Don't feed the Ibis

In southeast Qld at least, everybody has seen the signs in the city. You're sitting down to eat and you read those signs, Don't feed the Ibis. This reminded me very much of the referendum Australia had only a few years ago. It was about the Australian people voting on whether or not Australian's First nations people should get more of, as it were, 'a fair go.' The vote came back a landslide in opposition to the course, which I forever failed to understand. I'd heard on A current a fair one journalist saying she and her family didn't understand what it was all about. I took this personally through my dark skinned filter to mean, 'Why would a black young person ever want to go to university?' It was my personal pipedream to always go to university. It happened, I never had the smarts. It was the white attitude I resented. When you're told not to feed the Ibis, you may not think that people had built the city over where the birds have always lived. The wet lands. It was the same way of treating the indigenous, like saying 'Don't feed the Ibis.' You're not good enough for your home. Where else were the natives to go? The Ibis and the people had always been here, and we come, building cities and leave little for them to scavenge over. Now the government had built an M9 from some place to the Gold coast shaving off just 2 minutes of travel time. It reminded me of my copy man where I print my poems. His name was Christian, and when I'd listen in on the small talk he'd make with a customer before me, it was obvious he knew little about politics. My father had a degree in political sciences so naturally I grew up curious about those who hadn't a clue about the business. Christian would complain that he paid his car registration and that that did nothing to fix his commute time to work of a morning. I wondered why a man so obviously named named after Christ was worried about being stuck in traffic for five extra minutes, though I didn't drive myself. It was that Christian lacked the vision, unlike the profit he was seemingly supposed to emulate? That attitude again, Don't feed the Ibis. It was like the people who lacked the vision of Australia's less fortunate to have greater opportunities. It was too late for me to go university but that didn't mean it was too late for others, who may need just that bit more support for, whatever they wished to do, really. The saying became a way of me referring to an ignorant white person's attitude, so as a coloured person myself I learnt, don't sound too clever. Don't appear too strong. Don't feed the Ibis!