out at me like a neon sign wherever I see it.
Another benefit of a “with” approach is in relationship building and garnering trust. Me sitting on my own in a room right now, writing about Aboriginal people? That isn’t actively building any relationships – or rather, it’s not building relationships unless this can also become a springboard that enables them (an idea I’ll explore further in a moment). It would be ideal if, instead of sitting here on my own, I was talking these things out with someone. Better still if I was writing this with someone.
But how to begin that process when I’ve brought nothing concrete to the table? Perhaps this work here is a proof of commitment – a demonstration that I am willing to spend my time and energies on serious reflection and the pursuit of broader understandings. Perhaps this is already relationship-building, just over larger timescales than I first appreciated. It is a foundation on which I might build future relationships, and it is the result of many relationships I already have.
So perhaps I am not alone after all, as previous paragraphs might suggest. Maybe a “with” approach can be something that unfolds over greater lengths of time (going back, and into the future) than I initially thought and portrayed.
Yes, I am writing this alone in a room, but the path I took to get here was not walked alone. Indeed, I’d never be writing this and would likely be ignorant of it all if it weren’t for the many relationships I have with people, Aboriginal and otherwise.
The number of Aboriginal people who have guided me to this place is beyond the counting. Some of this has come in a direct form, through face-to-face advice and conversation with me, or from Aboriginal students and lecturers that helped me through my Australian Indigenous Studies major. Some through the work of Aboriginal and Indigenous thinkers and creators communicating to the world through academic papers, media articles, interviews, art, literature, and guest lectures like Luke’s.
I would deride any billionaire that pushes the image and narrative of a “self-made man” because nothing we do is in isolation, very much including the accumulation of capital. Why then, am I not deriding myself for positioning myself as “alone” when I have, thanks to countless Indigenous peoples, accumulated so much epistemic capital (aka knowledge)?
When I Google searched the term “nothing about us without us aboriginal” for this piece, the first result to land was an article from Woroni, a student newspaper of the Australian National University (ANU) where I studied. It is written by the highly impressive Jessa Rogers, a Wiradjuri woman, Fulbright scholar, and Australian educational leader. Again, seeing this helped me realize that I am not alone, and never was.
As with Luke, I’ve crossed paths with Jessa. I had the honor of meeting and working with her briefly when a student society I was involved in hosted a talk by the MP Linda Burney. We were keen to find a second speaker, and my suggesting her name led to a relationship that continues today with the odd exchange over social media. I watch with admiration as she goes from one project to the next, and I continue to learn from the things she shares and works on. So does my brother, a high school teacher at one of Australia’s most privileged private schools. Her work on Aboriginality and education often finds its way to him, via emails from me.
Of course, these relationships and prior work aren’t enough on their own to constitute working with Aboriginal people right now. I am still, in a very real and important sense, alone in my room typing this. But in another sense I’d not fully considered before writing this, I am also far from alone. I carry relationships and their teachings into this work, and I hope to use this work to build future relationships too.
This isn’t me talking myself into a rationalization for why I never need to work with anyone again. I want to maintain that pressing desire I have to work with, not about. But I do want to balance against the realization I’ve had. If I don’t, I fear paralysis, and a reticence to do anything without direct Indigenous approval and involvement. That approach in itself could be counter-productive (self-censorship and the silence it creates does not help me or others), and burdensome (constantly seeking involvement could strain the relationships I have and create an unhealthy dependency or place unrealistic expectations upon them).
This is certainly a struggle for me, probably an ongoing one still, but hopefully also lessened by this reflection, I hope. I have frequently held back voicing my ideas because I felt that loneliness. I’ve frequently felt I didn’t have permission to engage on things when I didn’t have, sitting right next to me, an Aboriginal collaborator. I want to keep that caution, to keep seeking out partners to work with, but if I can’t find them – if people are busy with other worthwhile things – I think I have to find ways to still move forward mindfully. Being kind to myself, I have to sometimes battle imposter syndrome, and allow the idea that I too have something to contribute, no matter how small. In terms of consequence, a mindful and hesitant silence is not different from an apathetic indifference. I have to try remember that.
A summary and an aspirational target.
To close, in the spirit of “with us, not about us” I want to reaffirm my intention to embark on a collective journey, toward a future where Indigenous voices are not just heard, but actively sought out and valued. Everything is interconnected – gurrutu, in the Yolgnu language, a term taught to me by Bawaka Country’s academic leadership. The interwoven tapestry of Indigenous issues cannot be disentangled from the broader challenges we face as a society, they are in fact deeply, profoundly, foundationally related.
As I reflect on the power of collaboration, seeking to work with agents for change, I also extend gratitude to the many Indigenous voices that have shaped my understanding. I hope we can stand together as equals, celebrating and harnessing the agency and resilience of Indigenous communities and cultures. I want to continue seeking out Indigenous perspectives, to challenge exclusionary systems, and actively contribute to spaces where “with us, not about us” is not just a phrase, but a guiding principle.
The last words belong to Palyku writer and illustrator Ambellin Kwaymullina, an excerpt from her poem “Processes” from the stellar book Living on Stolen Land.
If it is something
that is supposed to support us
nurture us
or Country
then the process
by which it's achieved
must also support us
support Country
support Indigenous processes
which are of relationships
Date and time
is not important
what matters
is the making of connections
this is what moves things along
What is to be
does not exist
cannot exist
separate to the processes
that create it
the things we do
to reach an outcome
are the outcome
Like all things
process
must embody the whole
to support the whole