Reconciliation and decolonisation in suicide prevention

#BlkRnBow        #db_1974

Guest post from Dameyon Bonson

The founder of LGBTI Indigenous Australian social network Black Rainbow, Dameyon Bonson, pens his thoughts on the lack of solid mental health data available among LGBTI Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

QUITE tragically, as you are reading these first few words there is a high probability somebody will attempt to end their life by suicide. There is even a higher probability that that somebody is part of the LGBTI community, particularly if they are at the point of self-realisation and disclosure. If that person is an Indigenous Australian, the probability amplifies yet again.

How do I know this? Because that’s what the evidence suggests. LGBTI people are said to have the highest rates of self-harm and suicide of any population in Australia. Same-sex attracted Australians are said to exhibit up to 14-times-higher rates of suicide attempts than their heterosexual peers. Yet, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were 996 suicides reported across Australia between 2001 and 2010 among Indigenous peoples. We are told that 1.6 per cent of all Australians die by suicide but for Indigenous peoples, this rate is more than 4.2 per cent, or one in every 24.

As mentioned, the evidence only suggests this because we are coalescing the data from two different groups and hypothesising the maths. In other words we aren’t really sure.

However, when we aggregate the data for the Kimberley region and take one particular town during 2012, there were 40 young people who died by suicide. That’s nearly 100 times the national average. Now, I’m not suggesting that these young people were members of the LGBTI community. However, when the social determinants affecting Aboriginal people are seen as a causation of suicidality, the question does have to be asked, what is the amplified risk if they are LGBTI?

To explore what happens when the Indigenous and LGBTI world comes together, intersectionality theory is a way of understanding and uncovering any potential health inequalities. It is also a great way to highlight those previously unknown, caused by a kaleidoscope of social inequalities, whether it be race, gender, class, and/or sexuality.

For the LGBTI community, homophobia, either perceived or actual, is a precursor to one’s level of psychological distress. And if, as suggested, same-sex attracted Australians are up to 14 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, then homophobia, transphobia, cisgenderism, biphobia, sexism, and hetereosexist behaviours play a big part in how well someone lives, and someone dying.

For Indigenous Australians, other factors are at play and overlaid. These include racism, social location, socioeconomic disparities and intergenerational trauma. The psychological distress caused by these determinants can lead to complex mental health and drug and alcohol issues, such as manifestations of violence toward oneself (self-harm) or others: domestic, family and lateral violence.

So I have raised and discussed the issues and attempted to converse about the tragedy of suicide in the least sensational or emotive way. So where to from here? I’d like to know, because I don’t have the answers. However, I do have some starting points. First, I’m going go start by sharing with you a quote. A quote that is often referred to as the Lila Watson quote: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

Participating with the view of being part of the liberation of Indigenous people is the single most overlooked and fundamental principle of genuinely inclusive work. Being part of the liberation is also knowing when you are required and a good indication of that is when you have been asked. Don’t let an over-zealous sense of entitlement to charity or benevolence be your motivation. Also pay attention to the research. Cultural continuity is a protective factor to suicide.

The great Writing Themselves In series, Growing Up Queer report and the current research by Dr Delaney Skerritt provides opportunity for us, as Indigenous researchers and members of the Indigenous LGBTI community, to come up with strengthening solutions. The time is ripe for those who are willing to come on this journey with us, to support us and share your resources with us. I personally believe that the issues facing the Indigenous LGBTI community, once identified and workshopped to discover actions to respond, can be added as an amendment or appendant to national strategies and health plans. Structures already exist for us to coexist within. And if the collaborative work is underpinned by liberation, an enhanced sense of reconciliation can truly happen within the LGBTI community.

Dameyon Bonson is an Indigenous researcher and consultant, mental health researcher and convenor of Black Rainbow Australia. Follow him on Twitter: @db_1974

You can also follow Black Rainbow on Twitter or like their Facebook page.

Support is available for anyone who may need it. Phone Qlife 1800 184 527, Lifeline 13 11 14 or beyondblue 1300 22 4636.

**This article first appeared in the August issue of the Star Observer.

Battlefield Derp – the ADL’s war against women

As the ADL League (yet another mini-group in the fail franchise) raises its bullet heads above the parapet and peers myopically around…

Seeing as the ADL ‘s only contact with women is either via porn sites or the bit when their mothers ask them every ten years or so when they are going to leave home like normal men do, we are constantly surprised at the amount of attention  they give to discussing women, their clothing and their genitals.

Jealous fellas?

This wriggling collection of maggots like posting pictures of women they are scared of – which means by the end of the year there should be around 4 billion pics up

However as you can see from the screenshots below it is not the sort of interest that should be encouraged.

In fact people have been known to attract interest of a different sort from law enforcement and the courts when carrying on like this pack of yapping hyenas.

You will note that “Billy Ray” is a fake profile who harbours a secret desire to be a woman.

As for Danny McGilton who appears to actually have spawned kids (or is raising the milkman’s) despite the alarming impairments he displays, his lousy spelling is only exceeded by his porn-mediated brain farts.

ADL? Fail fail fail

School for Scandal

You remember this story don’t you?

Christian college Principal Mark Bensley, apparently wearing a school blazer (what is THAT all about?) does not like women wearing hijab.

One hopes that universities seeking practicum placements for their teacher education students give his college a big MISS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However it seems Mark Bensley has some form on ignoring the real world. Check out this story from 2009.

 

Corporal punishment was abolished in normal Queensland schools, public and independent,  in 1995, almost 20 years ago. This brought Queensland in line with all other Australian states and with best practice in managing schools and student behaviour.

Meanwhile along came Danny Nalliah’s Rising Gorge Rise Up Straya hate party (Groom Branch) to add their two bob’s worth of bigotry

 

Well we’re not impressed with the Facebook poster’s attempts both at literacy and at his casting of a hate group as being one supporting women’s rights.

In fact the Christian Taliban in all its nasty manifestations has an abysmal record where women’s rights are concerned, going right back to that scriptural misogynist and homophobe Paul of Tarsus.

 

Source

Willy Wanker and the T shirt Factory

#JointDestroyer     #tanya_plibersek      #aus_politics  

 

It is not often that a Deputy Opposition Leader’s name appears on a scurrilous T shirt with the defamatory implication that she is allegedly  free with her sexual favours.

 

 

So who is Will Dallas Brooks?

The surname also belongs to a distinguished former British soldier and long-serving governor of Victoria who happens to be the grandfather of TV presenter and journalist Jennifer Byrne. Byrne’s mother Jeanette was his only child.

No mention of  any Willies on the bio or in newspaper records.

It won’t be the first time we’ve seen surnames of people which resemble those of the famous. No doubt if you have a famous monicker it doesn’t harm you when looking for a job.

Here’s his website if you really want to read it. He declares

Polliter.com was created not out of need, but necessity. It is the lone voice of free Conservative speech left to Australians.

Yeah yeah yeah…

Tim Wilson on steroids.

Willy dislikes lots of things – the SMH, conservative News Corpse columnist Peter van Onselen, Fairfax journalist Elizabeth Farrelly, the ABC, asylum seekers and the Facebook page Destroy the Joint – by extension feminists women who have and express an opinion in general.

Strangely enough when we visited Polliter only the main page was visible. The links led nowhere.

Something like Willy himself.

Error 404
 polliter.com
 Sat Jun 14 13:55:56 2014
 Apache/2

Looks like the pages have been down for some time

All else we managed to find was a link to this article in Quadrant, the musty old mag edited by very conservative historian Keith Windschuttle, which serves as a sort of home for the bewildered for very conservative old white blokes.

The Quadrant contributors in animated discussion

Destroy the Joint managed to dig up a brief bit of Willy’s self-puffery which reads

Brooks is an independent consultant in hospital management, healthcare reform and clinical care. He worked extensively with Professor Chris O’Brien on developing the world’s first comprehensive cancer data repository, and has advised State and Federal governments on improving public healthcare systems and increasing accountability in medicine.

Let me guess – a minor pen-pusher in the Department of Health (one of them) applying some helium to his resumé. If that.

Ho hum

Tony Abbott stops for a “sleazy, slimy” wink

From The Guardian

Here’s the actual footage

Bob Ellis blogs about it here

And overheard in the Liberal Party room – “Will no one rid us of this turbulent (ex-)priest”

Some people never learn

 

Elsewhere

Sex line grandmother ‘Gloria’ labels PM Tony Abbott’s wink ‘sleazy’ and ‘slimy’

BONUS

The Antibogan asked its fans for some memes and here they are
Australia’s got wink memes!

Brian Woods PUP candidate – “Domestic violence is solely a woman’s choice”

Clive Palmer take note!…

Source (paywall)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s Brian Woods’ profile page on the PUP website, and his e mail address.

His Facebook page seems to have gone.

Here’s the reaction of one blogger to the Twitter we posted.

Woods was the Palmer United Party (PUP) candidate for Chisholm in last year’s Federal election.

We trust that Clive won’t be standing him again.

Bogot Bingo: theantibogan interactive

Let’s play a game!

It’s well documented that the Bogotariat have little in the way of original thought or imagination, and thus have a tendency to repeat things they have heard other bogots saying.  The bogot does this without ever questioning the veracity of what they are spewing forth onto the internet or how nonsensical it sounds to normal people.

We’ve collected some of the most predictable, common, ignorant and moronic comments and topics raised by the average bogot in full rant, and now we want to see just how predictable the Bogotariat is.

And so we present you with:

Bogot Bingo

Instructions:

1. Download and/or print the bingo card above
2. Browse the internet as normal
3. Should you stumble across a fetid, teeming nest of bogots, pull out your bingo card and start checking off any of the words, phrases, grammatical quirks and nutty fantasies that appear in a comment or thread of comments.
   Please note: The words and phrases don’t have to be verbatim, they just need to be reasonably close in wording and/or sentiment.
4. If you manage to make a straight line across 5 boxes on your bingo card in any direction, screenshot the comment or thread and send it back to us (via private message to our Facebook page).

We will then sift through the submissions and find the best, worst and funniest Bogot Bingo wins and present them in a blog in a few weeks time.  (Rest assured we will keep the identities of all players completely secret.)

Ready to play?

Go forth and bingo!

Aussie Sexism for Female Aussie Cricket Star

Ellyse Perry

Game, set, match, sexism?

Attacking From The Left

For a second, just imagine that one of the highest ranked male tennis players in the world, be it Nadal, Federer, Murray, Djokovic or any of the others, had just won a marathon five setter. Now imagine them taking part in the obligatory post game interview with a commentator who starred in the game for decades, and no doubt knows it inside out. Now imagine the first question they get asked is “so who would you most like to date?” or “So how is married life treating you?”. Having a difficult time imagining the last step in that sequence ever eventuating? That’s because it’s incredibly unlikely at best.

These are the sexist double standards that female tennis players and athletes in general have to put up with. The latest case of this was at the Australian Open in the past few days. Having just won her way through to the…

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Sexism and Misogyny via Sky Sports News: Target Beth Tweddle

 

 

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