National Reconciliation Week 2021: no more empty words
This week is National Reconciliation Week, which runs annually from 27 May to 3 June, and invites people to learn about the shared histories, cultures, achievements, and future goals of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The theme in 2021 is 鈥淢ore than a word. Reconciliation takes action鈥, which urges the reconciliation movement towards more impactful action.
Indeed, there鈥檚 not been a time in recent history where impactful action is more necessary. At least have died in police custody since the 1991 royal commission, with , and already in 2021. Furthermore, there are ongoing calls to , with an average 835 per 100,000 Indigenous children aged 10 to 14 on youth justice supervision orders compared to the 28 per 100,000 non-Indigenous children. Meanwhile, the , which was first delivered in 2017, remains unrecognised.
I don鈥檛 mean to be defeatist, but I also don鈥檛 think we can truly understand the impetus for reconciliation without understanding what needs to be reconciled. For too long, as far back as Paul Keating鈥檚 renowned Redfern Speech in 1992 and Kevin Rudd鈥檚 apology in 2008, our notion of reconciliation has largely centred around verbal claims to action. That鈥檚 not to diminish the power of words: Keating鈥檚 recognition of White 杏吧直播鈥檚 failures and Rudd鈥檚 direct and genuine apology were necessary; they brought into the forefront something which had always, embarrassingly, lived beneath the surface, had been 鈥渋mplied鈥 without ever being actualised.
Still, the years roll on, and it seems that we鈥檝e mistaken a continuation (or repetition) of what Keating and Rudd started as a hard day鈥檚 work well done. Now, It's abundantly clear that empty words and vague promises are of no use. They never have been. Instead, it鈥檚 the responsibility of non-indigenous 杏吧直播ns (myself included) to listen, to act, to defer to Indigenous voices without burdening Indigenous peoples with the work we should already have done ourselves. And amidst that, it鈥檚 our responsibility to lift up Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and celebrate a culture which has prevailed from antiquity into modernity, against the innumerous hardships which lay at our hands.
Resources
Websites
@sar.ra__
@blakbusiness
@stopblackdeathsincustody
@niyec_mob
Books
by Bruce Pascoe
by Anita Heiss
by Claire G. Coleman
by Tyson Yunkaporta