A Kebab shop and the city of Darwin is feeling the heat today as yet another race controversy rocks the City.
Last night a group of friends celebrating a birthday were shocked when their night ended on a very sour note as they witnessed scenes of Apartheid right in front of them. It all started when the small group invited an Aboriginal man to a local kebab shop at around 8:30 pm to have some dinner. The group was initially completely unaware that this was a problem but soon realised the shopkeepers were not happy about the prospect of serving an Aboriginal man.
At first, the shopkeepers started taking orders from people standing behind the group (most likely hoping that this would make the group leave). However the group persisted and overcame the pressure to simply order a hot dog for the Aboriginal man. During the time, the group witnessed a security guard enter the store who was soon followed by 6 more security guards and 2 police officers who arrived in a paddy wagon.
The shopkeeper finally served the Aboriginal man but the group of security guards and police asked the group of 3 (who invited the man) to leave, as they (police & security), had to deal with a situation they claimed happens regularly. Throughout the whole ordeal, the only words spoken by the Aboriginal man were, “thank you”.
On a positive note, one of the group members took to social media to express her disgust over the incident. The post which was published 6 hours ago at the time of writing has been shared over 9,000 times. You can see the original post below.
Update: The post was removed by the woman who called this out (Today/Monday). Before removing her post, it had been shared more than 40,000 times. Following this news, an independent journalist who knows the elderly Aboriginal man spoke out about how normal this scenario has become in Darwin.
We commend these actions and we encourage more people to call out, speak up and challenge any institutions or businesses they believe are operating under an unwritten Apartheid policy. We have a long way to go in Australia as there are many people who like to create excuses for this type of behavior. Just last year, we broke the story of another Aboriginal man in Darwin being hosed away by shopkeepers for simply sitting on the footpath. That incident was filmed, but amazingly there was very little sympathy from the Darwin business community who even rallied around the shopkeeper.
Hopefully with more people standing up, we will see these scenes and attitudes slowly disappear from Australian society.
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