Decolonising Australian Media. Black Comedy at its best.

Just when I thought being a Black woman in Australia couldn’t get any better, last Wednesday happened. In strolls, Miranda Tapsell and Nakkiah Lui to decolonise the sh-t out of breakfast television. Sonia Kruger and Kerri-Anne Kennerly this one’s for you.

If you failed to catch Get Krack!n’s last episode on ABC, trust me you don’t want to miss two Black Queens dismantle the shameless (colonial propaganda), mind-numbing, vitriol diabolically spewed out by Australia’s mainstream media … yes, Sunrise and Today you heard me.

No doubt, the mob had an out-of-body experience when Miranda and Nakkiah ripped prime time a new asshole. When you combine pure genius, satire and #BlackGirlMagic you get 30 minutes of the best penned Australian television to make history (herstory).

YASSS SIS YAAASS!! What was covered, don’t worry, no major spoilers.

Get out your checklist; SHE DID THAT!!!

• Top racist micro-aggressions experienced by Black women and People of Colour.
• Code-switching and other disarming mannerisms performed so as not to frighten non-POC.
• White Face (ashy) generously applied by a make-up artist who never has foundation to match Black/Brown skin.
• Mistaken for another Black actress because representation is limited on Australian screens — apparently, we all look the same (takes breath).
• Here comes the whitewashing (literally) — non-Indigenous panel speaking on Indigenous issues never lived or experienced by non-Indigenous persons.
• And a dash of white tears because you know they were coming.

CHECK, CHECK and CHECK!

If Lui’s, “What the f–k is a mudroom” doesn’t make you spit out your wine and flossing make you weak. Tapsell’s finale will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and yell, “I’m Black, and I’m proud!”

“I’ll tell you about racism, because I’ve been living with racism since the moment I shot out of my mum!”

“Thirty years of smiling, and making big eyes and not showing my anger! I’m done not being angry. I am angry. And if you don’t like me being angry, then by all means Australia, take my furious baton and run this race for me! Because we are dying in infancy, we are dying in custody, and we are dying decades earlier than you. And you should be as angry about that as I am,” Tapsell cries.

Last Wednesday night Miranda and Nakkiah gave Black Australia a voice to be reckoned with — another platform to own and control our narrative. I commend our sistas, for consistently standing on the frontline for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples— when speaking out can see you vilified.

And for this I am grateful. Thank you, one tidda to another.

When you’ve lived 38 years walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around your own Blackness, these Deadly powerful women make it very clear ‘f–k playing nice’. Or as Ms Tapsell commands, “C’mon babe, let’s go to Sunrise and f— this shit up!”

Shutting down my laptop that night I crawled into bed with a gratifying smirk on my face, as I chuckled to myself “Der Now!”

I slept well that night, every Black fibre of me rejoiced, as did our ancestors, and pretty much the rest of Indigenous Australia.

Watch the final episode of Get Krack!n on ABC iView. Check out behind the scenes here.

A special thank you to Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan — our allies who passed the mic so two phenomenal and courageous Black women can expose what’s wrong with this country when it comes to race and intersectionality.

Feature image credit: Jackson Finter/ABC TV.

Sasha Sarago is the editor of Ascension Magazine. She is a proud Aboriginal woman of the Wadjanbarra Yidinji and Jirrbal clans ‘Rainforest People’ of Cairns, Far North Queensland. She is also of African-American, Malay, Mauritian and Spanish descent. Sasha’s dream is to savour the breathtaking views of Positano; Moscato in hand as the founder of a globally inspiring lifestyle and media company.