The Courthouse: Where justice and equality reigns supreme
Here is a story of horrible and insidious racism. I’d like to say it took place seventy years ago in some back-water in Southern America, but it happened this Friday night, in the very heart of multicultural Sydney. By Sean Maguire
In Taylor Square on Oxford St, I sat with a friend. That friend was homepagedaily resident cartoonist Jack Freeman. It was after 2am, which (generally) means there’s a lock-out. The lock-out forces you to stay off the streets, and to keep drinking in whatever venue you were in 2am. But, for some reason some pubs and clubs are able to bypass it. One of which, is the Courthouse, which sits on the corner of Oxford St and Bourke St.
It’s a charming little venue; renowned for being one of the few places in the area open after hours. In these after hours most of the clientele are completely pissed; with the glasses a soft plastic so we don’t smash glass onto each other’s faces.
Sitting outside, Jack and I saw an Aboriginal man and woman walk away from the entrance to the bar, angry. Very angry. What can I say about them? I can’t talk with too much empirical evidence. Anecdotally though, they didn’t seem drunk. They were certainly speaking clearly, more than could be said for the 99% of people drinking at the bar. They were also dressed presentably, which has always been a favourite excuse for bouncers to refuse entry.
I talked to the woman, called Nadia, and then to her husband (who never told me his name). Nadia was lovely. A mother and someone who just wanted to go have a drink with her husband. I asked why they’d been refused entry when every other pissed up night-crawler was strolling, or rather, staggering in. She said it was because they were Aboriginal. Full stop, end of story.
A pretty flabbergasting statement to a sheltered-white-middle-class-northern-beaches-boy. Surely not? Surely forty years after Aborigines had got citizenship and become people (rather than fauna), surely things were different. Hadn’t we said sorry and hadn’t things changed?
Nope. I sat with her, and listened as she explained that she and her husband couldn’t get in. There was this incredibly dead, seen it all before look in Nadia’s eyes, her husband still had enough energy to be bothered to fight, but he too looked to be losing patience. I stood up (and in my eternal arrogance) said I’d like to talk to the bouncer. She looked at me, her eyes watery, seconds before she burst into tears. “Don’t bother” she said. She’d seen it all before, I hugged her tightly as she cried, and then said “No, we can fight this”, I stood up and marched to the bouncer. She must have been mistaken, I thought. And even if she wasn’t, me, a young, well-educated white man would convince this bouncer otherwise.
As I stood up, her husband looked at me, and started telling me that these ‘coconuts (people from the Pacific Islands) were always fucking him’. He then regurgitated a lot of ridiculous slander that seems to have joined the unofficial lexicon and thoughts of all pig-ignorant Australians. It’s all about the FOBS (people Fresh Off Boats), and how people from the Pacific Islands are coming here, getting violent, taking our jobs, and then treating us, the hard-working Australian, like shit.
I’d heard it all before, I didn’t agree with it, and I definitely didn’t feel comfortable hearing it in this situation. I swallowed my reservations and thought I should keep going. Racism doesn’t justify racism, one terrible act doesn’t excuse another. This guy’s hatred toward Islanders would probably take longer to solve than getting these guys into the Courthouse. Or so I thought.
When I got there, the bouncer gave me absolutely no explanation. And why should he? With the Courthouse a private premise he didn’t need to. There are those signs everywhere, in every pub; they all pretty much read: ‘this venue has the right to refuse entry to anybody’. It’s up to the discretion of the staff to decide who can enter, which, to the non-racist staff-member and in most circumstances makes sense. If someone is being abusive, I can understand that they shouldn’t enter, if someone is pissed, all the better they’re not there, but when it seems a way to remove a person, judged solely on their race. Well, we can’t let them hide behind the sign, can we?
I kept asking the bouncer. “They’re not pissed, they’re dressed well, it’s because they’re Aboriginal, isn’t it?” But he ignored me. With all the people walking in next to me, he didn’t have much time to chat. I asked him again if it was racially motivated, he didn’t say anything, I said I’d call the police, he finally paid attention, he looked at me and challenged me to call them. I paused for thought as I walked back to Jack, Nadia and her husband. Should I call the police? Was there any point?
I thought I’d best try, maybe they could explain what was going on, I called the emergency number, told them where I was, and what was happening. The operator was quick, and to the point, and said she’d dispatch officers immediately. I stood and waited, when lo and behold four police officers rounded the corner. Three males and one female officer. I walked to the male officer nearest to me and explained the situation, he was calm and collected. He explained that he couldn’t do anything; I’d have to write to the Anti-Discrimination board. I wasn’t angry by the response, but I followed him a couple more metres to make sure I’d heard correctly. Was there literally nothing that could be done?
As I walked toward him, the lone female police officer, (who looked in her mid twenties, and quite aggressive) stepped forward and started accusing me that I was following her. The fact I was still in a conversation with her colleague was ignored, I tried to argue this, but every time I opened my mouth, she screamed louder, this was a “warning, leave, walk away and we won’t fine you”. She hadn’t told me what I was going to be fined with, but I didn’t want to test her. I quickly complied, and walked over to my friends who were sitting, not too far away from the gaggle of police officers.
By this stage, Nadia was really crying, and Jack was hugging and comforting her. Her husband though, was up on his feet; he walked back to the police officers, and stated his case, (with reference again to the coconuts). The police didn’t seem particularly interested and were doing that policemen thing where they look far over your shoulder as you speak.
He was yelling, not aggressively, but it was still scaring his wife, who cried harder into Jack’s arms. I think she was scared of him getting arrested, or fined. Standing there, seeing her cry and seeing his anger, I thought I’d try and get him out of there. I walked up to the police, the husband with his back to me, me saying as I was walking: ‘come back mate’, and other things to this affect.
The female police officer who I’d ran into before, saw me pulling the husband back, and exploded. She ran toward me, reminding me of the caution she’d given me. I tried to explain. I wanted to make sure this man didn’t get in trouble, but she as our most public bastion of fairness, order and law, didn’t listen. She kept yelling, as one of her male colleagues shook his head, and put his index finger to his mouth, to signal to me to be quiet.
“Do you want to spend the night in Surry Hill’s police station?” I kept trying to interrupt, but to no avail, she asked for my ID, which I said I didn’t have. She rummaged in my pockets, found the ID and ordered me to sit down. Any semblance of desire to resist was gone; I sat in silence as she wrote me a ticket. Why? She gave some garbled answer that I was a public nuisance, she asked if I lived at the address on my ID and said that “I’d be sorry” if she sent the fine and “I wasn’t there’.
She finished writing, and then ordered me up and away; I got up and walked down Oxford St, waiting for Jack to catch up. She stood, in Taylor Square fifty metres away, yelling at me to keep moving, I obliged and met up with Jack not far further on. As I walked away I realised that she hadn’t mentioned a dollar figure for the fine, or when I should expect to receive it. So I’m guessing she probably just wanted me to leave and that I’m probably in the clear.
Although, saying that, I wouldn’t pay the fine if I received it. It sounds ridiculous to say, but I truly think that my actions were justified and were done to protect someone’s civil rights. I challenge anyone to give me any another motive for what happened, I challenge anyone to say the female police officer’s reaction wasn’t overkill, and that the actions of the bouncers weren’t based on assumptions of race.
I, although drunk, was lucid, and I was definitely lucid enough to make myself understood to the bouncers and the police. I spoke calmly and collectedly, but was met with either stony indifference, or over-the-top anger that was surely meant to distract. Both seemed like well tested and well tried techniques to get rid of people.
The bouncer was enormous and scary, and had absolutely no reason to debate with me. The anger of the policewoman was scary. This was someone who had a gun, a baton, and some eye-watering sprays. I wasn’t going to challenge her, or her authority. All her anger did, was frighten me, I didn’t respect her for it. I respected her colleagues because they spoke to me rationally and calmly, I had no reason to fear them, and seeing me, they must have judged me as I was, a calm, scrawny little boy, asking a few harmless questions.
I keep asking myself those questions. What was that all about? All I can answer was that this was racism pure and simple. This was the worst type of racism, the one that makes the skin crawl, and the hair stand up. It was a venue, twisting laws for refusing entry to discriminate against a whole race; it was an ineffectual police service, and an obviously ineffectual Anti-Discrimination board. It was something horribly endemic, just as the ‘coconuts’ comment was from the husband. It was something that a people face daily, but is peripheral enough to be ignored. It wasn’t as obvious as a sign above a bar saying ‘whites only’, it was just two people being treated like shit. Because they were Aboriginal.
* If you have any idea of what to do next, please write in. Is there any point in complaining about the female police officer? Is there any point in writing to the Anti-Discrimination Board? Should we boycott the Courthouse and keep an eye out for bars that do similar things?
