Dictionary

blak en · ADJ

Etymology

Coined by visual artist Destiny Deacon in 1991 as an alteration of black.

Meanings

1. (Australia) Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander).
   • blak identity
   • Every now and then a troll calls me white. It’s a violent colonial tactic: call me white if I identify as blak, call me blak if I wanted to identify as white. […] I am not quite white, not quite blak enough. I wish I was blakker on the outside; as blak on the outside as I feel on the inside. 2021 November 7, Claire [G.] Coleman, “Not quite blak enough: ‘The people who think I am too white to be Aboriginal are all white’”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 03 Dec 2021:

Forms

Deriveds

blakness

blak en · NOUN

Etymology

Coined by visual artist Destiny Deacon in 1991 as an alteration of black.

Meanings

1. (Australia, offensive, often) An Indigenous Australian.
   • Coordinate term: wadjela (a White person, Australian of European descent)
   • The right-wing media, and even some of the more centrist media, draws an artificial line between the bush and the city, the urban blaks and the people from the bush. The division is often coded to skin colour, urban is shorthand for ‘not black enough’ and bush is shorthand for ‘real Aboriginal’. 2021 November 7, Claire [G.] Coleman, “Not quite blak enough: ‘The people who think I am too white to be Aboriginal are all white’”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 03 Dec 2021:

Forms