Your browser window currently does not have enough height, or is zoomed in too far to view our website content correctly. Once the window reaches the minimum required height or zoom percentage, the content will display automatically.
Alternatively, you can learn more via the links below.
This interview was part of Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service’s Invasion Day webinar in January this year. The Q&A spoke to an incredible panel of First Nations people, each with their own unique experiences of the criminal legal system. The interviews amplify that burning spirit that lives within all of us. Marie Mitchell, a proud Yorta Yorta woman and the leader of VALS Statewide Community Justice Programs, spoke to the panel about their experiences, learnings, strengths and challenges. This month, we share the last segment with Johnathan Binge.
My name is Johnathan Binge and I’m Gamilaraay/Gamilaroi, Dunghutti and Gumbaynggyirr. I was born in Moree, that’s my country, but currently living in Naarm now. I’m just a black fella moving through the motions!
My experience has been growing up our way – coming from Moree, a small country town, not living off much – to the big city, Melbourne. It took us a while to settle down. We went through most of the women’s refuges, just me and mum, until we landed in Heidelberg. From there, it was a revolving door. Some of our first joint contacts with police was because of family violence.
By the time I was around 8 years old, police knew me by my face and name in my community. I had my school just to the back of us on the flats, and then straight across was the old police station. I started to fall in with the mob in my area. All of us are living in similar conditions, so, if you ain’t going out and doing what these mob is doing, then you got to be smart and go through school. But that wasn’t me. I had a lot of problems through school. A lot of racist teachers that mum and I clashed with. Also, my mum didn’t tell them about me having ADHD too, so I was just a bad kid. I was seeing stuff happen in my house and I had no other outlet. And I just found (school) a real indoctrination. I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want to assimilate like that. And I just never went.
The pipeline for my community to youth detention was quick. By the time mum passed away, around 2013, I was 13 years old. I had two options – go back home to Moree and figure it out or stay down here and continue what I was doing. So I chose to stay.
Me and my younger brothers – I’m the oldest out of five – but four of us live in Melbourne, Naarm, we were split. But that wasn’t after being moved around, place to place, house to house and for various reasons we were separated.
From 2014 to the day before I turned 18, I was in out-of-home care with Berry Street. That kind of environment just fostered the same behavior that I was falling into. I’m happy to say today that I went from being represented by VALS in court to jumping on this panel and speaking with you mob. But it’s been a long road, trying to figure out what regular life is. I barely made it through school. I got a Year 12 equivalent and I don’t intend to be studying more.
I love working with my community. I love writing my music. I like speaking, doing whatever I can to kind of get myself in a better headspace. But it’s hard. We’ve got a lot of mob passing away, and that brings up too many feelings for me that puts me back in that mode.
I started working at the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA), doing deadly stuff in an all-blackfulla team. We do writing workshops and mentoring with young black fellas – and my own experience can help. It’s about how I can get them to see that me expressing my way can also be an available tactic to them to push themselves out of poverty. I’ve been focusing on keeping it like that and trying to be positive in myself.
With FYA, I think, “How would I as a young person in that situation want to come into these spaces?” I try to make it as available and open as possible.
Throughout my years, there were various programs popping up for at-risk youth at the time that really helped shape the way that I think about my future. I think about the openness of the people that you would call mentors or workshop facilitators and the way that they interacted in a holistic sense but also just being genuine in who they are and not trying to put on “I know everything” or “I’ve been around/I’m older”. I try to be open to taking either criticism or being able to slow down the way that they run these programs and try to serve community in the best way that they can. If my programs and the stuff that I’m trying to run ain’t available for young blackfellas that grew up the same way that I did then I don’t want to run them at all and I don’t want to be a part of that work at all.
I think back to experiences in this work like Blak Up!, which was run on Gunditjmara Country. It was a 4-day camp and conference, and we would get together and have discussions on things like how do we get out and escape the system or how do we work around it. We did art together and then ended each day with a musical performance with various blackfella artists from across the country coming through and sharing their experience in a fun way with music and all that. There were a lot of solid young blackfellas that were real staunch. And it was so solid just watching them sit in their power and learn things. We’ve had deadly feedback from that program. Whether it be professional or just trying to escape the system in that way, mob have pointed to that experience – with all of those solid mob coming out on sacred country – as something that still drives them today, which is really special for me.
The other piece with music, I swear to god, I wouldn’t be alive today if I wasn’t writing. That’s just as simple as it is, bro. I watched so many bodies get put in the ground growing up. I knew, I knew for a fact I was coming up next. That was just how I was living, you know? I’m telling you now, if I wasn’t writing, I wouldn’t be alive today. That’s just it.
I think back to something that my psychologist told me – where that whole process of holding something within your body for so long, and mentally being trapped in that kind of jaded way, where you’re a slave to your experience.
Writing down and having something go from the mental trauma to a physical piece of work, it then becomes not just your responsibility anymore. It goes from just a mental thing stuck within your head to a physical piece that you can choose to do whatever you feel.
You can express it to other people. You can pass that paper to other people or you can simply just burn it and it doesn’t exist anymore. The symbolic piece of getting something out from being stuck inside your head to a physical piece that is no longer just your responsibility and you’re sole bearing to hold onto.
I always think back to that when I’m writing. I know that, if I’m feeling bad through that day, then I might move to the paper. We got phones and all that now, but it’s so simple – these are just concepts. Being able to express in any way, whether that be art, whether that be music, whether that be writing or whether that be filmmaking. Putting your mind into that space to grow out, you think about the brain, it’s like a skill tree and things that you extend and grow the more that you actually do it. Build up those kinds of networks, you just stick with it, you do it, you’re expressing that way and it’s going to help you eventually, then it’s not just your responsibility anymore.
I have had a lot of unlearning to do. I’ve had to hold on to the memories, things that I’ve done that I can’t let go. There’s mental barriers that I still have to try and break down. The way that I see it – and this isn’t for everyone because mental health is a journey that you take within yourself – is that, if I’m not on top of keeping connected to my community, that’s on me. But, at the same time, the way that my depression works in particular is when I find myself spiraling and getting inside those patterns again then it’s easy for me to sit within myself and fester in that.
The only way for me to break out of that is to go and do things within community. No matter what it be, it’s connecting with my people, talking with my mob. It’s hard to be a black fella and understand that, one, they want to make you a subject and, two, after it’s all said and done and you finally get the tick of approval to being an adult, all of the traumas and things that are being brought upon you and stuff that you’ve had to endure and also the things that I particularly put myself through… After learning a lot of those behaviors, it’s a big undertaking to break those walls down and learn about our particular context. It’s a lot to sit with, knowing the structures, the policies that are built upon wanting to steal our land and wanting to break our people. Sitting with that and knowing the simple day-to-day ways that the colony has messed with me.
It’s also a big undertaking for our community to continue to fight. I look to the older mob that are out there speaking on our behalf, particularly as a young person – I’m 25 now. I know it’s on me to keep my mental health up, but it’s also a great thing to have a support system that you can rely on. I’m happy throughout my life that I’ve had three younger brothers that I need to keep myself okay for.
I can’t speak to other mobs’ experiences, because there’s so many mobs I know that have taken the other way because they didn’t have those support systems, and it still kills me.
So it’s a hard one. It’s a hard question for me because I’m still trying to learn how to take care of myself.
My name is Johnathan Binge and I’m Gamilaraay/Gamilaroi, Dunghutti and Gumbaynggyirr. I was born in Moree, that’s my country, but currently living in Naarm now. I’m just a black fella moving through the motions!
My experience has been growing up our way – coming from Moree, a small country town, not living off much – to the big city, Melbourne. It took us a while to settle down. We went through most of the women’s refuges, just me and mum, until we landed in Heidelberg. From there, it was a revolving door. Some of our first joint contacts with police was because of family violence.
By the time I was around 8 years old, police knew me by my face and name in my community. I had my school just to the back of us on the flats, and then straight across was the old police station. I started to fall in with the mob in my area. All of us are living in similar conditions, so, if you ain’t going out and doing what these mob is doing, then you got to be smart and go through school. But that wasn’t me. I had a lot of problems through school. A lot of racist teachers that mum and I clashed with. Also, my mum didn’t tell them about me having ADHD too, so I was just a bad kid. I was seeing stuff happen in my house and I had no other outlet. And I just found (school) a real indoctrination. I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want to assimilate like that. And I just never went.
The pipeline for my community to youth detention was quick. By the time mum passed away, around 2013, I was 13 years old. I had two options – go back home to Moree and figure it out or stay down here and continue what I was doing. So I chose to stay.
Me and my younger brothers – I’m the oldest out of five – but four of us live in Melbourne, Naarm, we were split. But that wasn’t after being moved around, place to place, house to house and for various reasons we were separated.
From 2014 to the day before I turned 18, I was in out-of-home care with Berry Street. That kind of environment just fostered the same behavior that I was falling into. I’m happy to say today that I went from being represented by VALS in court to jumping on this panel and speaking with you mob. But it’s been a long road, trying to figure out what regular life is. I barely made it through school. I got a Year 12 equivalent and I don’t intend to be studying more.
I love working with my community. I love writing my music. I like speaking, doing whatever I can to kind of get myself in a better headspace. But it’s hard. We’ve got a lot of mob passing away, and that brings up too many feelings for me that puts me back in that mode.
I started working at the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA), doing deadly stuff in an all-blackfulla team. We do writing workshops and mentoring with young black fellas – and my own experience can help. It’s about how I can get them to see that me expressing my way can also be an available tactic to them to push themselves out of poverty. I’ve been focusing on keeping it like that and trying to be positive in myself.
With FYA, I think, “How would I as a young person in that situation want to come into these spaces?” I try to make it as available and open as possible.
Throughout my years, there were various programs popping up for at-risk youth at the time that really helped shape the way that I think about my future. I think about the openness of the people that you would call mentors or workshop facilitators and the way that they interacted in a holistic sense but also just being genuine in who they are and not trying to put on “I know everything” or “I’ve been around/I’m older”. I try to be open to taking either criticism or being able to slow down the way that they run these programs and try to serve community in the best way that they can. If my programs and the stuff that I’m trying to run ain’t available for young blackfellas that grew up the same way that I did then I don’t want to run them at all and I don’t want to be a part of that work at all.
I think back to experiences in this work like Blak Up!, which was run on Gunditjmara Country. It was a 4-day camp and conference, and we would get together and have discussions on things like how do we get out and escape the system or how do we work around it. We did art together and then ended each day with a musical performance with various blackfella artists from across the country coming through and sharing their experience in a fun way with music and all that. There were a lot of solid young blackfellas that were real staunch. And it was so solid just watching them sit in their power and learn things. We’ve had deadly feedback from that program. Whether it be professional or just trying to escape the system in that way, mob have pointed to that experience – with all of those solid mob coming out on sacred country – as something that still drives them today, which is really special for me.
The other piece with music, I swear to god, I wouldn’t be alive today if I wasn’t writing. That’s just as simple as it is, bro. I watched so many bodies get put in the ground growing up. I knew, I knew for a fact I was coming up next. That was just how I was living, you know? I’m telling you now, if I wasn’t writing, I wouldn’t be alive today. That’s just it.
I think back to something that my psychologist told me – where that whole process of holding something within your body for so long, and mentally being trapped in that kind of jaded way, where you’re a slave to your experience.
Writing down and having something go from the mental trauma to a physical piece of work, it then becomes not just your responsibility anymore. It goes from just a mental thing stuck within your head to a physical piece that you can choose to do whatever you feel.
You can express it to other people. You can pass that paper to other people or you can simply just burn it and it doesn’t exist anymore. The symbolic piece of getting something out from being stuck inside your head to a physical piece that is no longer just your responsibility and you’re sole bearing to hold onto.
I always think back to that when I’m writing. I know that, if I’m feeling bad through that day, then I might move to the paper. We got phones and all that now, but it’s so simple – these are just concepts. Being able to express in any way, whether that be art, whether that be music, whether that be writing or whether that be filmmaking. Putting your mind into that space to grow out, you think about the brain, it’s like a skill tree and things that you extend and grow the more that you actually do it. Build up those kinds of networks, you just stick with it, you do it, you’re expressing that way and it’s going to help you eventually, then it’s not just your responsibility anymore.
I have had a lot of unlearning to do. I’ve had to hold on to the memories, things that I’ve done that I can’t let go. There’s mental barriers that I still have to try and break down. The way that I see it – and this isn’t for everyone because mental health is a journey that you take within yourself – is that, if I’m not on top of keeping connected to my community, that’s on me. But, at the same time, the way that my depression works in particular is when I find myself spiraling and getting inside those patterns again then it’s easy for me to sit within myself and fester in that.
The only way for me to break out of that is to go and do things within community. No matter what it be, it’s connecting with my people, talking with my mob. It’s hard to be a black fella and understand that, one, they want to make you a subject and, two, after it’s all said and done and you finally get the tick of approval to being an adult, all of the traumas and things that are being brought upon you and stuff that you’ve had to endure and also the things that I particularly put myself through… After learning a lot of those behaviors, it’s a big undertaking to break those walls down and learn about our particular context. It’s a lot to sit with, knowing the structures, the policies that are built upon wanting to steal our land and wanting to break our people. Sitting with that and knowing the simple day-to-day ways that the colony has messed with me.
It’s also a big undertaking for our community to continue to fight. I look to the older mob that are out there speaking on our behalf, particularly as a young person – I’m 25 now. I know it’s on me to keep my mental health up, but it’s also a great thing to have a support system that you can rely on. I’m happy throughout my life that I’ve had three younger brothers that I need to keep myself okay for.
I can’t speak to other mobs’ experiences, because there’s so many mobs I know that have taken the other way because they didn’t have those support systems, and it still kills me.
So it’s a hard one. It’s a hard question for me because I’m still trying to learn how to take care of myself.
Thank you to Johnathan, Marie and VALS for the conversation.
Including a piece about kids dancing and going walkabout and Chippa's interpretation of Country.
This interview was part of Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service’s Invasion Day webinar in January this year. The Q&A spoke to an incredible panel of First Nations people, each with their own unique experiences of the criminal legal system.
This is my interpretation of Country. The greens and browns take me back to the quiet and secluded areas I've worked on and stayed on whilst camping and living off Country.
A wide-ranging report commissioned by the federal government has called for “urgent and proactive” system-level reforms to improve the standard of health care provided to First Nations people in prison.
Help keep the momentum going. All donations are tax deductible and will be vital in providing an essential resource for people in prison and their loved ones.
Help us get About Time off the ground. All donations are tax deductible and will be vital in providing an essential resource for people in prison and their loved ones.
Leave a Comment
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere. uis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.