Here’s a piece a wrote for The Saturday Paper on being wracked with white guilt as I put together a comedy show about refugees.
The first time I visited a detention centre, I was hungover. That has to be up there as one of the most pathetic, privileged, white person things you can do. I had used my freedom to dance the night away and drink a lot of gin and try, unsuccessfully, to kiss boys. Now I was here.
I’d met Nick on a Facebook group that facilitated visits to detention. He met me out the front to chat before we went inside.
“So, Tom, why were you keen to come along and visit today?”
I explained the premise of a show I was writing, and peppered it with a bit of “I’ve-been-meaning-to-do-this-for-a-long-time-anyway”. Nick nodded cautiously.
“Okay,” he said. “Just wanted to check. I saw you on the telly the other night and I said to my friend, who used to be here in detention, ‘That guy wants to come visit and find out more about refugees.’ And he sort of said, ‘Why? So he can just make money out of us?’ ”
I was taken aback. I hadn’t considered this. At all. I’d assumed that I was a good guy doing a good thing. I was helping.