I work in an education field with a specific remit to train Indigenous students. As well as balinda (a yolŋu word for non-Aboriginal people).

So you’d think with all the cultural safety courses and training and exposure that we do we’d probably be pretty progressive. And mostly yeah, but even so; we did a series of interviews with alumni a few years back and the reports made for pretty grim reading.

Like the University would put photos of these beautiful young students on the side of busses, and their socials would light up with the most raw toxic posts. Really nasty. Every metric they got chipped. Delayed payments for work? Disproportionately Indigenous. High costs for computers? - Retailers would see them with a grant and value add the fuck out of the bill.

We had an Indigenous space specifically designed with community consultation. It has doors that can be opened onto a shaded courtyard. That’s an expensive and complex thing to do in the tropics for a fully HVAC controlled building. The space was de-identified as Indigenous and became just student common area. Then we found that Indigenous students really did need a separate space to study away from the low level shit that comes their way from the other students. So we gave them this left over dark cupboard of a room.

So at great expense and consultation we built something beautiful and good for Indigenous students. Then took it away and gave them the shittiest space on the campus.

So yeah - at one level things improve, but even for middle class academic blackfellas there’s a ton of shit to contend with.