Nareen Young compares Alice Springs crisis meeting to KKK movie on the ABC

An indigenous scholar has compared the Alice Springs community crisis meeting to a Hollywood movie about racially motivated KKK murders in the 1960s in the American South.

Nareen Young, a professor of Indigenous Politics at Sydney University of Technology, told ABC’s The Drum that the comments from some concerned locals were “appalling”.

Thousands of fed up residents turned out for the Save Alice Springs rally as the inner city grapples with a crime crisis, amid threats from locals to sue the Northern Territory government for $1.5 billion in compensation.

“If you saw that room in the Mississippi Burning, for example, Australians would say ‘how terrible, oh, that’s terrible going on there,'” Professor Young said.

“The vitriol and the racism and the lack of consideration and respect for those people on their land while those people lived off the bounty of it was appalling.”

Professor Young also caused controversy last year when she bizarrely claimed that then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s taste for white bread was somehow related to his race.

The indigenous activist, who is a ‘descendant of Eora’, also told the show that ‘how the mafia is treated on their own land, in their own town… is the impact of the theft of that land.’

Mississippi Burning is a brutal 1988 film about the FBI’s efforts to investigate the disappearance of civil rights workers while the Ku Klux Klan attacks the local black population.

In February last year, radio host Ben Fordham branded Professor Young a ‘fruitcake’ after he attacked Mr Morrison’s credibility over his choice of toast.

‘I think the comment about the bread, the white bread, this week was very interesting. Who eats white bread in this country? Anglo men,” he told the show after Morrison said he was a “white bread man”.

On Wednesday, ABC’s reporting of the emergency community meeting in Alice was criticized as biased after its new AM morning show reported that it was dominated by “white supremacists.”

The audience at the town hall meeting was made up of terrified families, business owners and indigenous leaders.

It has been widely reported that Alice Springs is experiencing a crime wave that would shock most Australians.

Official NT Police records huge jumps in the number of domestic violence, assault and property crime incidents in 2022 compared to the previous year.

Images taken by the city’s locals regularly show young men brandishing weapons such as machetes and axes, especially at night in the city.

After the Prime Minister visited the city last week, the Northern Territory Government instituted alcohol restrictions banning takeaway alcohol sales on Mondays and Tuesdays, with sales limited between 3pm and 7pm on the remaining days. .

A quick NT government review also recommends alcohol bans in central Australian communities, including city campgrounds in Alice Springs.

Despite many perspectives being aired, the ABC segment only featured people who criticized the gathering as “racist,” including one who said it was a “scary” “white supremacist fest.”

“It was really a disgusting spectacle of white supremacy… It was very, very disappointing,” a woman told reporter Carly Williams.

It was scary to be in that room.

Another told the show: “The tension, violence and anger in the room was palpable and it was clearly about white supremacy and white safety in this city, and that’s all that was being considered.”

Another described the meeting as “strange” and “dangerous”, claiming that the dangers were posed by “whites have a choice to live here’, not because of ‘vulnerable Aboriginal children’.

During a live crossover on ABC TV, Williams said the “emotional” crowd was “leaving early and getting out of the convention center.”

Only one interview aired during the report.

The woman said: “They could be putting that $1.5 billion to address the causes of the crimes… Instead they want to take punitive approaches… It’s a total white supremacist fest there, and I can tell you, It was terrifying.” .’

Other locals offered different representations of the meeting.

“I’m so proud to see the number of locals giving their time and support to help bring about change,” local business owner and lifelong resident Garth Thompson posted on Facebook after the event.

“I am proud to be a local here in Alice Springs, the community that came together tonight was a showcase of what is possible in our amazing city.”

Meanwhile, 2GB presenter Ben Fordham criticized the national broadcaster on Wednesday.

“Of the thousands of people who attended the meeting, we only heard from one person in that report: a woman who had left early,” he said.

“We don’t hear from terrified locals or concerned moms and dads, we only hear allegations of racism from a woman who left. [of the meeting] – someone who did not represent the entire mood in the room.

And no examples of so-called “white supremacy” were given, no quotes, no images, no audio.

“We didn’t hear from any of the concerned locals, they didn’t play back any of the comments from inside the room, I’m not sure if [she] was inside, that was not clear from his story.

Fordham said that the AM segment was “even worse” than the television report.

“His coverage of the meeting was recklessly and ruthlessly one-sided,” Fordham said.

‘They ignored the issues… And it just became a fight between whites and blacks. AND IF racist comments were made… what were they? And where is the proof?

Alice Springs Mayor Matt Paterson asked the station to retract the story, saying the report “couldn’t be further from the truth”.