Baker Boy, real name Danzal Baker, has released a statement addressing the international Black Lives Matter movement, noting that protests in America are finally calling the attention of the privileged white middle class to the ongoing work of Indigenous activists in this country.
Baker, who is a multi-hyphenate rapper, dancer, actor and dancer, perhaps best-known for his song ‘Cool as Hell’, opens the statement by acknowledging some trepidation about speaking out on the matter. “I’m…unsure that I have anything new or insightful to say,” he writes.
From there, he addresses his own feelings. “I am angry,” he writes. “I am scared. I feel every negative emotion that there is to feel about what happened to George Floyd. I feel these emotions EVERY DAMN DAY not just right now when it’s big on the news or trending on Twitter and Instagram.”
Later in the statement, Baker compels privileged Australians to consider their own place in systems of oppression and racism in this country.
“For all of my balanda (non-indigenous) brothers and sisters I hope what you’re seeing in America right now is opening your eyes to the stolen land that you live on here in Australia, to your privilege, to those ‘jokes’, to those ‘jokes’ that you don’t call out, to your racist uncle or aunt or cousin or friend or coworker and, most devastatingly, opening your eyes to the over 400 deaths in custody of Indigenous Australians without a single officer charged.”
