Editorial:

Institutionalised racism

On February 14 in Redfern, Thomas Hickey, known as TJ to his 
family and friends, was killed when being followed by police. He 
came off his pushbike and was impaled on a fence and died from 
his injuries in the Sydney Children's Hospital. Last week the NSW 
state coroner found that the police played no part in the death 
of the 17-year-old. The driver of the police vehicle involved in 
the "police operation" at the time of Thomas' death did not even 
give evidence at the inquest.

The police were exonerated, the coroner finding that Thomas 
wasn't being "chased" by the police wagon but was being 
"followed" as a "person of interest". He praised one of the 
officers for giving first aid to Thomas in "horrific and 
extremely upsetting circumstances". He found two of the officers 
were "doing their best to tell the truth" and that another two 
"were not completely candid".

The Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney, defended the contradictory 
stories given by the police, saying they had "different memories" 
of the events and that that didn't make them liars. He added they 
were suffering from "trauma".

Thomas was an Aborigine and that's the way the system treats 
Aboriginal people. Cold statistics are telling: one in 27 
Indigenous men is in prison, nearly 17 times the rate for non-
indigenous men. And if you're an Aboriginal kid in Redfern being 
followed by the police, it is a chase. Thomas' death should be 
considered a death in police custody.

After Thomas' death the simmering anger at the generations-long 
constant police presence and harassment of Aboriginal people in 
Redfern boiled over into confrontation on the streets. What has 
become known as the Redfern riot was seen on television around 
the world, no doubt jolting people who recall the Sydney Olympics 
into wondering at the contrast between the apparently harmonious 
society presented to them then and the images of a race riot in 
the centre of the Olympic city.

Of course, the appearance of classless harmony is an illusion. It 
served to cover up, among other things, the oppression and 
dispossession of Indigenous Australians, while the Games 
themselves were used as a pretext for the introduction of laws 
that handed the police and military draconian new powers, putting 
in place the repressive measures of a police state.

What happened to Thomas Hickey and the developments that followed 
his death are the overt manifestations of a society split by 
antagonistic classes. It is a system based on exploitation and 
one of its features is institutionalised racism.

The findings of the coronial inquest, and the state's response, 
are those police state measures and that racism in action:

* Redfern police numbers will be increased by 56;

* There will be a full-time riot squad of 46 officers to "respond 
to civil disorder or public order management" state-wide;

* There is to be a new $6 million, seven-story police station 
built in Redfern;

* Redfern police will have riot shields and helmets as standard 
issue and will be tutored in "cultural awareness" at the same 
time as having riot control training.

Meanwhile, the police will be investigating the police.

So, what is being planned for the future of Redfern? It is a 
prized piece of inner-city real estate and with the Carr Labor 
Government in the pocket of the developer lobby some form of 
dirty tactics cannot be far away. The huge police build-up will 
serve to inflame the situation. The Government clearly does not 
have reconciliation and a peaceful solution on the agenda.

It may be that a situation will be created to give the Government 
an excuse to carry out the forced removal of Aboriginal people 
from the area. It is no coincidence that the same thing is 
happening at Sandon Point, near Thirroul, on the NSW south coast, 
where the traditional owners of the land are fighting against the 
construction of a housing development. Thirroul, too, is getting 
a new police station, a whopping eight-story job.