“Through the eyes of a black man”: Jason Russell on pulling away the veil of politeness

Council to Homeless Person’s Lucas Testro sits down with Lived Experience Advisor, Jason Russell  

This article was originally published in the October 2024 edition of Parity magazine. Learn more about Parity including how to access full editions.

Jason Russell is a familiar face to many people in Victoria’s homelessness sector. He’s worked as a volunteer at St Mark’s Fitzroy and as a Lived Experience Advisor at Council to Homeless Persons. He’s a regular speaker at conferences, forums and committees. He’s led countless policy-makers through his homelessness journey in his “Walk In My Shoes” tour of Collingwood and its surrounds. And he’s won awards for his contributions. But Jason says that until recently he hadn’t shared an essential part of his identity with the world: his Aboriginality. Because in some ways he had forgotten it himself.  

“Even after 20 years of working with the homeless, when I was formally invited by the Chief of the Wurundjeri tribe to be an Elder, still I could not bring myself to address Indigenous issues”, Jason says. “I would just say, ‘Hey, I’m colour-blind.’”  

It was an instinct that started early in Jason’s life.  

“Growing up in a multicultural era and being one or two of the Aboriginal families [in the neighbourhood], the token blacks, every time I talked about my Aboriginality, it brought me nothing but grief. So I wanted to do everything humanly possible, even down to speech therapy, so I wouldn’t sound like an Aboriginal. It wasn’t because of embarrassment. I did not want to be held back because of the color of my skin.   

Instead, Jason identified as an “Aussie”: “That was the construct that protected me for so long. And then it reversed onto me. You know, I believed it so much that I refused to address Indigenous problems when it came to homelessness.   

“It was this illusion of politeness I was hiding behind. And I wasn’t taking my opportunity to address it, as a strong black man and an elder statesman of my people. …The most racist person I knew was me, and that sucked.”  

The turning point for Jason came at this year’s VISHN (Victorian Indigenous Statewide Homelessness Network) Conference, as he looked into the eyes of a 16 year old Aboriginal boy. That boy was himself – a photo of Jason as a teenager, displayed on a huge screen over a stage on which Jason was about to speak.  

“And more importantly, it just about the age when I started to hide, or deny to myself that what built the majority of Jason Russell was the fact that he is an Aboriginal man.”   

It prompted Jason to throw away his prepared speech. “I looked up and said, I’ll do it like him. 16 year old Jason. I’ll just get up and tell it, spit it out – black, white, or rainbow – at the people. I’ll tell my story through the eyes of a black man.”   

16 year old Jason  

“I was a real bright spark”, says Jason, looking at the photo. “But I didn’t really excel in school because I didn’t share their beliefs. And the fact I wasn’t a talker, they believed I was stupid.”  

His family life was tough as a kid.  

“My biological father, he was a missionary. So he would preach the Bible with one hand and he was a very respected engineer on the other. But then we moved to Sydney where he worked in the blast furnace, and it got to the point he had a Bible in one hand and a bottle in the other.”   

They were confusing times. “Mum and Dad split up. My mother blamed me for destroying the family. I was my parents’ accident.”  

Jason had an early dream of being a police officer.   

“I was 12 years old and we had a career day at primary school, and the only one left was the police. So, I met the sergeant. And I believed if there were more Aboriginal cops, that Aboriginal people would be treated with more respect. And so I said, ‘Mum, I’ve done career day, I went to the police academy, it was so cool, went to Redfern.’ I’d never been to Redfern. That was the nearest I could get to an Aboriginal mission. And I thought, “Wow, yeah.” And Mum said, ‘You be a cop, and I’ll disown you.’   

“So, yeah. That really hurt, man. My mum, I suppose, being part of the Rabbit-Proof Fence and the displacement, she instilled that a lot in me.”  

Soon, rather than pursuing his police dream, Jason started breaking the law.   

“Mum would have to feed us just sour biscuits and soup – morning, breakfast, and night. Every night she’d cry herself to sleep because she couldn’t feed us. And all my friends, they had mad cars, and the best clothes. I said, ‘I know your parents are well off, but how do you get the stuff that you want?’ They were like, ‘Oh, we steal for it.’ So I thought, ‘Okay, you want to get a nice stereo for your car, I’m going to go and earn so I can feed my family.’  

“And I did. And, yeah, it was a huge disappointment to my mother. That was the 16-year-old Jason.”  

Unable to find love at home, Jason ran away. “And I got pretty much adopted by this Italian family. Jackie and Dennis. ‘Mum and Dad’, I should say.”   

Jason rejected Jackie when she first approached him. “I said, ‘Look, sweetheart, I’m not that kid, all right? Do yourself a favor. I’m trouble.’” But then he met Dennis, who was an engineer by day, and after hours was Vice President of the Finks motorcycle gang. “Dennis picked her up on this awesome BMW bike. And he’s not white, he has really dark skin. I’m thinking, ‘He looks so cool’. I said, ‘Who’s that?’ Jackie goes, ‘Well, if you accept my terms, it’ll probably be your dad.’ I’m like, ‘Awesome’.  
  
“These people took me on. Not because of the color of my skin. She wanted to prove it to me there was more to me than just the color of my skin. They just showed me some unconditional love, this colour-blindness.”  

Jackie and Dennis supported Jason to enter university, but Jason soon dropped out. “I don’t know why. I knew the wheels were going to fall off. So I derailed that, by design. I never thought I could step up”.    

Finding a new story  

Jason eventually found his place as a firefighter. It was perfect for a shy guy like him: “no talking”.   

And he distinguished himself in his career. “I was the first decorated Indigenous people in the fire department’s history. First Indigenous person to get decorated for bravery. I was in a magazine; we were the first fully Indigenous firefighter unit in the Southern Hemisphere.”  

It became a major part of how he identified himself – both before and after the workplace injury that became the catalyst for Jason’s experience of homelessness.  

“I was a firefighter, first responder. I fell from this height, from being a happily married pillar of the community… But I never saw myself as a black man.”  

Even when Jason joined the Peer Education Support Program at Council to Homeless Persons and began his journey as an advocate, his work reinforced that story.   

He was the only Aboriginal member of the program. And initially “I just didn’t have one iota of belief in myself.” And doing his “Walk In My Shoes” tours, he says he learned “what hooked people. You know, firefighter to homeless to drug addict to ‘wow, look at him now’. I don’t know if it was by design, or subconscious. I wasn’t addressing was my Aboriginality. I just wanted to be polite, and not be another black fella saying ‘Land rights’.”  

Lifting the veil  

It was “terrifying” speaking for that 16 year old at the VISHN Conference, Jason says. “Because now I’m sharing my illusion with the world, I’m lifting the veil. No more politeness. If you don’t like it, I don’t care.”  

But he was blown away by the response – and how he now feels about himself: “It’s long overdue self-recognition. Not taking anything away from my Aboriginality, but not being a bleeding heart. And honoring the success.” Jason points at the 16 year old kid in the photo. “I just celebrated the fact that ‘that’s him, that’s the dude, that’s the guy.’”  

He says he’s “finally buried that sixteen-year-old kid. I miss him but then again that black and white photo on the left was me when I was homeless, crazy around crystal meth. I don’t want to be that guy. I’m that guy on the right. That’s me now. And I don’t have to apologize for it.”  

So what are Jason’s plans now that he has reclaimed his sense of identity and wants to share it with the world?  

“Well, first and foremost, I’ll get up there and do what the CHP mantra is: peak body in advisory. All right, I’m the peak body. I should address, first and foremost, Aboriginals, because I’m an Aboriginal. You know, it commands that moment. It commands it.”  

While much remains to be done to rectify the over-representation of Aboriginal people experiencing homelessness, Jason believes things are changing for the better. “I think we’re making great leaps and bounds understanding homelessness. The cities we’re speaking to, the town halls that keep inviting us back. This stuff filters up the pyramid to, to the Ministers of government of our country. Policies have been changed. I witnessed that myself.”  

He says it’s essential the community starts celebrating these achievements. “Black fellas saying, ‘Yay! You’re on the right path, government. Sweet.’ Just keep pushing that home. Celebrate the slow but forward steps that have been made by the Government, and they won’t be so scared.”  

Not that it’s all about celebration for Jason. There’s still changes he wants to see: “I think the Minister for Housing has to be a person with lived experience of homelessness. Pure and simple. But that’s just me.”  

This article was originally published in Parity magazine. Learn more about Parity including how to access full editions.