Just Another Day in Williamstown – Andie Downing

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

The first time I heard my nephew Hamish had been invited to join the Western Jets Under 16’s footy squad I was so excited and proud. He’s such a talented boy in his own right and it was well earned recognition for him. You can imagine my surprise then, when I heard he’d received an invitation to join the Western Bulldogs Rookie B draft squad on the grounds that my sister was born in South Africa I nearly died laughing, my nephew nearly died in the arse.
Apparently one can be eligible for special consideration to join the Rookie B squad if they have a parent who is A) indigenous, B) from a low income family or C) has a parent born in Africa. The temperature dropped into the minuses with the frosty response that came from my blond, blue eyed nephew when he found out she’d ticked the born in Africa box. ’Oh Muuuum, geez, like, what the actual fuck???”. His chair scraped back across the floor and he flung his fringe sidewards as he rose to stomp off, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘Remember, when we turn up at the to the training they’re going to expect me to be black, or at least underprivileged’, he said, somewhat acknowledging that his 15 years of age understood his automatic position of entitlement in white Australian society.
Next minute, my daughter Amethyst walked in, with her ears pinned back and eyebrows raised. “What the actual fuck Aunty Mish’, she stood with her superhero cape flapping in the breeze, ready to defend the rights of all the underprivileged, indigenous and African people to whom those positions were obviously being reserved. After all, Amethyst had never used her Aboriginally or povo single parent upbringing to gain any advantage. Aunty Mish never had any cred as a parent either, best leave it to her 26 year old niece to step in and show her what a moral conscience should look like.
Another voice yoo-hoo’d from down the hallway ‘Is that your dog?’. Looks like Maxi Taxi the adopted Spadoodle had escaped again, probably to avoid the pending conflict or at least create a diversion as she often did- dogs aren’t stupid you know! Hamish, with another loud sigh, stomped off down the hallway to investigate. It was clear and obvious to him that he was the only one responsible enough to perform this task, and in all fairness, Maxi’s adoption papers were in his name.
My daughter naturally said her piece from the mighty soap box that she is often found standing atop. We all know better than to argue, so with copious amounts of head nodding and ‘mmm’ ing we got through yet another lecture, and finally she shut the fuck up.
Maxi Taxi was saved, my nephew refused to attend the Rookie B squad training, my sister and I poured another drink and Amethyst continued to huff and puff to anyone who would listen on Facebook.
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