Identity

There has been a lot of talk from both the Northern Territory and federal governments recently about the rivers of royalties, jobs and other benefits they claim will come from opening up the Territory to vast new shale fracking gas fields.

Australia Day and meaningful acknowledgement of First Peoples continue to be debated across the nation, with signs of traction. Unfortunately, the current federal government’s responses have been woeful. As has the continuing poor performance of their Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS).

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a Whovian. Even when the original series of Doctor Who came to an end in 1989, I continued adding to my collection of memorabilia, reading the novels and hoping that one day, the show might come back.

Over three years ago, I began a PhD in Indigenous women’s leadership in Australia, specifically looking at the current era we are in. What an era it is: not a day goes by without a story coming up on my Twitter feed about yet another issue that directly affects us as Indigenous people (with our voices largely ignored).

To celebrate the 115th birthday of Albert (Elea) Namatjira, Google has published a doodle painted by his granddaughter, Gloria Pannka, but for all the acclaim that the Western Arrernte artist was showered with during his lifetime, Namatjira still found himself being regarded as less than the average white man.

Kakadu National Park has always been the tropical rival to Uluru-Kata Tjuta both in terms of it’s natural majesty and through the long history of Aboriginal culture that both places share.

I started this journey walking from Perth to find the truth and find a new way for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Australia. For the past 50 years our people have been fighting for rights, but it’s like it has just gone down the drain too many times.

Growing up with a last name associated with Aboriginal activism, my identity is often decided for me. In some ways it becomes a validation of my Aboriginality.

All over the planet, we are are facing the most urgent time in human history, the most dire situation of all: the effects of the destruction of our earth. Ice-caps are melting, the climate is changing, and species of animals and plants are being threatened and dying out. Yet many of “the powers that be” are still supporting, pushing and funding the destruction of our life-giving earth, through mining, various forms of agriculture and unsustainable energy creation and usage.

Bronwyn Carlson: ‘Many of my students hold the belief that the 1967 referendum was about giving Aboriginal people the vote. They have very little knowledge about the Australian constitution.’

As we commemorate Sorry Day on 26 May, it is vital to also recognise that 20 years has passed since the release of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Bringing Them Home report.

Just about everywhere I turn in Canberra I am reminded of how this city is a place of representations. From the mountains to the lake, from the numerous government buildings to the resistance camp at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, these are all representations of power and agency.

Unless you have been living under a rock, by now you would of heard that Sam Thaiday attempted to be funny while on the Footy Show on Thursday night.

Indigenous people use social media at a rate higher than non-Indigenous people, and this is the case right across the country.

As I sit and ponder the “what could have been” in my life, I am so very thankful for every single knock, put down, set back, break-up I’ve ever had.

In the mid 1980s when I was about six or seven years-old, my father Ray Kelly Senior wrote and directed his first piece of theatre titled Get Up and Dance.

I use the word “lucky” to describe my ability to obtain my confirmation of Aboriginality letter, but I think I just haven’t found the right word to describe my feelings about having to prove my identity to the university where I work.

Light-skinned Aboriginal kids were hated more than the darker kids because we were seen to have a choice of identity.