‘You cunts can do as you like’: the obscenity and absurdity of free speech to Blackfullas

Abstract

In the same year that Adam Goodes quit the game of AFL, soprano and composer Deborah Cheetham refused to sing the Australian National Anthem at the AFL Grand Final because she could not bear to sing the words ‘for we are young and free’. In this article, we examine why the act of singing about being ‘free’ would be both absurd and obscene for Blackfullas in Australia. Engaging with the songs of Black people, locally and globally, we reveal the fiction of free speech and freedom for all and the interests those fictions serve.Abbreviations: AFL: Australian Football League; AO: Officer of the Order of Australia; CMC: Crime and Misconduct Commission; RCIADIC: The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody