Community
One of the necessary strengths of a minority group under the domination of an oppressive majority is community. The farther outside the mainstream members of a group exist, the more dependent upon a sense of brotherhood they become. Of course, to those looking on from the majority, this sense of togetherness takes on a different aspect. It is the same idea, but expressed from a negative perspective:
“You bastards stick together like flies on a dunny wall.”
“Herbie”
Herbie is the title character of this story. He is picked on, teased, and bullied until finally he meets his death at the hands of a gang of fellow schoolkids. The narrator of the story is one of those kids and his description of the victim reveals the effect of the pervasive racism all around him every day:
You never noticed his mouth, because he rarely spoke and never smiled. He’d flit around the shadows like a crow--he was black as one, too. His legs were long and thin like a crane’s and his arms were long and skinny.
Assimilation
Assimilation comes in various forms in reality and in the stories. The title story features a school athletic star who dives head-first into the surprisingly shallow waters of full-blown delusions about assimilation. Less intense is the kind that just seems acceptance or respect from the mainstream. Such is the sad story of sheep-shearer Snowy Jackson whose eager desire to enjoy some level of assimilation is painted in colorfully metaphorical language:
Each bald, skinny, white sheep that he pushed down the chute was a new piece of juicy fruit for him to chew on, until he belly was full of white man respect.
Guilt
Part of the problem with trying to survive the pressure placed upon the minority class by the powerful ruling class by seeking assimilation is that this choice comes with a built-in sense of guilt. The deeper the dive, the more intense the guilt. And since the sports star in “Going Home” is doing a swan dive into the deep end of the pool, when his guilt arrives, it is so intense it shows up as pure metaphor:
Grotesque trees twist in the half-light. Black tortured figures with shaggy heads and pleading arms. Ancestors crying for remembrance. Voices shriek or whisper is tired chants; tired from the countless warnings that have not been heeded.
This Land was Their Land
Lying always deep within the heart of indigenous people who find themselves under the yoke of foreign trespassers is the aching reminder that they were here first. All exploration and colonialization and exploitation is about territory and laying claim to it, but the claims of those who had it before they arrived are simply not part of the equation. Why would that fiery torch be passed from one generation to the next?
His temper burns behind his somber eyes while his teeth are a white slash across his dark face. Just like the Milky Way slashing across the sky, showing where his God had trodden in glory, even before white man was thought. That is how old his people are.
