50 Years of Deadly: The Shoulders We Stand On
This year’s NAIDOC theme, 50 Years of Deadly, asks us to do more than celebrate. It asks us to remember. It asks us to pause long enough to recognise the champions, the Elders, the organisers, the artists, the storytellers, the quiet workers, the marchers, the community leaders and the families who carried culture, voice and truth when it was not safe, popular or easy to do so.
NAIDOC has never been just a week in the calendar. It has always been a statement. A reminder that us Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are still here. Still strong. Still connected. Still carrying languages, kinship, Country, songlines, art, law, story, ceremony and responsibility into the future. It is a celebration, yes, but it also comes from protest, resistance and the long fight for recognition, justice and self-determination. That matters, because celebration without memory can become shallow. Celebration without truth can become performance.
When I think about 50 Years of Deadly, I think about the shoulders we stand on. I think about those who made space before space was offered. People who stood firm when governments did not listen. People who challenged systems that were designed to exclude them. People who carried the weight of racism, policy failure, cultural erasure and public misunderstanding, but still found ways to lead with dignity, courage and purpose.
I think about the old people who kept families together when systems tried to break them apart. I think about those who fought for land rights, cultural rights, voting rights, legal rights, education, health, housing and basic human dignity. I think about our artists, singers, sportspeople, advocates, aunties, uncles, grassroots workers and community-controlled organisations who did not wait for permission to tell the truth. They built platforms because platforms were denied. They created movements because silence was never an option.
That is why NAIDOC is so important. It gives us a place to honour the past, but it also gives us a mirror for the present.
And right now, that mirror is not always comfortable. It is icky.
In recent days, a Reuters photograph from Washington, D.C. has travelled across the world. It shows a Black woman sitting on a train, surrounded by members of the Patriot Front, described in reporting as a white nationalist group, during America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. The image is hard to look at because it holds so much in one frame: fear, disappointment, disbelief, exhaustion and the heavy weight of history repeating itself in a new form.
A woman simply sitting in public space, surrounded by masked men carrying an ideology of racial dominance, is not just an American image. It is a warning image. It reminds us that history does not disappear just because nations celebrate anniversaries. It reminds us that racism does not always arrive quietly. Sometimes it arrives overt, loud, organised, proud of itself and convinced it has the right to intimidate.
America, at 250 years, is still dealing with the cultural and racial fractures that have shaped much of its national story. Those fractures have changed form over time, but they have not disappeared. The language may be different. The platforms may be different. The uniforms may be different. But the fear, the hostility, the dominance and the attempt to decide who belongs and who does not, that is old.
Australia should not look at that image with distance or superiority. We should look at it with honesty.
Because we have our own unfinished work.
Here, too, we are still dealing with cultural and racial divides that go back to invasion, dispossession, frontier violence, stolen children, exclusion, assimilation policies and generations of public denial. Here, too, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are often asked to carry the burden of educating others, absorbing disrespect, explaining history, defending identity and proving the value of culture in systems that should already know better.
And today, we are seeing something deeply concerning. Social media has changed the way people behave. It has made cruelty feel casual. It has made racism feel amplified. It has rewarded outrage, humiliation, conspiracy and division. It has given people permission, or at least the illusion of permission, to say things publicly that are hostile, racialised and dehumanising. It has normalised the loudest and most extreme voices while making respectful dialogue feel harder and harder to hold. This also shows up in politics, where these topics become political point scoring, such as the rise of the Orange Wave, with it’s fear and division tactics.
But we need to be clear: this is not normal.
It is not normal to intimidate people because of race. It is not normal to attack culture because it makes others uncomfortable. It is not normal to reduce First Nations people to political talking points. It is not normal to use fear to divide communities. It is not normal to dress hate up as patriotism, free speech or cultural pride. When behaviour promotes fear, dominance, exclusion and hostility, we should name it for what it is.
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges facing all of us today is the willingness to sit with discomfort. Real learning rarely happens when our existing views are simply reinforced. It happens when we ask difficult questions, examine our assumptions, and challenge the cognitive biases that shapes how we see the world. It requires us to step outside the safety of our own experiences and attempt to understand life through someone else’s eyes.
Growth is often found in disequilibrium, that uncomfortable space where old beliefs no longer explain what we are seeing and a new way of understanding has not yet fully formed. It is in this space that we learn our new schema, a new framework for making sense of the world and our perception of belonging. The challenge is not to retreat from that discomfort, but to remain curious within it.
For reconciliation, this is essential. We cannot build stronger relationships, challenge racism, or bridge cultural divides if we are unwilling to reflect on our own perspectives. Progress begins when we move from certainty to inquiry, from defensiveness to understanding, and from simply hearing different experiences to genuinely considering what they might mean. Sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is admit that we do not yet know enough and be willing to learn.
That is why NAIDOC still matters.
NAIDOC gives us another way forward. It reminds us that strength does not have to look like domination. Pride does not have to be built on someone else’s exclusion. Culture does not need to ask permission to exist. Truth does not weaken a nation; it gives a nation a chance to grow up.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, 50 Years of Deadly is not just about how far we have come. It is about the strength it took to get here. It is about the community members who kept showing up. The Elders who kept speaking. The artists who kept creating. The families who kept teaching. The young people who are now stepping forward with confidence, carrying old knowledge in new ways.
It is also about responsibility.
If we say we stand on the shoulders of champions, then we must ask what we are doing with the height they have given us. Are we using it to see further? Are we using it to protect the next generation? Are we using it to build stronger institutions, better relationships and more honest conversations? Are we making sure culture is not just celebrated when convenient, but respected in decision-making, procurement, education, media, governance and public life?
Because culture is not decoration. It is not a theme week. It is not a performance for organisational calendars. Culture is identity, lore, memory, survival and future. NAIDOC reminds Australia that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are not part of the past. We are central to the present and essential to the future.
The next 50 years of NAIDOC will be shaped by what we choose to do now. We can allow fear, misinformation and racial division to keep spreading. Or we can choose something stronger: truth, courage, accountability, respect and genuine relationship.
For me, 50 Years of Deadly is a time to honour those who came before us, but also to ask whether we are being brave enough for those coming after us. Our children deserve more than symbolic support. They deserve a country where their culture is not questioned, mocked or politicised. They deserve a country where they can walk into classrooms, workplaces, galleries, boardrooms, sporting fields and public spaces without having to shrink themselves to be accepted.
That is the work.
So this NAIDOC, we celebrate. We gather. We honour. We remember. We speak names. We return to family, community and Country. We acknowledge the champions and the shoulders we stand on.
But we also stay awake to the world around us.
Because the image of one Black woman surrounded by racial hostility on a train overseas is not separate from us. It is connected to every society still struggling with truth, justice and equality. It is connected to every moment where people are made to feel unsafe because of who they are. It is connected to every time racism is excused as opinion, every time hate is dressed up as debate, and every time silence is mistaken for peace.
NAIDOC tells us there is another way.
Still strong. Still proud. Still here.
Fifty years of deadly, and the work continues.