Good Reads

This article is for the young blerds of our community, the blak nerds who haven’t really felt included in the community or made to feel “different”. Our IndigiNerds going into the gaming industry, cosplay realm or just being a panellist on a stage at a comic convention.

Today, 8 September 2020, the child rearing practices of Torres Strait Islanders were given recognition in the law of Queensland by the passage of the Meriba Omasker Kaziw Kazipa (Torres Strait Islander Traditional Child Rearing Practice) Bill 2020 through parliament. Years of Torres Strait Islander Elder advocacy have led to this extraordinary outcome.

The greatest lesson I learned from the dialogues is the generosity of spirit of our old people and their pragmatism. They turned up to the meetings with energy and they brought the cultural protocol and the allegories and the leadership, and they led with the language of peace and friendship.

We are protectors of country that are labelled as ‘activists’ to portray a disconnected image and scare mainstream society away from issues at hand. However, we have proud mob who are doing the work with their own varied skillsets to contribute to our obligation to care for the life giver.

The years of assimilation are slowly coming undone with the resurgence of our cultural identities and a returning to our traditional ways after generations of beatings by the hands of state-sanctioned violence.

Despite being highly qualified within the academic system, and sovereign beings of these unceded lands, Indigenous academic women are often positioned as ‘black performer’ by their fellow academics and colleagues.

It’s unfair to attempt to lift this guilt off yourself by burdening it onto a black person. We don’t exist to carry your guilt and rid you of your sins.

The power of Black media is not just in the ability to report on Aboriginal issues without the oversight of white people who want to control the narrative, but in its accountability.

The most dangerous time is a time of change, and those who fight the dirtiest are the ones who believe that change is not in their personal interest. We have seen this with every incremental win in the fight for civil rights.

Change happens when we demand that change happens. Australia is founded on white supremacy.

Tony Abbott was the Prime Minister, self-appointed Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Women and has been awarded a Queen's Honour. Here, we honour him and his contributions.

As so many in the media space scramble to congratulate him on his career, equating his longevity with some sort of reflection of his value when it can be directly correlated to the dominant mindset and power brokers, I reflect on the damage he has done.

One of the key steps we can take to healing from this sickness, is understanding that gaslighting is a tool of the oppressor that is – and has been for 250 years – weaponised against us in order to keep our people in a perpetual state of disarray, disenfranchisement and disengagement.

It is not new to us that huge corporations and government agencies are very happy to parade their ‘good Aborigines’ or include us in photo ops.

Increasingly, we see the corporatisation of IWD. Action being replaced by cupcakes, but for us - the struggle is daily and it is for justice.

It’s been 41 years since the government first acknowledged that the physical environment needs to change, and that Aboriginal people need involvement at all levels, yet we are still hearing the same statements

The Justices that formed the 4 to 3 majority held that an Aboriginal person is not within the reach of the aliens power. Accordingly, they determined that Mr Thoms could not be treated in accordance with the aliens power and has since been released from immigration detention where he has been held for 500 days.

The bushfire crisis adds another layer of trauma and complexity to our people and can trigger past traumas. Not only as individuals, but as a collective community.