CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A local she/her settler living on unceded Naarm land has today momentarily dropped her performative political correctness, while browsing potential real estate opportunities in her gorgeous colonial-era Brunswick terrace house this afternoon.
As a high-income Australian arts grants coordinator, Allegra Goldstein (37) knows the language she uses at work and on social media is integral to making sure she isn’t accused of being a rich white girl living on stolen land and living off the rental payments of the working class.
It’s for this reason that she only ever uses Indigenous terms of reference when referring to the major imperialist metropolitan settlements known as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Her home city, Melbourne, is known as Naarm on all email signatures and panel events. Sydney is Gadigal, and Brisbane is Meanjin.
She doesn’t know what the blacks call Adelaide or Perth, and she’s fairly certain Darwin is an Aboriginal word anyway.
However, just like her militant policing of gender pronouns, Allegra’s selfless commitment to the regeneration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language is something that she can turn on and off – when she needs to.
For example, on Christmas day, she knows it’s very important to make sure her grandfather knows that we don’t say Ayers Rock anymore.
But when she’s talking to her financial advisor, or a 23-year-old real estate agent from Toorak – it’s completely okay to be a bit more withdrawn in her solidarity with the LGBTI, BIPOC and WOC communities that she pretends to be friends with on Twitter.
“Yeah I’m really keen to buy in NORTH MELBOURNE” Allegra tells her rusted on Liberal-voting buyer’s agent today.
“I hear the housing market North MELBOURNE is about to pop. Can you get me in there? Or will I have to SETTLE on buying somewhere else, like West MELBOURNE or MELBOURNE docklands?”
Allegra says that she usually keeps her property portfolio to herself, out of fear of ending up in Forbes magazine article listing the top 40 GirlBosses under 40. But when the market’s moving, you can’t mince your words.
“I hope I don’t have to SETTLE for West MELBOURNE. It’s still really… I don’t know how to say this… Urban?” says the outspoken BLM/ACAB/Defund The Police advocate.
“That’s what I hated about Fitzroy in the early days [of gentrification]”
“The junkies really make me feel unsafe. And the cops take forever”
