I bet canadian history is more interesting...why is amerikan history so boring

...

what's canadian history like???

Okay, so it has been a bit since I've been in public school, and the most recent history course I took was a college course;

There's your standard stuff like knowing about how Canada became a country (1867), and also knowing about our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There's also the war efforts (ranging from War of 1812 to modern peacekeeping missions).

I personally do not care what some white dude did all those years ago; like the first prime minister was a massive racist. I outright do not celebrate any holiday which celebrates colonization (Victoria Day, Canada Day, Thanksgiving, etc.).

In more recent years there has been more inclusion of the history of our Indigenous people, and the genocide that happened and is still happening today. Actually, on September 30th it's the national day of Truth and Reconciliation.

As a general disclaimer before you go searching through Canada's history; you will find genocide, as North America is a colonized continent. You will find articles and survivor accounts of "Indian" Residential 'Schools', of which they are still discovering mass graves of children. These 'schools' were an act of cultural genocide and were active until 1996, and were governed by both the government and various churches.

The history of any colonized place has a history bathed in blood, but it may not be taught due to different policies (cough, racist policies, cough).

Sorry for my bit of a tangent, I'm just so tired of people ignoring the history, because the 'past' is very much still felt today.

Hiya! I just saw your post about microaggressions in media, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to explain a little bit more about how Dragon Age negatively represented indigenous peoples; personally, I saw how the parallel was drawn, but I'd like to understand the difference between metaphor/symbolism and negative derivement. If you don't wanna, that's ok! Thank you for your time : )

Sorry if you wanted this to be replied to privately. I’ve gotten a few other questions about it so I just decided to do a masterpost.

I do feel obligated to mention that I have a Dragon Age tag and that I’ve gone into detail about the issues with the games here and here.

Now, with that being said. . . I’m going to put this under a cut because this is an important topic to me and I’ve never gone into as much detail as I should have. I’ll also give a basic but long rundown for people who haven’t played Dragon Age and aren’t aware of the context. I’ll try to make it obvious where that part ends for people who just want to skip right past it.

Disclaimer that I never really played Origins so this will only focus on DA 2 and Inquisition.

This is gonna be really fucking long and I apologize for that.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the Dragon Age franchise, here’s some basic information relevant to this topic. There are four fantasy “races” in the game; the humans, the elves, the dwarves, and the qunari. For the purposes of this conversation, we will not go into the dwarves and the qunari. 

Humans are the dominant race in the game, with control over every government in the continent that the franchise focuses on, Thedas. They follow a religion called Andrastianism, which is centered around the Maker (a vague and featureless single god who is almost always referred to as male) and Andraste, the Maker’s mortal wife and prophet who was executed and burned at the stake. In other words, it’s Fantasy Christianity™. The religion is separated into two branches, with one being led by men and only being common in one country in Thedas and the other being led by women and being common in the rest of Thedas. Just like Christianity, it is very heavily focused on converting people. As far as I’m aware, it is the state religion of every country featured in the franchise. For the purposes of this conversation, I will be referring to this religion as the Chantry, the in-game equivalent of the Church being used for Christianity.

Elves, on the other hand, are exactly what they sound like. They’re elves, but not traditional Tolkien elves. They have the same lifespan as humans and don’t seem to be particularly special. The important thing to note is that they are very much an oppressed group and most racism you encounter in the franchise is aimed at the. They were the original peoples of many parts of Thedas, indigenous to several parts of the continent before they were violently massacred in wars and outright genocide, all in the name of Andraste. Here’s some information about the main attacks on the elves, in the form of the second Exalted March, a form of religious crusade. Cultural sites, including burial grounds and religious temples, were pillaged and destroyed. Historical records were confiscated and edited, language and culture records purposely destroyed, and countless artifacts were stolen and sold to wealthy humans. This happened long before the events of the games, but are ongoing issues, which I’ll get into later.

Modern elves in the game are separated into two main groups: city elves and the Dalish. 

City elves are elves who are disconnected from their cultures and live in human settlements, where they’re often forced to live in slums (called alienages), pushed into dangerous and poorly paid work, and face violent abuse and mistreatment from humans in the cities. City elves are usually Andrastian, just like disconnected Natives are often Christian, though they cannot hold positions in the Chantry.

The Dalish, on the other hand, are elves immersed in their cultures, living in nomadic clans led by their Keepers. The majority of Dalish elves follow the Evanuris, the Elven pantheon which is made up of nine deities that each represent different aspects of Elven life. According to Dalish lore, these deities are not active in the world anymore because they were tricked by the ninth deity, Fen’Harel, a trickster god who sealed away the rest of the gods from the world. When Dalish elves reach maturity, they undergo a ritual that involves receiving their vallaslin (blood writing), which are intricate facial tattoos that represent different deities in the pantheon and, supposedly, reflect that person’s role in their community. I suppose the Native equivalent is finding out what clan you’re in. Dalish communities are centered are around halla, a type of deer that the Dalish see as sacred and use as a form of travel (they pull aravels, a kind of wagon), food (milk and meat), clothing, companionship, and guidance. The parallels to bison should not be lost.

Elves are also frequently enslaved, particularly in Tevinter where slavery is still completely legal.

Now. Humans, elves, and qunari all have a connection to the Fade, the origin of all magic, spirits, and demons. That means that they all have the potential to have mages, people born with magic and a deeper connection to the Fade; they’re the DA equivalent of sorcerers in D&D for all you nerds out there. Across the board, mages are heavily oppressed (with the exception of mages in Tevinter). 

Because they can be possessed by demons and potentially use blood magic, they’re seen as inherently dangerous and forced into Circles, isolated areas where they’re under constant surveillance as they learn to control their magic, and that surveillance is done by Templars, an order of warriors trained to be able to repress a person’s magic. Any mage that doesn’t have absolute control over their magic is made Tranquil, which cuts off their connection to the Fade and, along with removing their ability to use magic, also removes their ability to feel emotions, have desires, and experience dreams. It’s essentially a fantasy lobotomy. In some Circles, this is done on the whims of Templars to any mage that causes the slightest issue for them. Other forms of abuse are also incredibly common in Circles.

So! That’s the end of the context explanations! Let’s move onto the indigenous-coding in the game!

The coded group in question are the elves, particularly the Dalish. They’re also coded as Jewish and Romani, which makes the information that’s going to follow even worse. Despite popular belief, this coding is not actually up for debate and has been directly confirmed by David Gaider (scroll a bit, and be warned that he uses the g-slur). Since I’ve already explained what Dalish elves and city elves are, I doubt I have to get into how exactly they’re Native-coded and I don’t really feel like doing that anyway. So let’s just get right into the issues with this coding.

The first issue is the elves themselves. Elves are cool, I love elves. But it’s really fucking shitty to make the Christian-coded group human while the group coded as indigenous, Jewish, and Romani is inhuman. It’s a really common trope in fantasy and sci-fi and directly contributes to the dehumanization of our communities. It also gives fans the ability to brush off criticisms of their depictions because they’re “just elves”, something I see in the fandom a lot.

We also have to think of how elves in media are depicted in general. They’re usually magical beings with unnaturally close ties to nature, and as a Native person who has been asked if I can speak to eagles and if I live in a tipi in the woods, that is not a stereotype that needs to be further associated with indigenous groups.

Elves are degraded constantly by every character in the series, and the narrative depicts Dalish elves especially in a terrible light. There is only one companion in the entire series who actually genuinely cares about the Dalish, and that because Merrill is Dalish herself, having left her clan to live in the city; she’s also frequently mocked and depicted as naive and ignorant despite being a grown-ass woman and her rivalmance is dangerously unhealthy and toxic. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, you can have two elf companions, both of who explicitly hate the Dalish and disapprove of any pro-Dalish stances. One of those companions, Sera, also hates elves in general and frequently distances herself from them. Solas is a whole other can of worms.

If you play as a Dalish Inquisitor in DA:I, you are faced with constant mockery and scorn at every angle. Dorian, a Tevinter mage, explicitly tells you that slavery is better than being poor and that his family treats their slaves “very kindly”. You cannot call him out on this; he says his piece and then the conversation ends and can literally never be mentioned again, even if you romance him. Cassandra, who is very pro-Chantry, asks you why you can’t just “make room” for worshipping the Maker alongside the Elven deities. Any support of the Dalish earns you immediate disapproval from all of your companions. You cannot be openly Dalish without being directly punished by the game.

I mentioned earlier that Dalish elves and city elves both live in tightly-knit and isolated communities, Dalish elves in the form of nomadic clans and city elves in the form of alienages. There’s safety in numbers, but when you’re surrounded by enemies, that can also be incredibly dangerous. At multiple points in the series, entire alienages and clans are massacred. More often than not, this is completely unavoidable, and when it can be avoided, it’s extremely difficult to do so. 

In Inquisition, if you play as a Dalish Inquisitor, you will start to receive war table quests regarding your clan. If you make even one wrong choice (and there are several choices you have to make, most of which are misleading), then your entire clan is massacred along with the elves in the city they’re settled by. The incident leading to their possible deaths is actually caused by a human noble poisoning other humans in the city and blaming the elves, since the alienage had a different water source and there was a clan settled near the city.

In Dragon Age 2, you can directly massacre Merrill’s entire clan. Even if you choose not to do so, the clan suffers heavily, losing their First (the future Keeper) to the city and then losing their Keeper to demons. They end up stranded in that area due to their halla dying, which means that their aravel couldn’t be pulled.

At another point in Inquisition, you encounter a clan that suffers heavily as well when a huge swath of them are massacred by Red Templars. You can do absolutely nothing to prevent this.

In the same area that the last clan I mentioned is found in, there are several quests regarding it, several of which stick out to me. 

One requires you to literally desecrate a Dalish burial site to finish the quest (The Spoils of Desecration, it’s literally in the name).

 Another quest gives you the task of finding a sacred golden halla, a legendary spiritual and religious figure to the Dalish, and guiding it to the unnamed Dalish clan. In this quest, you can also choose to just straight up kill it (The Golden Halla).

There’s a main storyline quest that involves going through a historical site to discover the truth about a massacre that had always been blamed solely on elves. At the end of the quest, you can choose to give these new records to either the clan I talked about or to the Chantry, who, if I remember correctly, modify the records to be about the Dalish becoming violent after one of their clan members converted to Andrastianism (The Knights’ Tomb). If you choose to give the records to the Dalish, a follow-up quest involves the clan asking for your help gifting a halla to the human village that was part of the incident, which you need to either trick or force the village into accepting (Bestow Mourning Halla).

Moving on. . .

In the quest Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, you meet the human empress of Orlais, Celene, who you have to protect from assassins. You also meet her handmaid, spymaster, and former lover, an elf woman named Briala. And of course, Celene’s terrible cousin Gaspard, who is not really relevant for this discussion. Just know that he’s awful.

In this quest, you have to uncover information about these three people and use that information to manipulate the situation and get your desired ending. There are several possible endings you can choose, but we’re going to focus on one specific one for right now, namely the one where you can choose to help Celene and Briala reconcile and become lovers again, with Celene ruling Orlais and Briala being her partner and advisor. Sounds great, right? The lovely women get their happily ever after and everyone is happy.

Except that the game doesn’t give you the full story. Not in the slightest. Instead, it depends solely on you having read The Masked Empire, a book that is completely separate from the game and that many players don’t even know exist. It gives a very different context to this game, and especially to Celene and Briala’s relationship. I recommend reading this post from @dalishious because I cannot possibly explain the situation better than they have on their blog. If you’re into Dragon Age, I recommend giving them a follow in general because they offer some really great perspectives on DA as a Mi'kmaw person who knows a hell of a lot more about the franchise than I do.

(The quest also tries to convince you that Briala is on the same level as Celene and Gaspard. That is complete bullshit, as dalishious gets into here.)

So, to add to its very long list of crimes, Bioware purposely withholds information from the player in order to trick you into getting an elf back together with her violently racist and incredibly dangerous abuser.

And if I remember correctly, you can also discover a hidden room in Celene’s palace which is filled with broken Elven artifacts that Celene was experimenting with.

In Inquisition, you also encounter at least two Dalish elves who explicitly talk about being kicked out of their clans for being mages, left to make it on their own or die. Which is. . . absurd and doesn’t fit pre-existing lore at all, since clan Keepers and their apprentices are literally mages themselves AND it’s already been shown that if a clan cannot support or doesn’t need people with specific skills (not just mages but also crafters, traders, hunters, etc), then it will actually send those people to other clans to live with them. Merrill, the Dalish companion mentioned earlier, is one such case, with her original clan having an excess of mages and sending her to a different clan who needed a mage to train as a first. Changing that to say that clans now outright abandon mages, especially as children, was a ridiculous choice and makes me feel like it was done purely to show them as ~savage~.

(I personally headcanon that it was a lie spread purposely by clans to protect themselves, playing off of racist ideas of what they were like. No templar would go up against an entire clan just to drag two or three mages off to the Circle, but multiple mages? Five mages? A dozen? Now that would be worth the risk.)

And now it’s time to get into the worst part of the games, by far.

Trespasser.

In this DLC, you discover that one of your elf companions, Solas, is actually the god Fen’Harel, and that he’s essentially trying to destroy the entire world to “reset it”. 

You also discover that your gods are false.

That’s right. Bioware based this community and culture off of Jewish, Romani, and Native peoples. And then made the gods fake. Explicitly told players that the Dalish are wrong about everything they’ve ever known, that their religion is all fake, and that it’s their own fault because they dared try to recreate their culture with the scraps they had left.

Oh, but it doesn’t end there, no. The gods aren’t just fake, they were actually slave owners! They were rulers of an ancient civilization and the vallaslin, those beautiful markings that represent a Dalish elf’s pride in their culture and their place in their community, are actually slave markings to show who your owner is!

I need you all to take a moment to process this. To think about the implications of basing a fictional culture off of oppressed communities in the real world, as a foil to the Fantasy Christianity™ that you as the player are constantly shoved towards, and then making that culture’s religion into something so terrible and warped.

Have you thought about it? Because I have. I’ve thought about it a lot.

So yeah. There’s my extremely long rant about indigenous coding in Dragon Age. I hope it helps the very few people who manage to get to the end without getting sick of it lmao

https://medium.com/@hawaii_78988/what-can-the-womens-movement-do-right-now-to-combat-racism-e92a6d1a1afa

The revolution is at our doorstep. It’s time to answer Audre Lorde’s call for feminists to struggle through racial divisions in sisterhood, or face a future where “women’s blood will congeal upon a dead planet.”

White women are often the most visible face of white supremacy in the daily lives of Black, indigenous, and women of color (BIWOC) in the women’s movement. We are blessed to organize alongside a number of white women who are principled accomplices against white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. However, some white women’s inherently racist behavior is taking a huge toll on us personally and threatens the strength of the women’s movement. While white men benefit off of all of us, it is often white women who act as luna to the plantation boss. Therefore it is important that white women and BIWOC gatekeepers be willing to shake the table and make real structural change beyond talk and optics. Otherwise, it is just performance arts, not activism:

Do not ever say “we don’t have a race problem.”

Acknowledge that many popular white-led solutions to women’s oppression such as crime control, arrests, police, individual rights, inclusion, and work as liberation are not working and are holding back transformative change. A new strategy is needed.

Acknowledge that you do not know the lived experiences and historical trauma of BIWOC. White “expertise” and theory does not trump the lived experiences of BIWOC. There are varied ways of knowing.

No all-white or majority white panels.

Commit to multi-year, highly participatory training on anti-blackness and patriarchy, and the ways its intersection privileges white women uniquely.

Fund organizations projects and research for and led by Black, indigenous and immigrant women without strings and conditions.

Connect to and fund Black and indigenous women leaders and projects that are locally-led and organized.

Leadership change. Be willing to give up your seat. Our issues should be led by our people. The belief that there is no woman of color available or qualified who can do the work, or that it is appropriate for a white person to lead on issues that predominantly affect people of color in a “minority-majority state,” is rooted in the notion of white superiority.

End the strategy of hiding behind BIWOC when you are called out for your behavior. This tokenizes women of color and pits them against each other to justify racism. This is no different than what the what slave master did on the plantation using Black mediators and go betweens, treating them a little better and letting them handle the Black people who complain about ill treatment and wanting to revolt.

Do not weaponize white academics against women of color organizers.

Do not “call the manager” (executive board, supervisor or boss) on BIWOC to complain about their politics, style, or strategies.

Learn to read the room and know when you are taking up too much space.

Practice deferring to BIWOC.

Learn how to not waste BIWOC’s time in meetings, in emails educating you on their issues (which emotionally exhaust us), spoon feeding you analysis just for you to ignore then, their advice and expertise while promoting yourself as knowledgable.

People of color, not the actor or white bystanders, get to define when an act is racist.

Do not take credit for people of color’s work.

Cite Black women and women of color. Often Black women’s intellectual property has been taken or coopted without giving credit to the original source. Many of the thoughts, sayings and quotes used in the movement come from BIWOC yet are spouted out of the mouths of white women who sideline BIWOC in their spaces.

Stop discrediting women of color leaders and stop siding with the “white victim.”

Design meetings to ensure white attendees do not dominate. Ensure white women do not shout down, interrupt or disrespect women of color. Practice revolutionary silence and call for women of color to speak first.

Do not force intimacy or ask women of color to share personal information to justify a political position that they take.

Women of color are often exhaustively vetted while white women are given the benefit of the doubt. Do not ask women of color to show their credentials.

Do not assume the white woman in the room is the authority or expert.

Understand that you can still be part of the problem even if you believe you are doing the work to end the problem. Make sure you are always checking yourself. Be an accomplice to BIWOC at all times.

It is, in fact, a problem when there are no Native Hawaiians, Micronesians, Black and immigrant *working class* women in a space speaking for themselves. The majority of women are working class people of color.

Do not engage in the ways that women of color are attacked in highly personal, sexist ways when they do not agree with someone’s political stance.

Be an ally offline, off social media, when the cameras and mics are off, and beyond the Opeds.

Understand that supporting BIWOC who you are deem are non-threatening to your status quo is tokenizing.

To the BIPOC gatekeepers in our communities who rush in to vouch for white folks, particularly white women: We are hip to the game. Stop this. BIPOC have been used as tools of white supremacy for hundreds of years. This may help you as an individual but it does not get us free. We are all in this together.

To the lone BIPOC at the table: advocate for there to be more than just you. If your organization feels there is no need for more BIPOC voices at the table, then you are being tokenized. Bring an army of BIPOC with you.

Animal Identity Veganism

I identify as an animal.

My species is human. I am a part of, not a separate being, from the oceans, rainforests and wildlife that for the past 500 years have been destroyed by western civilization. As an animal in the western world, my history and my fate has been entwined directly with those of factory farmed livestock and bulldozed palm forests and experimented on rats and primates. I too, was bred, bred out and experimented on by the elitist government and other governments around the world.

By embracing Animal Identity I am not othering or dehumanizing myself (remember, human=an animal) but CONNECTING myself to the very Natural World the elites (the 1%) are pretending to want to save even though they have been destroying it for 500 years. If you look at history, there was no poaching until missionaries and colonialism. Totems disallowed it.There was no factory farming until slavery. Indigenous slavery was indentured servitude, not scientific racism (speciesism). There were no bulldozed rainforests or bombs or pollution until FORCED industrialization. People lived according to their environments. Minimal and undisturbed. Do you see the pattern?

As an Animal Identity Vegan, I am the voice of countless organisms that cannot speak because they are non-human animals. As a self identifying human animal, I can be that voice because my ilk (globally) have and still do, experience the otherization and supremacy paradigms/social stratifications that have allowed and still allow the subjugation and destruction of non-industralized beings and environments. Treated like an invasive species by the very creatures that brought us/found us here/there, and forced to live a life antithetical to my/our biology, I hereby stand alongside the wonderful living things of this Earth and declare; WE.MUST.TAKE. IT. BACK.

But overthrow, shaming those with privilege or forcing everyone to be vegan is not the way to do that. Veganism must remain harmless. However, the way it is headed now, it has become a cozy place for elitists and scammers to exploit industrialized peoples' hunger for a deeper meaning and deeper connection to nature. We see it all the time. Scammers, frauds and opportunists who want to ride the vegan wave until the bank is full, then flip. Plus, many Egomaniacs go demonizing meat eaters who grew up their whole lives knowing only carnism as normal, and then expecting them to change. That is not how change happens.

The only way to get people to open their eyes is by cleaning off their mirrors. They have to not only see themselves and their fellow human animals in the suffering faces of nonhuman animals, but they must understand the intrinsic connection and direct link between humans, the planet and wildlife. For every dropped stone there are ripples in the water. Nothing happens in isolation, and no bad deed goes unpunished. The wrath of the Earth has already befallen the very places where human life was once the custodian of the wild. This is what the elites want, but they also want egomaniacs like themselves to feel good about supposedly helping. Phony NGOs, phony charities, and sometimes well meaning and good intentioned farces. But has no one seen the link between forced industrialization and the death of the planet and its living beings? Why must everyone wear tee shirts and drive cars? Are there no alternative ways to be civil/civilized and organized? Perhaps NOT ALL breeds are meant/want to die in office chairs and laden with disease.

But, this is not a cry for anarchy, primitivism or recidivism. This is a cry to completely reimagine what modernity means, as well as how identifying oneself as intrinsic to an ecosystem must be the foundation of civilization. The future is at stake and the Earth and its creatures, God's original creation, are trying to warn us. Awful things happen, and yes, NOT ALL ANCIENT WAYS are good, but that is why we must unify and REIMAGINE and rewrite the script based on empathy, compassion and connectivity. Our individual actions either benefit or hurt the whole. The goal is to benefit the whole by putting in the work and meriting that work accordingly. No, a communist utopia will never work. Big government is not the answer, but a collective society is not a big government, in fact it lessens the need for overreach. Governing bodies should be linked but spread out enough so that changes can be made easily, peacefully and ethically. Too top heavy, it comes down hard. Distributed well? It stands strong as an iron tree.

Keep in mind this is just the experimental stage of what I would like to develop into an established philosophy within Veganism. There must be a space for this sort of worldview, because the movement being spearheaded by humans who are not viewed as nonhuman, is counterproductive to the cause. While your compassion is beautiful, your empathy wonderful and your work sublime, you must realize that in order to dismantle animal abuse and speciesism, we must first realize that speciesism encompasses more than nonhuman animal oppression but is directly linked to the oppression of all living entities considered "low on the totem pole". In either case, we are thankful because what you are doing as an anti-speciesist coming from an upper-tier group is powerful!

My name was Bessie and my breastmilk fed the children of my masters. I was forcefully impregnated to produce bulls and produce milk and be branded with a hot iron. I was corralled and hunted and my head was put on spikes to be eaten by crows. This legacy gave birth to factory farming and continues to feed the hierarchies that allow and excuse the dumping of oil into the powerless-to-resist Oceans. There are no coincidences. Why is my pineal gland uncalcified? Why are these songs, visions and emotions so strong, so vivid? Why can I sense the rain before it falls? There are no coincidences:

I am part of the natural world, not removed from it. And I will not stand by as it burns. I am vegan for US. Not "the animals". I am not separated from the animals nor the jungles nor the seas. My veganism is for my planet.

‘In My Blood It Runs’ Is The Documentary Every Australian Needs To See

‘In My Blood It Runs’ Is The Documentary Every Australian Needs To See

Creative People

by Sally Tabart

Dujuan Hoosan with his mother, Megan Hoosan. Photo – courtesy of Maya Newell.

Dujuan Hoosan, the star of In My Blood It Runs. Photo – courtesy of Maya Newell.

Dujuan celebrating one of his weekly trips out to Country. Photo – courtesy of Maya Newell.

Dujuan Hoosan with his mother, Megan Hoosan. Photo – courtesy of Maya Newell.

Left: Dujuan at school, where he is misunderstood. Right: filmmaker Maya Newell with Dujuan while filming In My Blood It Runs. Photo – courtesy of Maya Newell.

The filmmaking team! Photo – courtesy of Maya Newell.

By now, you’ve probably heard of the documentary In My Blood It Runs. The film introduces Dujuan, an Aboriginal boy of Arrernte/Garrwa descent, at 10 years old – the same age of criminal responsibility in Australia. Like lots of other kids his age, Dujuan is charming and cheeky, testing the boundaries of his family’s rules and exploring his own independence. Unlike most other kids, Dujuan has a superpower – his Ngangkere – a healing power inherited from his great grandfather when he passed away, and the land. Dujuan is a strong hunter and he can speak three languages. And while Dujuan is having difficulty in the western education system, where he is misunderstood, he thrives on his weekly trips with his family and community on Country.

I was lucky to speak with the film’s director, Maya Newell, as well as William Tilmouth, an Arrernte man and Founding Chair of Children’s Ground, who worked as a key advisor on the film. We spoke about how the film came to be, the close creative collaboration between the filmmakers and the families featured, and the importance of agency and ownership by First Nations people over their own stories.

Hi Maya + William – thank you both for taking the time to speak with us. Maya, Was there a particular moment or event that motivated you to make this important documentary?

MAYA NEWELL: I suppose there are lots of moments really, but I think the important thing to say is that the film didn’t just sprout up after one moment or just meeting the family once and wanting to make a film. It sits on the bed of about a decade of relationships, and me personally being invited by Arrernte Elders and an organisation called Akeyulerre Healing Centre in Alice Springs and Children’s Ground, which are two Arrernte led organisations that support children, families and communities to stay connected to culture and have access to their homeland, and continue that important process of passing down knowledge to the next generation.

Over those years of working alongside families and getting to know them and going back and forth from Alice Springs and making a series of short films, I realised there was an important bigger story. It felt like we were making the same short films over and over again about this hidden education system, this system that has been going for 65,000 years and continues today, and that is the language and culture and identity of people that is so undervalued and not often recognised within the mainstream education system, yet is so fundamental to children’s wellbeing. I had a beautiful opportunity to learn over those years through the generosity of Elders and families.

I suppose the moment that really flipped this into considering making a longer version film for the general public was when I met Dujuan on a Ngangkere (traditional healing) camp. [Dujuan] was about 8, and bounded up and started telling me about how he got his power, his Ngangkere, from his great grandfather when he passed away, and also from the land. He was so articulate and poetic in the way he confidently described this super power that he had, and he really wanted a film made about him. So we went back with all those people we’d known for a long time and just asked those hard questions about how you would make a film like this, and if was right to make a film like this, and what was the process and the ethics to put in place to be sure that the families would really be driving it themselves.

We see in the film that Dujuan has incredible support from his family in terms of learning his language, his culture and connecting to Country. Why is that so important, and particularly for kids of Dujuan’s age?

WILLIAM TILMOUTH: First and foremost his identity will remain intact. The foundation of his family’s culture, language, Country and identity are very strong, whereas with me, I was subject to the assimilation process and I was subject to the Stolen Generation. And my culture, my language, and my identity all got fragmented. I was asking myself, ‘Who am I? Where do I belong? And where do I fit in this world?’. That’s something that everybody asks themselves somewhere along the track, and when you don’t have answers you are burdened with thoughts that you really don’t belong. 

First Nations people’s stories have been historically mistold and misrepresented in this country. How did you go about making this beautiful and sensitive documentary in a way that was respectful and true to Dujuan and his family?

WT: It’s a credit to the filmmakers to recognise that this story belongs in the families, and in the people, and at the end of the day they set aside a lot of their professionalism and egos.

As you can see there’s no scriptwriting, this was all done as is, as people lived it. And to do that, it’s an unconventional way of making a documentary. It’s out of the box and it worked because these people were allowed to have agency and ownership in regards to how the film was made, what was in there, and what was not in there. Every step of the way families were totally involved.

Historically, Indigenous films are always about the sensationalising, the romantic image of Aboriginal people in regards to how films are projected, and this one is devoid of any of that image. It turned out to be one of the best films I’ve ever seen in terms of how our people feel about it after. The repercussions of [the filmmakers’] behaviour will allow the film to live for a long time.

And how was this collaborative creative process realised?

MN: We had big workshops with the whole community and also a board of advisors of which William and other people are part of, and then with Dujuan’s family. We had workshops before we even picked up cameras to think about the messaging – what they wanted the film to be about, what they didn’t want the film to be about, and then we watched rushes, edits, we talked about events and how things were going along the way throughout the many years. And those workshops continued through to our impact phase where families were deciding what goals they wanted us to work on as we released the film, which is the stage we are at now.

It’s wonderful to be able to direct audiences to learn more about the importance of First Nations-led education. The importance of juvenile justice reform and raising the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 from 10 which is absolutely ridiculous. And also, more broadly, to try to influence an end to racism in Australia, which is a big goal, but we’re working towards it.

With so many more eyes on the film, what is an important key message or learning you hope people take away from ‘In My Blood It Runs’?

MN: I think that the key message that has been consistent from Dujuan’s family, their takeaway, Megan (Dujuan’s mother) who says, ‘I just want Australians to know that we love and care about our kids’. I think that’s a simple message but a powerful one in the current context of Black Lives Matter and still the ongoing removal of children from their families and the state of human rights abuses in our juvenile justice systems.

Really the message that William has drummed into me for years and years whenever we had a problem of not knowing how to cut a scene or approach a problem that came up, and he would continually say, ‘Remember it’s about the agency of Aboriginal families to have control of their own lives’, and I think we see that in the film because everything that works for Dujuan is a solution that is derived from his family, not from the institutions that are meant to uplift him.

WT: Children’s Ground [the Arrernte-led organisation of which William is the Founding Chair] advocates for system reform in regards to how we educate and look after our children from birth through to the later teen years. Ultimately at the end of the day, we are asking for system reform with regards to how Aboriginal people are treated because the same tired old methods are just not working. Every year it’s a variation of the past. It’s draconian, it’s primitive, it’s really outdated. The powers that be need to rethink what they’re doing.

What we’re doing at Children’s Ground, and as the film depicts, there is another way of being. Give the family agency, let them find a solution, and support them in that solution. And that’s exactly what happened here. Doing the same old things time and time again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

In My Blood It Runs is available to stream on ABC iView now, until August 4th, 2020.

Learn more about the people involved with making In My Blood It Runs and follow its journey here.

In My Blood It Runs is not just a film, it’s also a campaign for change. Learn more about how you can support the solutions guided by the Arrernte and Garrwa families here.

Keep On Pushing: Week 20 and a 1/2, Spain

Move on up, and keep on wishing Remember your dream is your only scheme So keep on pushing

In looking for a title for this week (and a half)’s blog, I was reminded of the words of Curtis Mayfield. These words, from one of my all-time favourite songs ‘Move On Up’ are also painted across the walls of my all-time favourite nightclub, World Headquarters in Newcastle.

‘Keep on Pushing’ feels like an appropriate mantra for the last ten days for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the longer life is affected by measures to manage the Covid-19 pandemic (despite us no longer being under strict lockdown), the more I have to push to stay positive. As I’ve mentioned in this blog before, part of that process is making my peace with a new 2020, one in which we travel less in the van, stay put in Spain for longer and innovate to make Broaden, our videography project, stay afloat amid it all.

On that note, the last week and a half has seen George and I make progress on a number of projects. I’m still working on the video about ‘Ecological Economics’ which I’ve been making for a while now, and last Saturday we recorded a voiceover to go with some of the footage of an interview I did with the wonderful economist Simon Mair. It was pretty fun to make a homemade vocal booth (basically a den made with chairs, sheets and cushions) in order to record the sound! I’ll be starting on animated graphics for that video too, so hopefully it’ll be out soon.

I’m really looking forward to starting a conversation about what alternative economic futures might look like post Coronavirus.

In addition to the Ecological Economics video, we’ve wanted to film the beautiful little town of Corbera for a while now. On Sunday we finally got around to doing just that as part of an initiative called ‘Have You Ever Heard Silence’. The project, started by a videography firm in Germany, seeks to bring people from around the world together to capture footage of life throughout the pandemic.

(images, left to right) Filming in the town of Corbera, recording a voiceover, and more shots for the ‘Have You Ever Heard Silence’ project. 

As part of this project, we wanted to capture the essence of the town when it’s still relatively quiet - before the cafes have filled up and the church opens its doors for service. So we headed out early morning, as the first signs of life emerged - people out walking their dogs, cafe owners setting up chairs and tables, and old ladies out in their aprons sweeping their front doorsteps. It was a special experience to capture this place that we’re staying in and have grown to love, and I can’t wait to see the footage as part of the ‘Have You Ever Heard Silence’ documentary.

I’ve started to cut together some of that footage into shorter videos on our instagram too, including one with a quote from writer and thinker Charles Eisenstein. It’s from his recent essay ‘The Coronation’, which is absolutely worth a read and presents an interpretation of this pandemic in a slightly different way than the mainstream save-lives-at-all-costs approach. He says:

“How much of life are we willing to sacrifice at the altar of security?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by George Webster & Bryony Simcox (@broaden._) on Jun 13, 2020 at 6:28am PDT

(video) Shots from filming in Corbera.

The other reason that ‘Keep On Pushing’ felt an apt title is the ongoing struggle against systemic racism. I discussed some of my initial shock at George Floyd’s murder in last week’s blog post, but this week I have observed a shift both in terms of the messaging from the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement as well as a shift internally. As time unfolds, I push forward to process not only George’s killing, the ensuing protests (and even now, the counter protests from far-right groups), but the underlying issues at play in society and the potential solutions to such a systemic problem.

While the movement against racism is finally receiving mainstream visibility, it doesn’t mean this fight hasn’t been going on for centuries. In the words of Audre Lorde, “Revolution is not a one-time event���. There has been some fantastic archival footage doing the rounds on social media, of the likes of Gil Scott-Heron on racism and change back in the 90s, or of David Bowie calling MTV out for their lack of black representation in 1983. In a way, the more I realise people have been demanding justice, equality and fairness for so many years, fighting the same fight that people today are fighting in the name of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, the more shocking it is that there is still so much work to be done.

Revolution = Knowledge + Empathy + Action

This is Rachel Cargle’s ‘recipe for revolution’. I’ve found it to be such a clear, logical and empowering approach to changing a systematic problem and knowing where to start. And whilst this recipe is referring to a revolution where people are no longer discriminated based on race, I think this combination of learning plus feeling plus doing is a pretty powerful combination for taking on other issues too, like climate change, sexism and neoliberalism.

For me, part of this learning process has been looking back at my own life and the ways in which I’ve been on the receiving end of an invisible bias - a bias based on the colour of my skin. And time again when I ask myself this question, the most obvious (and also uncomfortable) example of this privilege is my experience of living in Australia (2016-19).

Moving to a country on the other side of the world gave me an insight into the kind of rigorous process migrants face as they try to obtain visas and work permits to get into places like Britain. And while the visa process I experienced as I transitioned my ‘Working Holiday Visa’ onto a ‘Skilled Temporary Worker Visa’ was invasive, expensive and unpleasant, I absolutely know it would be so much harder for people from ‘less favourable’ countries or with more ‘foreign-sounding’ names to go through the same process. On top of that, this kind of entry process discriminates against older people (you can’t get the Working Holiday if you’re over 30) or people whose skills aren’t deemed ‘Skilled’, or who don’t have the money for the process either. In so many ways, my experience in Australia was made easier because I’m white, I’m from the commonwealth and English is my mother tongue.

Beyond observing the ways in which I was treated in Australia, whilst I lived there it quickly became apparent that the country has a long way to go to reconcile its oppressive and colonial past, and the ongoing racism directed towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Beyond the utterly appalling fact that these people weren’t even recognised as human beings until 1967, their subsequent treatment continues to be unjust. It is with sadness, and even shame, that I’m able to reflect so joyfully on my time spent in a country in which its own government treats the very people from that land so poorly. My memories of a beautiful country, a well-paid job and a fantastic circle of friends sit uncomfortably alongside a different reality played out in shocking statistics. First Australians are the most incarcerated race in the world, have some of the highest suicide rates globally, and there have been over 432 Indigenous deaths in custody (since the 1991 Royal Commission into this statistic).

Fuelled by statistics like these, and in light of global ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests, Vanessa Turnbull Roberts recently made an utterly compelling speech. Vanessa is a Bundjalung woman, law & social work student and human rights activist, and she spoke in anticipation of a march planned the following day in Sydney. She spoke about the pain of Aboriginal people in Australia, the need for accountability, and the importance of justice in a way which was deeply, deeply moving. And whilst I highly recommend watching the whole speech, what she specifically said about kinship has really stuck with me:

“Law is what builds the colonial system. But where my sisters and brothers come from, we’re built off lore. L-O-R-E: where we work on kinship and we stand up for one another.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nessa Turnbull Roberts (@nessaturnbullroberts) on Jun 5, 2020 at 1:15am PDT

(video) Vanessa Turnbull Roberts speaking in Sydney.

There’s been a tendency for people to look at the situation in places like Australia or America and say that racism doesn’t exist in the UK. But the colonial systems which have affected those countries have deep roots tracing back to the UK, and the legacy of colonialism is alive and real there. Artists and activists like George the Poet (whose recent interview with Emily Maitlis on BBC Newsnight is well worth a watch) and Akala have spoken out about race and the UK. The voices of Black people living in Britain like these two inspirational guys have really encouraged me to peel back the layers of the UK’s history and to take a deeper look at the country that I’m from.

All of this has in some ways left me feeling overwhelmed and deflated. This past week, as I’ve balanced an unplanned period living in Spain with enormous systemic issues like racism (a strange dualism which I wrote about in last week’s post), I guess the single thread is that I’ve tried to keep on pushing. And someone who really embodies that impassioned quest for a better world is Tommy Caulker.

Tom Caulker is one of those people that I am honoured to have met. As a DJ, night-club owner, and activist for racial harmony, Tom’s life is his mission, and his mission is to make Newcastle a more tolerant and inclusive place.

(image) A portrait I took of Tom in his home back in 2015 for my blog post.

So I conclude this post with the third reference to ‘Keep on Pushing’, as those same words are painted across the walls of World Headquarters nightclub, the club that Tom Caulker founded. I first came across the club in my time at uni, and fell in love with the place’s unpretentious character, inclusive atmosphere, and the Northern Soul, funk and disco music that was played. It was only after I learnt a bit more about the club’s founder that I became intrigued in its story and its mission, and ultimately asked Tom if I could interview him (believe it or not for a blog post on here almost five years ago!).

In that interview, it became apparent that Tom is a man who lives his mission. He wears his heart on his sleeve, believes in a better world, and takes concrete actions to create that world. In that interview, we spoke about a short film that Channel 4 were in the process of making about him and the club. Five years on, and I’ve stumbled across the finished video and watching it in lockdown has been a real inspiration.

(video) The Channel 4 short documentary about World HQ.

In the video, Tom talks more about his experiences growing up in the UK and being subjected to racism at school, a formative background which influenced his later position at the renowned Trent House pub. In response to overt racism displayed by police, doormen and institutions in the North East in the 80s and 90s, Tom used music to promote inclusion - first at Trent House and later at World Headquarters, which he continues to run and DJs at. Tom describes the place as “a beacon of tolerance”. Far more than just a club, World Headquarters is a place that stands for something, and proudly displays its values on its walls through paintings, posters and slogans, of which include the mural of Curtis Mayfield with his powerful ‘Move On Up’ lyrics.

So as I wrap up another post, reflecting on the pleasure of interviewing Tom and the energy he exudes, I’m left feeling optimistic. There is much work to be done, but we’ve just got to keep on pushing...

skam spin-off

to keep with the theme of positiveness for this blog, i wanted to talk a lil about the US version of skam ! admittedly hopes for the show aren’t the greatest, but rn there’s heaps of love in the tags for some really promising outcomes for the series and where it could be set. and it got me thinking, what if in some alternate universe we could have an english spin-off of skam that wasn’t set in america ?? i, as an australian, think skam would translate perfectly into a quaint little show set in australia, and below i wanna list why !

Most of what I’m going to say below is applicable to southern Australia (Melbourne and surrounds) so if you’re a fellow aussie and this doesn’t make sense, this is the geographical context !

also this is kinda long (....2440 words....) bc i got super passionate about this so if you wanna chuck me a like (even if you didn’t read it) it will make me feel better for wasting the past hour of my life AHAHAH

Australia is an incredibly diverse country, both in the people that live there and the terrain. Where I live, you could drive for thirty minutes in any direction and could find yourself in a) a bustling city b) a small suburbia c) rural areas/farms d) dense bushlands, and e) a beach. i’m not being dramatic either, i could legit do this right now. 

but i think the allure of skam and love of it is not because of the characters and the appeal of a new culture (although character reliability helps, especially with the personalised touch with real-time clips and texts) but the authenticity of the experiences in the show transcend geographic barriers, and although australia has so many customs that may not translate well (but may in some places in the uk or in nz), we would still get the same feelings behind it if the show was treated well. below i have a small template about what the show would be like if it was set in australia, following the themes our beloved characters have left behind in the original series. 

also keep in mind this is an abstract reimagining of the themes, the events i’m hypothetically discussing (and secretly wishing someone would hire me to write lmao) are about a show like skam, not an actual remake. this is basically an Australian!OC au of skam.

season one; eva (and noora) equivalent

for this to make sense, if set in australia, it would probably set in a small suburb near melbourne. the main character would have moved from a small town (probably rural) and settled into a new high school. i want a storyline about a girl dealing with the societal expectations behind vanity, appearance, and how we present ourselves. i want a character that’s not a size 0, and a story following her. especially in australia, with a massively sports dominated culture (seriously, it’s all we care about), and her love of sport often being disregarded because of her weight and the fact that she’s a woman. fun fact, AFL (an australian sport that’s the most popular sport in southern states and has been around for DECADES, only just created a national league for women this year). alongside AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE that would be displayed throughout the season about embracing self-love, health doesn’t equate appearance, and we all have the right to pursue what we love, the main would befriend other girls in the school (and the local sports club, where i’m assuming a lot of time will be spent since that’s a fairly small town aussie thing) that don’t particularly ‘fit in’ and would become close, much like our girl squad. also along the lines of eva/jonas in s1, i want the romance for the season to follow the main and a boy, who she doesn’t like but feels obligated to like because she feels no one else will. this is something so many young people deal with, and i’ve never once seen it adapted to screen. it would be amazing to share the message that you have the freedom to love whoever you want, and you never have an obligation to like anyone back, even if you feel like there won’t be ‘anyone else’ (and hint: there will always be someone else). the season would end with the main having a beautiful group of friends, loving herself, allowing herself to play a sport she loves, and not feel the pressure to love someone because they like her.

season two ; sana equivalent

unlike skam, it would be awesome if season 2 (and arguably the show’s main premise) to follow the sana equivalent as opposed to a noora. this main season’s character would be another girl from the first season’s new friendship group, who happens to be an indigenous australian. for those of you who don’t know about australia’s institutionalised racism, indigenous australians (or aboriginals) were the nation of people who lived in australia before the british colonised coastlines in 1788. basically the british ignored them and still claimed australia despite the land being rightfully theirs, and the settlers built our nation on segregation and racism. from 1905-1969 (and in some places, even still in the 70s) the australian government actually seized mixed-race aboriginal children from their families in what is now known as the ‘stolen generation’ because the white men running the country believed that every single aboriginal was unfit to take care of their own children. many aboriginals still live in poverty, some retaining their old customs and others trying to 'join in’ westernised culture (with much reluctance, because like i said, so many people are still racist as shit). even in australia we hardly talk about this racism, let alone the rest of the world. so i think it would be so incredible to have an entire season (and really, a show) centered around a young aboriginal girl who’s grown up in the suburbs like everyone else (due to the tireless efforts of her parents who battled adversity) to try and ‘fit in’ despite no one accepting her. unlike sana’s season, this hypothetical season 2 would primarily focus on the season’s main, her insecurity about her heritage and thus distancing from her family and perhaps engaging in behaviour she wouldn’t otherwise. it’s so important for this character to have a personality in the sense that she’s more than a stereotype, and i see her as being a bright but quirky girl who isn’t very athletic but she’s so kind and optimistic but has a lot of self esteem issues and tends to distance herself from people due to her feeling inferior. the season’s romance would probably orientate around one of the more popular guys in her school (but nothing like william) - he’s very extroverted and funny and charismatic, hence why he’s popular, but the main feels like she never has a chance because he’s not indigenous so why would he acknowledge her??? i want them to develop an unlikely friendship (the viewers knowing that the main has a massive crush but unbeknownst to the actual main herself) and idk the exact details but the season will revolve around some sort of event that will end with the main embracing her heritage and proudly sharing her origin story and being extremely proud of her aboriginal ancestors, as she rightfully should be! also, she eventually gets the boy despite resistance (both on her end and her family’s) and we’d have a really sweet interracial relationship to grace us. :)

season three ; isak equivalent

This is still such a big issue in Australia, all things lbgtqia+ related, because as you may know, Australia still hasn’t legalised our marriage equality bill (although our government technically legalised it in 2013, albeit not properly so it was nullified after a month). But surprisingly, especially in sports clubs and smaller towns, Australia is still so conservative in the way it views gender roles. Everything is still so static. School uniforms at school are still so strict and gender orientated (people can get sent home for not doing up their shoes, legit. And this was at a public school). And the sports clubs we have here are typically an AFL/Netball club, in which the boys play Australian Football, and the girls netball, and it’s sort of just assumed you date the opposite gender depending??? (Much less allow boys to play netball and girls to play football, until recently at least). This season would follow a boy, who probably befriended the season one main at the football club and helped her out during that time, who is gay. Now it’s important to note that yes, there’s still a major deficiency of good wlw relationships and trans, intersex and asexual characters, well, everywhere, but funnily enough australia seems far more accepting of wlw as opposed to mlm, in terms of sports clubs, which is why i think this is still an important story to tell. often homophobic language is still tossed around and some people don’t even know there’s an underlying context to it. it’s just so ingrained in the culture that it’s hard to think of alternatives (if you’re wondering, i live in a family of football players, grew up at one of these clubs as a netballer and have many footballer friends, so i know all of this from experience). This season would follow the main, as all of his mates are getting girlfriends and boasting about it as they tend to do, all hyped up for the end of season presentations after the football finals, which people usually showcase their girlfriends at .The main is obviously terrified, thinking there’s something wrong with him, that their entire team/family will discard him if he comes out. The sideplot of this season would follow season one’s main, who contrasts to this season’s main as their both the other’s main support (I also want the season one main to be bi or pan, not only to demonstrate to the s3 main than there are such sexual orientations outside heterosexuality, but damn i want some cute and healthy wlw relationships okay). Let’s say this season’s main is either the captain of the team or the coach’s son, and he feels so much pressure to excel that he’s lost a piece of himself and has such receded into himself and his battling his own demons (cue my lame ass excuse to play troye sivan constantly). NOW THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT HAPPENS, some clubs in smaller towns develop rivalries with the closest club and it’s actually a tangible thing??? Like my dad still speaks badly of his rival club even tho it was such a childish thing based on nothing omg. So I picture insecure season main training up, and meets a guy from the other club (either as a player, or maybe a rare male netballer bc that is a thing, or even just a worker in the canteen but still tied up with the other club) and it’s basically about overcoming the prejudice of class (which is why the clubs are rivals) as well as homophobia and how supportive a group of these ‘manly men’ (die gender roles, really) and it being just the sweetest and most important thing ever. as well as a romance that, even though sort of forbidden bc of club rivalry, it all works out in the end and the main ends up taking the boy to that end of season presentation despite all the conservatives bc he’s proud and happy and so are all his friends. ALSO I NEED A MAJESTIC BEST FRIEND that supports the main so much, a Jonas!equivalent. I think it would be really special if it could be the romantic interest from s2, purely to see more of that healthy interracial relationship, but bc he’s also popular and to destigmatise status and see the only reason you have for not understanding other people is bc you’re an asshole. stop making popular kids in school inhuman or completely removed from ‘normal’ people.

season four ; even equivalent. 

so this final season would obviously deviate from skam as well, and i mean even equivalent in the sense of his character, not as the s3 romantic interest. i feel mental illness (and disability) are things that skam could have explored much more, and a season dedicated to mental health would be so incredible. i feel like this character would be a female character in the original girl group, and the main drama of the season is the end of year exams in the final year of high school. as for which specific mental illnesses or disabilities this character could have, i haven’t done enough research on this to give a proper and educated answer, but i’m sure ao many of you can name some that are so relevant in today’s society but aren’t discussed in the media at all (and should be). back to the season, unlike norway we don’t have any ‘big’ graduation things, besides muck up day (a day where everyone really goes crazy with pranks and dress ups), schoolies (which is where you go on holiday for like a week and be drunk the whole time) and val (formal dinner/dance/graduation thing). but unlike a lot of countries, australia’s education system is kinda stupid bc if you wanna go to university (in victoria, australia anyway) your exams for your final year are the only thing that can get you in. in australia, you are literally only assessed on the final year (every other year of high school is irrelevant) and universities don’t see any extracurriculars or anything about you. we also don’t do entrance exams or essays. literally all universities get is a number (out of 100) that ranks you with the rest of the state by how you went in your exams. that’s literally it (i honestly almost died in that year, it was the worst thing). so i want a season to sort of talk about the school stress, and anxiety of planning out your future, and mental health because although everyone relates to the stress of school, there’s not much media about why it’s so stressful (and hence, why no governments will ever try to change it). it’s also so important to talk about mental health issues, and i think this would be a wonderful way to end the series because it will be good to devote this season to other characters as well (so it’s not as heavy) but can end on a really uplifting note and talk about health and how the bad things, no matter how bad, are never permanent, and even though friendships aren’t permanent either, there are such things as soulmates (platonically or not), and i want to emphasise the platonically part in the friendship of these girls and how they survived these years together and overcame adversity in different ways.and that the experiences we all feel as teenagers and young people are not only relevant but are valid, and no one can demean you or your thoughts for your age. because we lack in wisdom doesn’t mean we lack knowledge, and our generation has plenty of love in our hearts to hopefully share and ensure we can overcome adversity together. 

~

... so yeah. That was a rant and a half about what an australian skam could look like! This is basically a fanfiction, really. But the whole point of writing this was just to say that yeah a non-US based skam adaption would be great (I would also love to see a Canadian or New Zealand skam, purely because they are countries that are also rarely acknowledged in terms of english-speaking countries in the media). Also this wasn’t a dig at Julie or her incredible show, as regardless of what happens I’m so glad I’ve been part of the skamily. But all I’m saying is that Julie has definitely inspired me, and hopefully others, to start telling more stories that are authentic and real, and not just what people want to hear. 

Alt er love. <3