Today, once I’m awake and ready, I’m going for a 10km walk around Brisbane to take part of a virtual walk RunRona 2020. I don’t have a printer to get my bib but I will be out there nevertheless.

RunRona 2020 is a virtual walk created by Clothing the Gap in lieu of the real one as it was cancelled due to Covid19 restrictions. If you’re interested, you can find out more details here: https://clothingthegap.com.au/pages/run-rona.

I am also opting to walk instead of run because I’m fairly unfit for running more than a couple of blocks and my shoes aren’t actually running shoes and are falling apart at the bottom. Walk it or run it.

I’ll be walking 10km to get moving and support Clothing the Gap in support of Closing the Gap. The Gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians is almost as large as it was when ‘Australia’ was first invaded two-hundred-years ago and it’s something that needs support, acknoledgement and action. As a non-Indigenous person I am often thinking about how I can actively support Indigenous Australians and help move this country in a better direction for First Nations People.

I have Indigenous Australian family and have been studying the Indigenous Knowledges Minor so I can sort of understand why people sometimes think I’m ‘overpassionate’ ‘riled up’ or even just ‘garnering for attention’, but that’s no reason not to be supporting First Nations People and doing our part for their rights and recognition. It ‘s not about “taking the blame” it’s about acknowledging what White History has done to Indigenous Australians and standing up against what it’s doing to them now. But it’s also important to remember that non-Indigenous Australians know their place in activism. I once read Anita Heiss’s Dhuuluu-Yala: to Talk Straight: Publishing Indigenous Literature and it put my activism a little in perspective for me. I took away from it: don’t take away from Indigenous Australian voices but be the megaphone and amplify them, support them.

I’m young, and I’m learning and trying to figure out how to turn what I have to offer into real activism and support. It’s one thing to submit my papers and creative works to my class but another to find where they’ll make a real difference in the world. And so for now, I will do things like walk and march and share, while I find an appropriate form for my activism.

And so, I’m going for a 10km walk today.