History

We’ve decided to start making some short videos since we’ve all got a bit more time on our hands... our first one is from IndigenousX founder and CEO Luke Pearson talking about ‘Why didn’t Aboriginal people invent the wheel?’ - not just the reasons why we didn’t but, more importantly, the reason racists love to bring this up. Hope you enjoy!

Surviving New England is impossible to put down. Its accounts shatter the colonial storying of the frontier. Mob in New England were not only resilient, as the current progressive narrative would have us believe, to colonisation — they resisted, fiercely, doing much more than surviving.

On this day in 1879, in far north Queensland at Cape Bedford more than 40 Guugu-Yimidhirr people were killed.

As I reflect upon my pregnancy and the early months with my daughter, I realise that my thoughts and feelings around her being removed were very real for me. As real as it was for my Dad and Nan and the generations before them. It was never intentional on their part as intergenerational trauma never is.

In 2016, Indigenous Athlete and now Motivational Speaker Joe Williams took a stand by sitting, and started a nationwide conversation by staying silent. Fellow Indigenous athlete Anthony Mundine has caused similar controversy and just last night Cody Walker, Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr and Will Chambers did the same by refusing to sing the Australian national anthem while lining up for the NRL State of Origin Opener.

The Australian Museum is providing a platform for our First Nations communities to respond to Cook and the events of 1770

The myth of the convict is used to derail conversations about the brutality and unfairness of invasion and colonisation.

These theories are outdated and are not accepted as facts by almost anybody in the fields of anthropology, archeology or history.

Recently I viewed the Black Mist Burnt Country exhibition at the National Museum of Australia. Launched on 27 September 2016, to mark the 60th anniversary of nuclear bomb testing at Maralinga in South Australia, the exhibition has already covered a lot of ground touring the eastern states.

History is all around us, so is the denialism of true history. A monument to John Batman at Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market is yet another example.

Karen Wyld goes back in time to acknowledge some of the strong Aboriginal women that continue to give us strength. #BecauseOfHerWeCan

Professor Heidi Norman writes for IndigenousX about the importance of discovery Australia’s true history in order to remedy the present in all its complexities.

Colonisers of Australia were often out of their depth. Sometimes they needed rescuing from themselves, or during natural disasters. And First Peoples were often their rescuers. These heroic stories rarely feature in the dominant narratives, but they should.

I mean no disrespect to anyone who supports reconciliation week, but I no longer participate. It’s hard to maintain hope when there’s scant signs of achieving justice.

Despite the corporate sloganeering of recent years, the AFL has a chequered history when it comes to the treatment of racism in sport.

It isn't enough to learn about Aboriginal history to create true understanding. We also need to examine the lens through which history is viewed... White supremacy (and Social Darwinism) still shapes much of the way White Australia sees Aboriginal peoples, cultures and history.

For most of the twentieth century, Aboriginal children were removed for a number of reasons. ‘For their own good’ was not one of them.

Because of her, I can’t.  Because of her, I can’t succumb to colonisation, assimilation, and genocide. Because of her, I can’t submit to the perpetual colonial and patriarchal forces that want me to forget.