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Claire G. Coleman

16 Sep, 10 tweets, 2 min read

Mr Ward, respected elder, blew over the limit. Put in a police van & transported 4 hrs without A/C. Was literally cooked alive. No charges. If you left your dog in a car & it was cooked alive you'd be charged criminality. The AG decided there was no prospect of conviction. (1/10)

Ms Dhu died in custody of septicemia & pneumonia. Arrested for $2k in unpaid fines. A victim of domestic violence. Taken to hospital 2x but sepsis not detected & she was sent back to custody. Inquest found she was subjected to "inhumane" treatment by police. No charges. (2/10)

Cam Doomadgee died in a police cell. Locked up for being drunk. Died from massive internal injuries incl broken ribs, ruptured spleen, liver cleaved in 2 across his spine. The pathologist compared his injuries to those of plane crash victims. Police acquitted & compensated (3/10)

JFW lost consciousness after being held on his stomach during a citizens arrest by a retired police officer; Ms Mandijarra lay dead on the floor of a watch house cell for up to 4 hours before it was noticed she was dead. No charges. (4/10)

LV went into respiratory failure while being held down, handcuffed & injected with a sedative; Tanya Day arrested for being drunk in public, died in custody as police didn't conduct required checks & notice the significant head injury that caused her death. No charges. (5/10)

Aboriginal women are 10x more likely to be arrested for public drunkenness. The same day Ms Day was arrested for public drunkenness and died, the same police drove an extremely intoxicated non-Indigenous woman home. (6/10)

David Dungay died after guards rushed to his cell to stop him eating biscuits, dragged him to another cell, then held him face down and had him injected with a sedative. Before he died he said 12 times that he could not breathe. No charges. (7/10)

& let's NEVER forget John Pat, a 16yo boy beaten to death by police in front of (Aboriginal) witnesses. His autopsy revealed a fractured skull, haemorrhage & swelling, bruising, and tearing of the brain. Pat sustained massive blows to the head. Officers were acquitted. (8/10)

Just few of the horrific cases in 450+ deaths of black ppl in custody.
50% hadn't been convicted but detained in custody by police
40% asked for medical assist & didn't get it
25% inc in last yr alone of judges not giving bail to black ppl, most charged with minor offences (9/10)

This is why we need to keep saying loudly that #BlackLivesMatter

(10/10)

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More from @IndigenousX

Claire G. Coleman

@IndigenousX

16 Sep

We are the only culture in Australia that requires we ‘prove’ our identity. We are also the only culture in Australia in which Govt policy required that we provide proof that we had severed ties with our family, kin in order to have basic human rights 1/7

Most of the suicides I respond to have identity struggles implicated in them. Today, I received a message that is not unlike many of the conversations I have across Australia but bought me to tears. It represents the damage that ‘proof of Aboriginality’ results in: 2/7

“Dear Dr Westerman I am studying psych & received an invite to apply for a scholarship with the Westerman Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health & was so happy to see the application required a cultural reference rather than Confirmation of Aboriginality 3/7

Read 7 tweets

Claire G. Coleman

@IndigenousX

15 Sep

My Op-Ed was triggered by Fed Govt announcing it allocated $134M funding into Indigenous suicide prevention. Taking suicide mortality rates this crudely translates to $248,000 per suicide death annually – without adding State funding into the mix. (1/20)

tinyurl.com/ym44sst7

We have enormous amounts of funding for this critical area; yet suicides continue to escalate. Our Indigenous youth are dying by suicide at SIX times the rate of non-Indigenous children. It is only right that we ask why this level of funding has had little to no impact. (2/20)

I am not privy to how funding decisions are made and I have ZERO funding for my services, research or programs; but the gaps are sadly too clear and have been for decades. (3/20)

Read 20 tweets

Claire G. Coleman

@IndigenousX

14 Sep

*TW: mentions of abuse
I hv long been concerned about the little discussion, awareness and training on psychological & emotional domestic abuse and its devastating impacts on victims.
In many of the worst abusive relationships, physical violence is minor or barely present (1/16)

In Aus, 1 woman a week is killed by an intimate partner; Aboriginal women 40x more likely. These stats worryingly tell us it's not the predator lurking down back alleys women should fear, but the men they fall in love with. Criminalisation of coercive control is critical (2/16)

As the family of Hannah Clarke said after she was burnt alive by her ex-husband along with her three beautiful children; "Hannah never thought it was because he never hit her." However, the family had long seen many red flags. (3/16)

Read 16 tweets

Claire G. Coleman

@IndigenousX

13 Sep

Why putting kids in prison increases the odds of future criminality.
Compromised attachment occurs when there is loss, disconnection from primary attachments. When kids are imprisoned, they learn not to rely on close attachments for their emotional needs. 1/7

Kids thrive based on their worlds being predictable. That the love and support of primary attachments are there in a predictable & consistent way. Lose that at a young age & evidence shows it is almost impossible to recover from this loss. 2/7

The results are you develop in kids the idea that you cannot rely on anyone to consistently love or support you. Outcomes consistent with the personality variables of those who have ‘nothing to lose’ and fail to fear anything anymore, including prison.3/7

Read 7 tweets

Claire G. Coleman

@IndigenousX

9 Jul

This is a pic of my mum Patricia taken in the 70’s. Mum was born in 1955 somewhere outside Norseman WA. She was one of 11 kids. At the age of 6 she was removed from her parents and placed in Norseman mission.

Mum always said being there was so lonely. She missed her mum and dad. Her mum died not long after that from gangrene in the uterus. Mum was not allowed to go to the funeral.

My grandmother is buried somewhere behind the cemetery. They did not allow Aboriginal people to be buried there at that time. Here is where my mums ashes are with her brothers today.

Read 11 tweets

Claire G. Coleman

@IndigenousX

8 Jul

This NAIDOC has made me think of my parents so much. When asked what #HealCountry means to me I’ve really struggled to find the words without being a blubbering mess. My Mum died 24 years ago and my Dad died this year on News Year Day.

Whether we were in WA or NSW, they made a point to always get us kids out on country. When Mum passed, Dad continued this with so much love.

Dad was passionate about Aboriginal Education, environmental awareness through bush regeneration, permaculture and sustainability. It became his life’s work.

Read 4 tweets

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