When the Rainbows ain’t enuf…
First time … long time … rainbows were not enuf (see Ntozake Shange) … Not for this coloured girl.
Let me move from BrownSkinGal speak, and change to the more acceptable writewhitespeak for ye, but mind that takes longer so settle in for a story of abuse of power — organisational and policing.
Saturday 11th of March Qantas/British Airways return home flight went without our SistaCreatives Artist.
Later that same evening — I went ‘missing.’
To those who were asking why, and given I’m not Agatha Christie, I won’t keep things a complete mystery. Plus I wasn’t missing — I knew where I was…
Besides I need the libel complaints in now before I add this to my future BrownSkinGal creative doings which I plan to base in Tallaght, Dublin & Youghal, Cork (and perhaps some Qld Airport) to bring this narrative full circle.
What I will tell you is what precipitated and motivated my disappearance…for an insight into the daily insanity of BrownSkin(IrelanderIslander)Gal life. Here goes:
Once upon a time, I thought I could just circumvent all the whitecissettledgatekeepers and create a safe space for Queer-Trans/Femme/WomenEthnicMinority artists. Named it ‘SistaCreatives.’
I’d had enough institutions baulk at supporting BrownSkinGal leadership without some preferred White/Patriarchal minder organisation/individual, and I wanted to simply exemplify such things could be done for us-by us & with community behind us.
The first project the SistaCreative Irish-Australian residency, was coming to its close and I was seeing our SistaCreative Artist in Residence off at Brisbane Airport for journey home to Dublin.
Their return seat & booking was on Qantas/British Airways, and there’d been weirdness earlier in the week that we’d been assured by British Airways was to be sorted and flight ticketed by UK Sheffield Finance team.
This marvellous journey had been completely crowdfunded. The rest was all me.
The Irish-Antipodean ‘SistaCreative Residency,’ had done its work to catalyse creating an international exchange in cultivating safe and nourishing Arts spaces for FemmeFolk/Minorities. And in purposefully centering my own BrownSkinGal-Queer leadership as a severely underrepresented intersection that needed amplification.
…but the hurdles for BrownSkinGals and MinorityFemmes just never end…
Because Qantas/British Airways refused our SistaCreative Artist her seat on that already paid-for return flight — because of their own collective administration errors.
I was told by Qantas staffer ‘Karen’ that having already crowdfunded and paid €2200 plus for the RETURN seats of which the outgoing had already happened, Qantas/BritishAirways were now refusing to fly our SistaCreative Artist home.
Well …that was unless we paid them upwards of €2000 for a new and only one way ticket…
Three days after International Women’s Day — and Qantas/British Airways chose to hold to ransom a not-for-profit project for intersectional women challenging industry based violence and exclusion from right to expression and participation.
But wait.
There’s more.
I’d disclosed to Qantas staff/management, that I was on IVF/FET cycle hormones, a spoonie with chronic pain from endometriosis which was currently flaring from the stress of tiredness and now this refusal to allow this wonderful SistaCreative her way home to Dublin, Ireland — on the project I’d set up and brought her out on.
I explained the SistaCreatives project was a not-for-profit, gofundme, community-crowdfunded project. It was specifically designed to look at safe and nourishing creative spaces for WomenMinorities/Femme-QueerTrans folk and led by me as a BrownSkinGal for the very purpose of amplifying BrownSkinGal leadership and hurdles therein.
Qantas still refused any of their remit to enable the booking to go ahead. The Manager ‘Karen’ & general Staffer ‘Karen’ had zero interest.
Not just zero interest in helping — despite Qantas staff being under obligations to support mobility and basic inclusion/equity — they refused all the basic help for me that I asked regarding even a place to sit.
Or as manager ‘Karen,’ let me know, she was busy and had a lot to do elsewhere, so I needed to make it quick and, after saying Qantas did not have any chairs to offer me, refused to walk to the airport seats a few meters away to let me sit for the conversation.
Later a kind baggage handler pointed out there was a Qantas mobility chair right there that I should just sit on after Manager ‘Karen’ left us there, with Staffer ‘Karen’ to decide whether/how to pay for the new two thousand plus fare.
But it turns out, that wasn’t all the Qantas ‘Karens’ were capable of doing. Because, with precisely the supercilious and vindictive, ‘Amie Cooper call police on a Black Man Birdwatching,’ and no warning to me, they put in a complaint that I was ‘causing a disturbance, aggressive and racist.’
Because. Wait for it. I was crying. Ugly crying. Muriel’s wedding Toni Collette snot and sob crying.
And Qantas Staff viewed that as a national security threat.
Now dear reader, of course I was crying. I was, without a doubt, inconsolable. Never mind the corollary realities that I had already disclosed to the now fully ‘AmieCoopering’ Qantas Staff regarding IVF/FET hormones, spoonie endometriosis+ very much not hidden today disability pain….
There was now this visceral desolation — such utter guilt, an overriding sense of the spectacular failure I was being in letting down an incredible SistaCreative Artist & friend….
….and this time completely brain-fogging and at a loss on how to overcome yet another unnecessary, discompassionate whitefolk-organisational hurdle thrown in front of me…just a big ball of shame & pain — and it was simply too much.
It’s a fundamental part of the values and missions of Qantas/British Airways to address violence against women, inequity and to be an ally to folk like me & our SistaCreative Artist.
Yet here we were, taking yet another battering, as we tried to do the work of undoing the oppressions that stack up against us.
How do Airlines like Qantas/British Airways even justify letting an outgoing flight on a booked return flight run, then ransom a customer by refusing their return unless they pay the fare and then some again for a one way?
But ignore the mental toll of trying to deal with all that sheer unfairness…
The moment the usually unrelenting-rainbow-hope that should have been enuf, really faded within me was when Brisbane Airport’s double glass doors opened and a contingent of Australian Federal Police walked in and surrounding me.
Yep. The Qantas staff had successfully criminalised me and criminalised my crying.
Qantas ‘AmieCoopering’ staffers knew full well, being on commonwealth ground they could make this a national security issue.
Without warning or discussion with me regarding anything about my behaviour, they put the call in to the Australian Federal Police citing that I was ‘causing a disturbance, being aggressive and racist.’
There were no chairs, no tissues … and definitely no compassion or ‘international women’s day…diversity policy’ vibes in the air or Qantas airline staff.
And so, at least five Australian Federal Police, all men — with Kevlar jackets for protection, and guns, and tasers, and body cameras — rounded on me. To capture and bring an end to the complained about illegal, racist-aggressive-airport-security-threatening-tears… faster than you could say, ‘you’re terrible Muriel.’
When I do go on to create my art deconstructing how the emotions of a BrownSkinGal are policed and exploring how Brené Brown Oprah emotional honesty and vulnerability is a prejudiced concept because we really are not allowed emotions as BrownSkinFolk… my evidentiary basis, though already fairly strong…. will probably forever crescendo on this encounter now.
Especially the part where the Qantas staff retracted their complaint quick-smart…
… and where Senior Sergeant Jimbob the Fourth… (AFP will be Jimbobs and numbered for my chronicpainbrainfog convenience)
… Australian Federal Police Officer Senior Sergeant Jimbob the Fourth eventually got around to explaining that my crying had made staff … & potentially some other unidentified people…. ‘uncomfortable’ because it was ‘abnormal,’ thus was understandably percieved a national security threat requiring their presence.
This was the follow on from Australian Federal Police Officer Jimbob the First who had already stated the complaint about my abnormal, comfort-erasing crying was specifically, that it was ‘causing a disturbance, aggressive and racist.’
Then Qantas staff retracted the complaint.
Or at least a number of the Australian Federal Police Jimbobs went to the Qantas staff then came back and told me the complaint about my ‘aggressive, racist, causing a disturbance’ crying was retracted.
Have to clarify that, as the Australian Federal Police were big on how ‘they don’t get told how or who makes a complaint they just follow dispatch orders’… ‘and they don’t know what they’re walking into…’
After a long chat with the AFP Jimbobs about how IVF hormones, overcharged flights, endometriosis inciting ugly crying …and perhaps were not quite on par with the Axis of Evil…I was told there was no national security issue in any of my behaviour.
I still had to confirm I was not under any charges for crying in an airport, and that crying in an airport is not illegal.
I also took the added step to confirm that ugly crying in an airport wasn’t illegal — or aggressive… or racist.
And that I wasn’t under any charges nor would be for not having changed my address, given rental crisis situation … and always redirecting my mail. Can never be too careful.
All that sorted. The AFP hovered around me and I asked more questions.
Even a weeping, snotty mess, survival mode dictates I better get up to speed on what were the abuses of power possible when the ‘made a white person uncomfortable’ commentary rears its grotesquely prejudiced and power differential head in BrownSkinGal life.
I continued to sit and cry, while wait for the flight to go off the board — as was my right.
Mainly in the futile hope that perhaps the Qantas staff might think better of adding to Alan Joyce’s $4 million bonus plus $2.27 million wage, and just let a Sista hop on the already paid for return flight to Dublin on compassionate waiver.
I took the time to contemplated the fact that both Sean Doyle of British Airways and Alan Joyce are Irish lads… Sean hails from Youghal, Cork and Alan Joyce is a Dublin, Tallaght lad.
Alan has donated millions to the Queer Marriage campaign. Big talker on social justice. But sure, how little any of that matters when his own company and staff are empowered to criminalise minorities rather than use a bit of cop on and compassion.
I cried at the injustice, total lack of ethics, and just plain old meanspirited nastiness of holding a €2000+ ransom on return home flights for a fellow Dubliner, and an Irish-Aussie project for Queer & BrownSkin SistaCreatives …..and for another Aussie-Irish Seoighe.
Why had they felt the need to call the Australian Federal Police on the saddie BrownSkinGal with IVF hormones coursing through her body for ugly crying and, why call that display of fairly valid emotion ‘aggressive’ and ‘racist’ in their complaint?
I don’t understand the KarenAmieCooper Qantas/British Airways WhiteSkinFolk, but I do understand that all this Federal Queensland police presence and energy was utterly unavailable to me when I reported being abused as a child in Irish Catholic Church systemic-inspired-belting ways, while I was a teen living in Queensland.
In fact, I had begun 2023 with Queensland Police making clear, that despite the edicts of the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, they would be unlikely to devote resources to any Adult complaint I now made regarding past child & young adult abuse and prolonged torture by Queensland & Catholic Education/University based staff.
Though the statute of limitations on Adult Survivors of Child Abuse had been lifted and allowed me to report — beginning with a 24 page victim impact statement revisiting just the mildest of the abuse because I couldn’t stomach putting the rest in ink… Queensland Police had come back to me via another ‘Karen’ — to let me know they were busy and didn’t have resources for all reports.
No doubt. Probably policing some other QueerBrownSkinGal ugly-crying in an Airport.
That evening, the adrenalin and cortisol from compounded and complex PTSD would simply not fade.
Fear and survival responses to the Australian Federal Police and Qantas staff’s punitive and prejudiced behaviour coursed through my body in wave after shattering wave.
So, as I always do to mellow such realities, I went to the Sea, put my feet in the saltwater waves … and asked Her what is exactly the point of existing when so many prefer we BrownSkinFolk don’t?
When I am repeatedly told and censured if I drop the mask of placid, smiling congeniality and exhibit any true emotion — or intellect for that matter. When I get reprimanded for being ‘uppity’ and told don’t speak or act in ways uncomfortable to whitefolk, don’t write…don’t breathe.
And on this day: don’t cultivate racial-boundary breaking Sistahood in a beautifully restorative project …nor seek to balance the sheer pain that daily BrownSkinLife can bring in everyday racism, intersectionalised with sexual-gender abuse.
A week went by before I came home. Paddy’s day I walked back into my house.
I was ready with a mind now filled with what I needed for the arts piece I’ll be creating over the coming months. Shattered, but body there.
I’ll be placing these in three pieces in those very particular location; a Queensland Airport, in Tallaght, Dublin and in Youghal, Cork.
Youghal is the seaside village where Sean Doyle, son of a Garda and CEO of British Airways was born. Turns out he’s a UCC fellow Alumni leading an organisation that — if the Business in the Community -Racism at Work Charter’s ‘supporting allies of inclusion’ means anything failed miserably in its treatment of us as SistaCreatives.
Sean and Alan — I’ll be sure to send ye both an invite.
Do pay what you think such choreopoetry worth with special attention to the impact of both your respective organisation’s degrading of SistaCreatives like me — BrownSkinIslanderIrelanderGal — and your fellow Mná.
Pay what you think it costs us ‘coloured gals’ in lifespan, hope and energy as we try to recreate the rainbows ye britirishcolonial sorts have stripped of us again and again and again.
While pretending missionary benevolence and organisational adherence to human rights obligations and lipservice to SDGs.
What’s the girmitigation ticketing cost I should apply?
…or the bonus SistaCreatives deserve for trying to create safe Irish-Antipodean Artistic spaces for Femme&BrownSkinFolk…. from organisations like yours and the police that wilfully abuse their power?
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Addendum: Queensland Police showed up on my doorstep an hour ago…. past 9:30pm on a Sunday night…. no forewarning call or notification…. and despite my clear ask to Qld Police Liaison to not approach me without Social Community supports — unless I was actively being charged with something — given retraumatising and triggering impact of every Qld-based Police interaction to date for me.
They were once again so apathetic and apparently there to re-take my twenty four page Adult Survivor of Child Abuse and Torture statement … 9:30pm on a Sunday night with no notice… it left me wondering whether this was either a PR band-aid, or more likely the classic Qld Police power play – wanting to throw more of their weight around by showing up with no warning or invitation, at odd hours of the night at my house, my one safe space now also violated. Using ‘helpful’ handy cute-hoor-reasoning to act in total contravention to my request for some peace from being policed in every facet of existence ...
