The violent death of Cassius Turvey is a national tragedy
A fifteen-year-old boy and a ‘young leader’ has been taken away from his family and community
Cassius Turvey was the pride of his mother and of his family, a young leader of enormous potential. He was the kind of kid that would give everything a go, he was involved in the local youth centre and showed great promise. Cassius was a proud Noongar boy who ran a lawn mower business employing a ‘pay-as-you -want’ philosophy, he was "born a Pop, blackfulla style, and born an Uncle”, and he was a bright light for the future of his people.
Walking home from school with his friends on October 13, Cassius had permission from his parents to go to the shops, like normal schoolkids do. A screeching black Ute approached them and Cassius was suddenly set upon and allegedly struck across his head with a metal object by a 21 year old adult male. A grown adult, allegedly accompanied by additional grown adult men, in this day and age, drove up to these children and attacked one of them brutally with a blunt metal object in broad daylight. Cassius’ friends had ran in fright for some time before realising Cassius wasn’t with them.
After the attack, Cassius Turvey was taken to Perth Children’s Hospital for treatment to lacerations to his skull and ear, and after five days he was discharged to return home with his mother. A few hours later, he suffered seizures and was rushed back to hospital and placed in a medically induced coma. He was admitted for urgent brain surgery, but he suffered two strokes and died from the injuries sustained in the alleged vicious assault.
Western Australian police commissioner Col Blanch has said it was a vigilante attack that had gone horribly wrong. A case of “mistaken identity”, an act of revenge for a broken window. He said that the kid was in the “wrong place at the wrong time”, walking home from school. At any point, when does a “damage incident” for a simple broken window qualify for a vigilante attack? How could that act justify such a disproportionate use of force in the first place, mistaken identity or not? The offenders’ brutal attacks were across Cassius’ head and upper body, causing the two brain haemorrhages that ultimately resulted in his death.
In the case of Turvey’s horrific killing, the police rule out racism as a motivation for the attack. Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan warns against speculation over the death of Cassius Turvey, but at this point, in this example, you can’t help but think what would have happened if Cassius weren’t black, if the incident would have been so callous and so cruel, if the outcome would have happened in the first place.
When a white kid is killed by violence in this country, there are foundations created in their names, awareness campaigns and ribbon events, the nation collectively mourns for a senseless and unconscionable death through the commercial television breakfast programs and tabloid newspapers. Cassius Turvey’s death sits awkwardly in the poorly connected cross-cultural malaise between white Australia and First Nations people. His murder represents a disjointed arm’s length relationship born out of decades not doing enough together, and a cultural impasse between those who still suffer from endemic and institutional racism, and those who don’t.
Our culture can hardly come to terms with the colonial legacy that pockmarked a shallow disturbance on tens of thousands of years of deep-rooted cultural significance flowing under the boots of our ignorant minds. We all struggle to grieve with our First Nations countrypeople for the inter-generational trauma sustained by massacres in the frontier wars; we won’t even remember them beside our diggers at the war memorial. Meanwhile in the aimlessness of leadership, our white-led political class cannot truly comprehend or appreciate the importance of Aboriginal culture, nor fathom its significance as the vital missing component to determine our poorly conceived national identity.
It's hard to separate the needless death of Cassius Turvey and the muted, equivocal response from the legacy of national failures, etched into the perceptions of Australians towards First Nations people. A form of wilful contrarianism motivates decades of decision makers in the political class and weaves its way through the wider society into a blanket of blissful acquiescence that helps the rest of us sleep at night. For some, the silence is permission to do the unthinkable towards Aboriginal people like Cassius.
Trickle-down racial discrimination from hundreds of years of colonial institutionalism pervades our corporate media and haunts our government agencies, NGOs and police forces. We are a nation that has ignored the disproportionate violence and suffering of black Australians for far too long, and it shows in the way we boo footy players, in the unclosing gaps, in schools, prisons, health and mortality. It bleeds through the scars of genocidal frontier massacres and stolen generations, and the unseen injustices leak through the pages of our history from 1788 to the present day, clouding our ability to face this together.
Floating around in the warm thermals of a post-budget high, Anthony Albanese now talks boldly in support for the protesters in Iran, he also meets with the US select Committee on Intelligence to discuss “peace and prosperity in the region”. after Cassius’ death, it may be time spark a genuine and solemn national discussion to address a fundamental matter at home. We may not really wish to identify that endemic racism flows from the wellspring of our nation’s modern identity, but perhaps now, at this moment of tragedy, it should no longer be ignored.
Long before the indigenous voice to parliament goes ahead to a broader debate, the voice of parliamentarians and our talking heads in the media, of our police commissioners, health experts and even the mining and industrial giants who make wealth off Aboriginal lands — they all must be heard to be speaking against this inherent and endemic character flaw in our society. A horrible case of “mistaken identity” is not a response that will suffice a mother that grieves for a son, and the community rightly demands answers for the loss of an innocent Aboriginal boy, and solutions to a national problem that the death of this child represents.
"How are we supposed to raise our young youth to be leaders and take on our next generation when we're just pounding them into the ground, traumatising them, making them feel that they are absolutely nothing?" - Mechelle Turvey, Cassius Turvey’s mother
The death of Cassius Turvey represents more than “wrong place wrong time”, it illustrates the frontline of our national psyche, a stark history featuring different forms of violence, different forms of perception and different ways of communicating towards Aboriginal people that runs back to Bennelong, stretched out over the thin veneer of an artificial Australian identity. The outrageous circumstances of the tragic and unnecessary death of this boy deserves an appropriate response, and a national discussion to accompany it. Cassius Turvey was a bright light for the future, a child that represented something that we can all appreciate and must fight to protect: the opportunity to do something better.
That's an elegant tribute to Cassius and a concise and accurate exposition of cultural relations in Australia. Your best essay to date.
What a moving piece. I agree, your best yet. Thanks Joel.