But that same day, Deborah Conway gave "evidence" at the royal commission, which reminded me of my line referencing her now infamous "depends on what you call kids" answer to the unprecedented number of children killed by Israel on ABC radio. Firstly, how is that not hate speech? She faces no criminal consequences unlike two young Brisbane activists awaiting trial for saying "from the river to the sea". Clearly, we have blatant double standards but given Deborah (and myself) are part of the dominant culture here, it's an insight into WHO gets empathy and WHO gets the book thrown at them.
One of the reasons why I went in on her, is cos Conway is combative and doesn't take a backward step, so she's become a symbol of a lot of community anger about the prevailing lack of justice afforded to Palestinians. That’s what my new song is about. The way we other people so their lives aren’t as valuable as ours. Palestinians can’t even have children. They’re born guilty. C’mon man what the fuck.
So on Tuesday I edited a short video with her quote and some footage she’d posted and I shared it. It went viral and the comment section was congested. I tried to moderate where I felt comments crossed a line, and my manager was approached by some senior music industry people demanding I take it down. My post became an outlet for genuine community anger in a time where it seems like the most heinous shit has become normalised, but still I felt a little uncomfortable about it.
