Black Comedy co-writer and actor Nakkiah Lui has spoken out about suicide in Aboriginal Australia.
The Gamillaroi/Torres Strait Islander woman published the comments on social media following the suicide death of a 10-year-old Indigenous girl on International Women’s Day.
“This happened on #IWD2016. A day that’s mean to support and give hope to women, an Aboriginal Girl kills herself,” the 29-year-old wrote in a Facebook post.
“It is heartbreaking. It is a tragedy beyond words,” she added in a later post.
“Unfortunately, suicide is familiar to many of us in Aboriginal communities. Especially youth suicide.”
“I often tell the story about being a fat, bullied, Aboriginal teenager and how when I held my arms up against the white lace curtains in my bedroom I cried,” she wrote in the message, which was also posted to Twitter and later republished on The Guardian.
“All I wanted was to write and act, but was there no one who looked like me in the magazines I read or the screens I watched.”
She described feeling like Australia was no place for her as an Aboriginal woman.
“I heard ‘Abo’ jokes every day at school. Every day I was made to feel ashamed of who I was,” she wrote. “This idea of Australia, an Australia that didn’t include you, that you weren’t meant to be here, was something that existed every day and still does…”
“We have to live in a country that tried to wipe us out. Try growing up with that.”
The overall Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suicide rate is twice that of other Australians, with a rate ratio of 2.0 for males and 1.9 for females, according to the most recent Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project report.
The overall national suicide trend is 11 deaths per 100,000 population, but for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 25-29 years the suicide rate is 91 per 100,000 population, the report found. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders aged 20-24 years the suicide rate is 75 per 100,000 and for children aged 15-19 years the rate is 44 per 100,000.
The majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suicides occur before the age of 35.
If you need support, call Lifeline on 131114 or the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467.
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This is heartbreaking too read, though as a white person who rarely meets indigenous people I don't know what I can personally do (other than charity donations). For many of us who live and work in areas where we next to never meet aboriginals it feels very far removed, and I feel sad and ashamed that our country treats aboriginals this way but I often wonder how I and others can be part of the solution to something that never seems to touch our lives. I've worked all over Sydney and in a number of different jobs where I've met a variety of people, I also socialise a lot etc, but have only met a handful of aboriginal people in my life. Friends have said the same thing. And then you see things in the news about different ideas as to how to make their lives better but because I am so removed from their problems I have no idea if what governments are doing is wrong or right.
It's a complicated situation that I don't know what I can personally do about it, but I certainly think it's a horrible tragedy to see what aboriginal people have endured and continue to endure but like a lot of white people I feel that I don't know what can be done about it.