Public School Kid

An illustration showing a young girl with brown skin and a smile on her face running away from a school bus with an open back window. There are other kids in the bus watching her, and gum trees to either side. In the background is a school building with a cross on the roof, and a beautiful multicoloured sky.
Illustration by Isaac Curran, @isaacjcurran on instagram

My high school, much like my primary school before it, was racist in the most well-intentioned way. In my first year, they gathered up all us Aboriginal kids, from years eight to twelve, and dumped us in the same tute class, headed by perhaps my least favourite teacher in the whole school – a tiny, angry woman who reduced our ancestors to a bunch of savages in loin cloths. The school did this, I imagine, with the intention of creating a community for us there. But all they succeeded in doing was marking us out as different.

Read the rest at Pulch Mag, here!


Newman, J. (2020). Public School Kid. Pulch Mag. http://pulchmag.com/2020/07/16/public-school-kid-2/

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