“Oh but why is this only coming up now? It’s all the snowflakes and political correctness gone mad!”
Answer:
I have never celebrated ‘Australia Day’, I didn’t even know that’s what it was called until I went to school. I didn’t even know it was a public holiday until recently. I have always remembered my Aboriginal ancestors and the invasion of our country on this day. It has always been a day spent with family, shielding and protecting the younger kids from what the racists would do on this day, and educating us on what they have done in the past.
Aboriginal people asking for the date to change is not a new ‘trend’. We have been asking for decades for the date to change, it’s just that now you can finally hear us.
“But that was so long ago?? Why do you still care”
Answer:
Alright so first off it wasn’t ‘so long ago’ but I will get back to that in a second.
So there is something called ‘generational hurt/pain’ which is where trauma is passed down through multiple generations. This hurt can go unnoticed for some people, until they see or hear something that triggers it, for others it is a constant feeling. Most people have heard of our connection to land and this is fairly similar, our connection to our family, our ancestors and our history is so strong, we feel it all.
Now, it wasn’t sooo long ago, and we shouldn’t just get over it. Australia was invaded in 1788, at this time its estimated that there were at least 750,000 Aboriginal people in Australia, AT LEAST. The governments and law enforcement made it their absolute mission to kill off and ‘breed out’ the Aboriginal people. Their were massacres, deadly diseases, and wars that the Aboriginal people had not encountered before. Not to mention the new fandangled alcohol that our bodies couldn’t handle at all.
We knew what was happening, we fought, and we fought hard. But our people were dying just like they wanted us to.
In the 1920s (less than 100 years ago) there were surveys and investigations done which estimated the Aboriginal population to be under 100,000 people. The last of the ‘officially documented’ massacres (very very few were officially documented only some of the most known and ones that people actually had to go to court for) of Aboriginal people was still to come, so was the stolen generation. My own grandmother could have been taken and my history be erased.
Now our land is still being taken away from us and sold to massive mining corporations, our youth still have the highest suicide rates, our communities are being shut down with our people left to ‘fend for themselves’ without food, water or housing, our brothers and sisters are still being killed and abused in the name of the law, our children are still being ripped from their ‘unfit’ families.
The fight to keep our land and our rights IS STILL not over, we have been fighting since 1788 and we will continue to until we have equality.
If you honestly believe it only took a year to invade in 1788, you are sorely mistaken, and probably need to study up on your proud Australian histor
“So why haven’t we heard about this before?”
Answer:
You weren’t listening.
You still aren’t. If you defend yourself against everything I say, your not listening to our issues.
A great man named Clinton Pryor recently WALKED ACROSS AUSTRALIA in the hopes to speak with government officials on the social injustice and inequality Aboriginal people face today. He hoped to speak with them, with a list of issues that Aboriginal people he had met on his journey had told him about. I cried as I saw him make it to Parliament House, but did the majority of you even hear about this happening. Did the news cover this enough, did the government make promises? Nah man.
It’s because our voice isn’t as loud as yours. We are like 4% of the population of Australia, it’s your job to raise our voices. Listen to us, really listen not just argue. And hear our stories and our wishes and help us make the rest of Australia hear it too.
