Jilya Quotes

“There is a critical discussion around the difference between racism and prejudice – that being, can black people be ‘racist’ towards white people, given that there is a lower power base at play? Black people can be prejudiced, yes, but not racist.
This speaks to racial trauma. Racism results in cultural destruction; prejudice, on the other hand, can cause damage or hurt feelings, but cultural identity is not the reason for it and it has less of the trauma variables implicated in its impacts than does racial trauma.”
― Tracy Westerman AM, Jilya: How One Indigenous Woman from the Remote Pilbara Transformed Psychology

“True change doesn’t happen with denial. But getting at truth requires personal insight. It’s relative to your ability to react emotionally to the pain of others. We have a racial empathy gap in Australia, where the pain of Aboriginal people is not being felt. It’s not being validated. It’s being celebrated.

The psychologist in me is not at all interested in just talking for talking’s sake. Putting people in scenarios that make their racism conscious to them, and doing so in a way that ensures behavioural change, is hard. That’s a challenge I have taken head-on because while I can work with Aboriginal clients about how they manage racism – in themselves and in their children – it is never the case that victims of racism are ‘more responsible’ than the perpetrators of it.”
― Tracy Westerman, Jilya