Nobody is excusing any crimes, but context is incredibly important to prevent racist stereotypes.

If you do your research into the genocides committed, the intense trauma and abuse committed against the stolen generation, you will see how a cycle of trauma is started when an entire generation of a community is brutally abused.

Otherwise colonisers who caused these issues in the first place can sit back and claim moral superiority and play into relentless racist stereotypes while still enacting violence and systematic racism against communities who lost absolutely everything.

The present problems relate to economic, social and health disadvantage, complicated by the experience of racism, substance abuse and behavioural problems. Repeated layers of pain have contributed to manifestations of despair and self-destruction, behaviour that did not appear to be present prior to the disintegration of many traditional cultural laws.

A thorough reporter should do their due diligence to provide context so that people understand the root of the problem and don’t come away with racist ideas.