CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Despite his love of learning, local Murri kid, Jason Ridley (7) has today come to terms with the fact that he probably won’t be finishing year twelve.
As a young Aboriginal male with a fair bit of pace, everything was looking good for Jason, until he became old enough to play full contact football.
“I just don’t have the ball skills to keep moving forward and avoid getting tackled at the same time” he said, disappointedly.
“I thought I was going to be one of the kids who get to go to a private school and make a bunch of old stockbrokers proud to see their sons winning schoolboy premierships”
“But I’m just not good enough for a scholarship”
Unfortunately for Jason, this means his schooling will likely end upon the conclusion of grade ten, as the closest public high school is over 100km away. That’s providing he doesn’t enter the prison system before that.
“Look, he’s no Kurtley” says one private school scout.
“Put it this way. Parents wouldn’t be happy with this kid getting a call up over the son of a third-generation fee-payer”
Jason, who doesn’t even really like football, knows for a fact the only way out of poverty is to be really good at sport.
“I thought, even if I’m not the best player in my family, at least I’d be better than most of the white kids in the city”
“But it turns out I’m really bad” he says.
“Like, worse than the white boys”
With his local footy team already drafting team lists that don’t have his name on it, Jason has resigned to the fact that he’ll probably end up going to juvie for a petty crime born out of severe boredom and removed sense of self-agency.
“Oh well… I hear some of these juvies have school in them” he says, trying to remain positive.
“Maybe I’ll be finally able to learn about history”
“I’d love to read more about my peoples history in the schoolbooks”
