The year 2020 marks 250 years since James Cook’s first voyage to Australia, yet today Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people still aren’t acknowledged in our constitution.
The time is now for recognition and reform, as called for in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
In February marie claire is joining forces with some of Australia’s biggest and brightest names to unite for change. Here, actor and writer Meyne Wyatt reveals his hopes for the future…
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“I was 10 the first time I was pulled over by the police with my friends. We were hanging out at the skate park in Kalgoorlie [WA] and the police asked to search our pockets. It was racial profiling because we were black kids on the street. That was one of the first times I remember experiencing racism, but it happens every day. Aboriginal people are one of the most marginalised people in the world. Our life expectancy is eight years less than non-Indigenous Australians. We have one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, and young kids are self-harming. Last year all the youth incarcerated in the Northern Territory were Indigenous.”
“I wrote a play called City of Gold about my experiences with racism and its tagline was ‘Our people are dying. Wake up.’ At first, I was hesitant to speak about these things, but once I decided to, I realised I had to keep talking. I will keep repeating the message again and again until there is change. My greatest hope is that we are finally seen as the first people of this country, that our languages are taught and our countries are acknowledged, that our rates of incarceration are lowered and life expectancy rises, that you see our faces on screens and our voices and stories are told on TV, social media and in schools.”
This article originally appeared in the February issue of marie claire Australia.
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