A review by stanro
Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie

5.0

Appropriately on Invasion Day today (26 January 2023), I’ve just finished Black and Blue - A Memoir of Racism and Resilience by Veronica Gorrie

Cautionary note - many potentially triggering episodes are in the book and some are mentioned below. Spoilers too. 

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This is a very tough book, occasionally leavened with humour. The predatory pedophilia she experiences and tells of others also suffering, is truly shocking. So is hearing about she and her siblings being on suicide watch for their alcoholic mother. 

What a fractured family life! Her parents split up. She is forced to move many times. She and her siblings are split between their parents. And she is raped as a young teen. 

Her family members experience alcoholism and its violent consequences. The story of her Aunty Dot’s brutal assault by her boyfriend is particularly shocking. 

Stories of her sister’s repeated escapes from a violent partner are very sobering. 

Then there is the kidnapping of her younger children by their father!

And she became a police officer in Queensland. She is proud to have achieved this and was a commended officer. Though she refers to frequent racist comments by her fellow officers- aimed at her specifically and “just casual” racism or aimed at others. 

She primarily focuses on the challenges presented by her role - dealing with murders and suicides and mayhem from car accidents. Also the pressures of shift work. There is some sardonic humour., but repeatedly, racism - around her and at her.  

The pressures of this work told on her personal relationships. “Policing fucked me up, big time,” she says late in the book as she talks of her post-retirement reflections on her ten-year career in the force. 

Over all, the book is painful, brutal, and too real. This is a story of great resilience following great trauma. 

A thought about resilience. It’s not necessarily a return to pre-injury full health. Nor is it a “happily ever after” sort of thing. What Gorrie’s memoir shows us is the strength she has whilst dealing with such trauma, trauma that reverberates daily. 

She finally reflects at some depth about her mother’s explicit and directly targeted racism. How painful!

Yet, in the last six weeks of her mother’s life, her anger shifted and Gorrie obtains her own reconciliation with her. 

As I read, I find myself thinking that I don’t know how she did it. And then, I do. “I may have had a dysfunctional life, but I was always loved and cared for by my father.”

Finally, she concludes with her thoughts on abolition of police forces, youth detention centres and prisons.


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