This morning, my and my partner’s NAIDOC March medals arrived! I’ve added it to my RunRona medal and will be finding a place to hang them… if I can. At the same time I started thinking about what else I’m doing to decolonise my mind and my spaces and to support First Nationes People in the long-term.

On my bookshelves I have a lot of textbooks about Indigenous Knowledges and have been working to acquire work produced by Indigenous Australians both from recommended texts from my Indigneous Knowledges Minor and self sourcing. I also buy Indigenous Australian owned and created products as a way of showing support for First Nations People and for issues such as Free the Flag.

It’s not about showing up and participating in an event and that’s it. It’s about committing to decolonising this country. And if you get angry at that, you need to actually engage to proper discourse with Indigenous Australians. One of the most frustrating things to see, especially on social media, are uneducated and misinformed opinions and behaviours towards Indigenous Australians. This is evidence enough of systematic racism, that we live in a country where people are so ignorant of the history of First Nations People to the point that racism underpins the beliefs and values of some.

The way I grew up has definitely been one of the big differences between how I view the world compared to others. I was raised in a multicultural, ever-changing and often abusive environment. But that doesn’t mean that people who haven’t gone through the same things can’t come to the same awareness as me.

Start by capitalising your ‘a’ for Aboriginal and your ‘I’ for Indigenous. And then ask yourself why you weren’t capitialising them in the first place.