Because I am Aboriginal, because I was born with dark skin and dark, curly hair, I ve never had the opportunity to be perceived as anything other than Aboriginal, and it has never occurred to me that I could be anything other than Aboriginal. So everything I think, say, and do is done from that position never from outside that framework. I don t think I m always being overtly political. Mostly my works are simply about my life as an Aboriginal person. I use my work to establish some sort of equilibrium for myself. Vernon Ah Kee. Born in this Skin includes essays by Robert Leonard, Anthony Gardner, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, and Blair French, and an interview with Glenn Barkley.