The Redfern "Problem"

Courtesy of CouchSurfing ( or "CS" as its known by its surfers--http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/car_and_nat), Natalie and I will be staying With Karl, Tom, and their French housemate at their humble abode near Central Station Surry Hills by the Redfern boundary. They're all in their 20s, have a large pull-out futon for us to sleep on (bring on the travel sleeping sack...), and are the proud owners of a python named "Dog." Sounds great, right?

Well, when I told a good friend of mine--a friend relatively familiar with the Sydney area, as he studied abroad there--that I was staying near and/or in Redfern, he immediately said: "Oh no. Not Redfern. Stay away from there. Even our professors warned us not to go there."

Naturally, my first thoughts were somewhere along the lines of, "Well, crap..." And naturally I was immediately instilled with an unavoidable fear. Would I indeed be safe in Redfern? It's one thing to entrust your safety to complete strangers (note: my father might beg to differ...he still has slight issue with this whole "CS" thing), but quite another to entrust your safety to an inner-city suburb characterized by drugs, violence, and--god forbid--prostitution.

But, before entirely panicking about my impending Redfern-induced doom, I did what I always do during panicky times: I researched. I turned towards the always trusty (well, that's open to interpretation), good, ol' internet. I poured through blogs, scoured city reports, typed in Google searches such as "Is Redfern dangerous?" or "Will I be kidnapped, raped, injected with heroine, and tortured to death in Redfern?"

My results were extraordinarily interesting.*

Turns out Redfern is host to a large Aboriginal population. Located almost directly by the Redfern Station (on the west side of Redfern, while Central Station is on the east side), there is what most Australians refer to as "The Block." "The Block" is essentially 4 streets that intersect with one another to form a large rectangle. Within this large urban rectangle, there are various housing projects. And in these various housing projects reside a large population of poor Aboriginals. In fact, it's the most concentrated population of Aboriginals in the entire Sydney area (and in many areas of Australia, for that matter).

People have told me that Australia is like America in the '60s. I never realized to what extent this is true.

Taxi drivers won't go near "The Block." No one who isn't Aboriginal goes near "The Block." Furthermore, because of the enormous amount of racism, people all over Sydney have pawned the entire suburb of Redfern as a no-go area. Even people who haven't been there themselves warn against going there. Redfern is a huge "problem" they say. There's so many drugs, so much violence, they say.

But, like I said, I did my research. It appears that east Redfern, the part of the suburb east of the Redfern Station, is just fine. That's where I'll be staying. It's the west part of Redfern, on the west side of the Redfern station, that can be dangerous.

I'll admit; learning that I'd be staying in East Redfern allowed me to breathe a huge sigh of relief. Which in turn made me feel extremely guilty. As most of you are familiar, the [West] Redfern "Problem" is clearly deeply rooted in a very tension-filled Aboriginal-Australian history. And obviously, that part of history is still ongoing. Am I now, too, part of the problem?

This thought, of course, made me feel unbelievably sad.


*No, for those of you wondering, you will most likely not be kidnapped, raped, injected with heroine, and tortured to death while in Redfern. You will likely be 100% just fine.