My name is Gwen Griffen. I have just read the Saturday Telegraph (January 3, 2026) about Usman Khawaja’s story about decades of racial abuse.

Nothing has changed since the 1920s and 30s about racism, prejudice and the White Australia policy racism is still around.

I am Aboriginal, and yes if you are coloured racism is abusive, and degrading, if a person is coloured you are a bad person, evil or criminal.

My grandfather Sam Anderson, veteran Aboriginal cricketer in the 1920s who set the cricket scenes alight with his prodigious batting, bowling and wicket-keeping exploits.

Included in the latter was his dismissal of Don Bradman for a duck in 1928 and Oakes Oval at Lismore.

In his cricketing years, Sam stood tall and straight in a white society – a hero for black and white alike.

One could understand this apotheosis if he was a national figure like Bradman but what makes it more remarkable for a local identity to be given that status was the fact that he was Aboriginal and at a time when racial consciousness was dominated by its political credos.

‘Australia for the white man.’

Segregation, and non-citizenship in the Immigration Act in 1901.

These stories about my grandfather Sam Anderson are in a book called the Dusty Legend written by Maurice Ryan, Northern Rivers Press, Lismore.

It is the biography of Sam Anderson, Aboriginal cricketer.

Maurice Ryan was a consultant historian formerly a senior lecturer at the Southern Cross University, Lismore.

Eddie Gilbert and Sam Anderson were two great Aboriginal cricketers but were never recognised by white selectors.

Sam Anderson should have represented Australia.

An Aboriginal who dismissed Don Bradman for a duck. He was a legend.

But you won’t find these stories in any history book on colonial Australia.

I’d like to congratulate Usman Khawaja for his guts speaking out and being truthful.

That takes courage, not humiliation.

Australians should remember there is good and bad in every race.

Doesn’t matter if you are black, white or brindle. Remove racism from Australia.

Racists always deny being racist when confronted.

Shows how hypocritical politicians were when signing the White Australia policy for the ‘white man’.

Gwen Griffen, Gunnedah