The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler
As transcribed by DMETRI KAKMI
You’re wondering why I’m at Taco Bill’s restaurant in South Melbourne, dressed as a young woman named Tilda.
I’ll paint a picture for you and then let the story tell itself.
I’m with the founding members of Kill All Whites (KAW). There’s four of them. Weirdly, they are all of the pale and pasty variety, between the ages of 20 and 35. Two bearded men face two women from opposite sides of the table. Judging from their expressions, the men are either stupid, mass murderers or just waiting to paw some female flesh, the latter of which they are clearly terrified of. As for the women they are filled with the kind of revolutionary fervour that can only be brought on by an expensive education, guilt and self-hatred.
Your fearless correspondent (and master of disguise) is the newly appointed secretary, jotting down minutes. Secret mission: disrupt, destroy and cause chaos.
Jane, the non-hierarchical leader, stands.
‘So like I hope you checked your privilege today.’
‘And left it at the door,’ everyone chimes.
‘Welcome,’ Jane goes on, ‘to our inaugural meeting to like destroy white hegemony and bring an end to entitlement and like whatever.’
One of the beards emits a ‘Down with old white men and all Karens.’
Jane tells him to put that on social media. He does and in seconds he has a million Likes.
‘We’ve allocated like a safe space for anyone who is in any way confronted during this meeting. We’re here for you, if you need us, all right?’
Morose heads nod. Jane goes on, though with a somewhat tougher voice.
‘I also want to like remind the gender non-conforming men, there’s like no looking at the non-binary women without like permission. Because that’s like abuse and rape.’
The men cast guilty eyes at the table.
‘If this is an organization to bring down whites, shouldn’t black people be present?’
Peels of laugher around the table.
Davina, the other woman, speaks up.
‘You silly naive thing. We don’t invite them. They just get in the way.’
‘BAME, BIPOC and CALD don’t know what’s good for them,’ says Jane. ‘They need us to like show them the way.’
More nods, cheers, claps.
‘They are innocents who need our help.’
‘Why are we in a Mexican restaurant?’
‘Because I like enchiladas,’ she says, donning a sombrero. ‘Yeeha, yeeha, caramba, arriba!’
Everyone smiles and claps.
‘Any of you Mexican?’ I pursue.
‘That’s cultural appropriation and offensive to Mexicans.’
Gasps of horror erupt around the table. Jane rips the sombrero from her head and throws it away, as if she found Speedy Gonzales crouched there. Everyone stampedes out of Taco Bill’s and stands shaking on the street.
‘Oh, my goddess,’ cries Jane. ‘I don’t know what we were thinking.’
‘We weren’t thinking,’ offers a doleful Davina. ‘That’s how superior, entitled people steal oppressed and marginalised people’s beautiful cultures.’
‘We obviously have internalised racism,’ ejaculates from a beard.
Jane tells him to not exercise his male privilege by speaking whenever he feels like it. Then she suggests we go to a Japanese restaurant.
‘Cultural appropriation,’ I offer. ‘And you’re supporting war-time atrocities in the Pacific.’
‘That’s right,’ I grumble. ‘Drop napalm on them and steal their food.’
‘Then you can’t eat Greek!’
Jane goes through fifty other national cuisines, all of which are struck off the list for the appalling crime of eating food that does not belong to one’s own national identity. Finally, she shouts, ‘All right then let’s just go to McDonald’s.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ she says. ‘Junk food and it’s not environmentally sound.’
‘And,’ I say, waving a finger, ‘McDonald’s is American cultural imperialism at its worst.’
Everyone tut-tuts and we give Jane the evil eye.
‘You have internalised bias,’ one of the beards prematurely ejaculates.
Davina tells him that’s hate speech against women. He hides behind the other ejaculate.
In the end we sit on a cold park bench and plot the downfall of white civilization.
‘Truth is,’ Davina says, ‘it’s time white people died out.’
‘Hear, hear,’ emerges from the two spermatozoa.
‘It’s time they let the lovely BAME, BIPOC and CALD have a go,’ Davina goes on, hunching down in her nice warm jacket. ‘I’m sure they will do a much better job.’
‘Davina,’ I interrupt, ‘is that an Italian jacket?’
‘CULTURAL APPROPRIATION,’ I scream, leaping to my feet and pointing at her like Donald Sutherland at the end of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Davina screams, tears off the jacket and throws it away. The others also rise to their feet and stare at her as if they’re about to tear her apart. Jane rescues her friend.
‘After the revolution, I will be the non-hierarchical leader of the BAME, BIPOC, and CALD. Because they can’t like speak English and they don’t know what’s good for them.’
Davina forgotten, the congregation claps, more to warm their hands than anything else.
‘We have to destroy whites,’ says Jane. ‘But how?’
‘By example,’ offers the trusty secretary.
Enquiring faces turn to me.
‘We have to kill ourselves and put it on social media,’ I say. ‘Then and only then will nasty, pernicious pale faces see the error of their ways and kill themselves, like lemmings off a cliff.’
‘Tilda, you’re genius,’ crows Jane. ‘How are we going to do it?’
They agree it’s a masterstroke. I drive them to the top of the Westgate Bridge, park on the side, and we all get out. Dead of night. No one about, but a lacerating southerly.
‘You jump,’ I say. ‘I’ll film it on my phone, put it on social media, and follow you.’
They clamper up the safety fence.
‘Check your positionality,’ I call. ‘Ready, set, deconstruct!’
They leap into liminality. Unfortunately for them they land on a passing Russian cargo ship. Last I heard, they were harvested for body parts by nice underprivileged people in Vladivostok.
À bientôt, mes amies.
The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker (his father) and a Greek bear wrestler (his mother). He has lived in Istanbul, Rome, London, New Orleans and is currently stateless. He partakes of four bottles of Bombay gin and nine packets of Gauloises cigarettes a day.
Dmetri Kakmi is a writer and editor. His first book, Mother Land, was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia, and his new book, The Door, will be released in September 2020.
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