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Shannon Murdoch scored 100 per cent on her Australian citizenship. Ask her anything. Flags. Constitutions. Even what the governor-general does. She’ll know the answer. In a few weeks, she will be all set to sing Advance Australia Fair.
But a few weeks back, she boarded a plane in Melbourne ready to fly back to Brisbane, where she lives with her husband, the man she almost always calls Gorgeous Glen. She boarded early because she’s just that organised kind of woman. A couple approached her row to find their seat and took one look at her. And stopped to argue with each other in the aisle of a plane rapidly filling with passengers.
Maybe the cabin crew could find them another seat? Probably not, the flight was going to be busy. Well, I’m not going to sit next to her. Well, I don’t want to sit next to her either.
Shannon is black. African-American. One of her grandparents is Native American. From Texas. She says that racism exists in the US, of course, but at least there is a serious and difficult public conversation about it. Black lives matter. And even though, yep, someone will always answer ‘all lives matter’, that’s the beginning of the conversation right there.
– Jenna Price
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