Indigenous People Don’t Have a Voice (Lie)

The Indigenous Voice to Parliament, you know, the referendum that happened more than seven months ago. I thought that was over with? No, the ABC are keeping it alive by indoctrinating your children through their Behind the News children’s program that is broadcast into many classrooms around Australia! “Let’s talk about the referendum”. Noting, this was only published a few days ago, May 29th. “Australia Said ‘No’. What’s Next?” “No matter what, the fight for justice and equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has to continue.” Although, YouTube did put a notice (warning?) on the video stating, “ABC is an Australian public broadcast service”, so that was kind of them, letting us know that there may be government influence involved here.

Here are some quotes from the segment from the children: “It should have been ‘Yes’, because that could have been real change.”; “It’s the one country that hasn’t, like, have their community have a say, like, with their own parliament.” Look, just to be clear, I’m not teasing or blaming the children here. They’re obviously just repeating what the adults told them. “Some mobs in South Australia I know, none of them voted, because they didn’t get told about it.”; “As Aboriginal, we didn’t actually have a say in it… they (non-Indigenous people) had the say. They chose our decisions for us.”; “Australia isn’t, like, a perfect country. A lot of racism goes on.”; “I have really close friends, their families had opinions, but I became almost victim to their opinion, because of me being Aboriginal.”; “I think that we should just keep on moving forward and wait till the next referendum to try to change our decision.” Well, I hate to tell you mate, there probably won’t be another referendum, well, not anytime soon. It would be political suicide for any party to try to push this again.

But the most telling comment, which is one that is bandied about a lot, was from this little girl: “The next referendum, I hope it’s a ‘Yes’, so then us mob can finally have a voice.”

As I said, I’m not here to blame the children, but the irony is that for people who apparently don’t have a voice, their voice is being broadcast to every single classroom across the country, and of course, over the internet. The whole, Aboriginal people don’t have a voice, is a lie. If anybody honestly believes that Aboriginal people don’t have a voice, well that means Australians don’t have a voice. We’re all equal under the law in Australia. We either all have a voice, or none of us have a voice. I think it’s the former. We all have a voice already. Any person can go to their local member of parliament, or council member, and make a complaint or have a chat about any issue they like. Or, anybody could go online, like I’m doing now, and make a video about something they’re concerned about. The only thing you need is the will, and an internet connection, which I’m sure all these schools have access to.

If some Aboriginal people honestly believe they don’t have a voice, rather than try to con them into believing that they need some kind of special Indigenous Voice body in the Parliament, why not teach them how to approach their local MP, how to shoot off an email voicing their concerns, how to arrange a meeting with a local councillor? Your voice can be heard, you just to need to make it happen. Nothing is stopping you. Instead of teaching children to believe in fanciful Voice bodies that will probably never exist in their lifetime, perhaps we should teach them how to make their voice known. Oh no, but BTN want to propagate this myth that Aboriginal people don’t have a voice, and they’re teaching your children this.

There’s a bit of hope though. As research for this video, I asked my son if they watch Behind the News at school (he’s in early high school), and he told me they watch it every week. I asked him what he thought of the latest episode, and he just said, “I don’t know, I didn’t watch it. The teacher puts it on and plays on his phone, while the rest of us just have a chat. The teacher doesn’t care.”; Note, this is a fairly reputable school. Although the teachers are forced to play BTN, it doesn’t seem like they care if the children watch it or not. My son stopped watching in Grade 6 when they started talking about transgender issues, not in a bigoted way, but rather, as he said “BTN has become so boring.” Of course it has! When they try to preach their views to their audience, their audience just tune out. Nobody likes to be preached to, especially teenage children.

I think this is a case of the ABC realising that the adults aren’t listening anymore, so instead they’re trying to target our children. Is this a children’s news program, or state-sponsored propaganda?

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn