I just wanted to share a recent experience I’ve had living as a brown person in Australia.
I’ve lived here for 5 years now and I recently got a job as a building designer and had to move away from my partner, pets and home for it. Despite being sad about the move, I was very excited that my career was moving forward. I finished my degree and getting a job took a while. They said that they would pay me $21 as a casual and me, not knowing much about minimum wages and mostly wanting experience, accepted. I had to room share with someone as I couldn’t afford a place by myself.
Meet my roommate and landlord: A gender fluid person, that wants to save the environment and hates white culture (they are white) and constantly talked about how they had 1/8th aboriginal blood and how much they loved different cultures. At first this was all great. An open minded person that wasn’t racist? Pretty much all I ask for.
Meet my workmates: Very friendly to work for, professional and felt good to go into work every day.
After a few months, I started feeling like my pay was really bad and I decided to check with Fair Work and they said that I was to be paid $27 as a causal or $25 as an individual in design with a degree. I talked with my boss about this and he said he didn’t know about that and switched me to a full time worked immediately. He also said they he worked under the “miscellaneous” category and not “design” so he would only pay me $22 now. Well, At least its a $1 increase with benefits so I tried to be content. Soon after, he started speaking differently to me, constantly saying that I needed to work (unpaid) overtime and that they weren’t budgeting for me so I need to do more for them to keep me there. Me just being grateful to have a job, ended being the first to work every day, not taking lunch breaks and leaving later and later in the day, all the while getting more and more stressed.
In the meantime, my roommate decided to add more people to the house and go for a road trip. The first one was a quiet guy and the second one was their childhood friend, a bisexual feminist that didn’t want to live with her mother because she was abusing her “by making her feel small”. She also said her father was abusive and she had a massive Great Dane-putbull mix with anxiety that she kept as an “indoor” dog. This dog would constantly bark at men and was also loud at night. I felt bad for it because it can’t do much about the anxiety.
One day, it was chewing on my rug, and knowing that it’s owner is a sensitive person, I told her very very politely that she needs to do something to discipline her dog. This was apparently a massive mistake. She freaked out and started screaming at me and saying that I was a disgusting human being and that I was abusing her etc etc. This was super confusing and hurtful to me and I just went into my room because I couldn’t make her stop screaming. I locked my door and she kept banging on it.
The next day at work, I was really disturbed so I asked my boss if I could take an early mark and sort stuff out at home and he said he wanted to speak to me and pulled me aside. He told me that he wasn’t going to renew the contract and they were downsizing the company and that I was no longer needed.
I went home and the landlord had comeback and they pulled me aside and started telling me “You see the thing is, we Australians don’t do things like telling people how to raise their kids or pets. If we have an issue, we don’t really say it straight to their face, we do it in a round about way. You wouldn’t understand because you’re from a different culture. I’m not saying that you have to move out but I will have to give you a warning because you make the other people in this house uncomfortable”. Basically that they didn’t want me there anymore. I lost my job and my home on the same day.
I mean, I’ve lived here for a while and they aren’t the first people I’d met so I know what they were saying was just bullshit and racist but I trusted this person and expected that at least they’d be on my side, even a bit. I had never felt so ostracised and backed into a corner before. Literally all I could think of was “I’m sorry for being born in a different country”. I’ve always done my best to fit in and be a good person. I don’t have an accent, I’m open minded and don’t judge how people want to live their life. They had a lot of weird rules in the house like don’t use plastic and I followed it but apparently it’s just not enough because apparently I cannot comprehend things that a normal human can because “I’m from a different culture”
