2020: the moments that moved the needle for People of Colour
Trigger Warning: colonial violence against First Nations People; Aboriginal deaths in custody; violence against Black people
As we approach 2021, we are the mainstream looks back at some of the significant moments for people of colour in 2020.
Academy Awards acknowledges First Peoples
At the 92nd Academy Awards, Maaori filmmaker Taika Waititi acknowledged that the award ceremony was being held on the ancestral lands of the Tongva, Tataviam and the Chumash, the First Peoples of the land that Hollywood sits on. This was a first at the Academy Awards, and to have Waititi deliver this to millions of viewers was a powerful way to make ceremonial acknowledgments more commonplace.
East Asian win at the Oscars
South Korean filmmaker Boog Joon-ho won the best director Oscar for dark social satire Parasite and became the second director of a foreign-language film to win this award. Other nominees were Sam Mendes (1917), Todd Phillips (Joker), Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) and Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
Walkley introduces Indigenous scholarship
The judges for the inaugural Walkley Young Indigenous scholarship with Junkee Media and 10 News First supported by BHP announced two winners: Molly Hunt, a Balanggarra/Yolngu woman from Wyndham in northern WA, and Jennetta Quinn-Bates, a Baakindji and Yorta Yorta woman from Muswellbrook in New South Wales. This scholarship will boost First Nations representation in Australian media.
Stronger First Nations communities start in history class
A coalition of organisations launched the #LearnOurTruth campaign to help schools become more culturally safe places of learning for First Nations children. This is expected to support children in urban and remote Aboriginal communities to explore their history, empowering them from a young age.
Sacred Aboriginal site destroyed
Mining giant Rio Tinto detonated explosives that destroyed Juukan Gorge cave, a 46-thousand-year-old traditional cultural site in Western Australia’s (WA) Pilbara region. WA Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ben Wyatt, claimed that he was not aware of the planned blast before the event. During the week that followed, hundreds of protestors gathered outside the Perth headquarters of Rio Tinto, as well as around their other offices around the country. There were calls for the Federal and State Indigenous Affairs Ministers, Ken Wyatt and Ben Wyatt, to resign for not preventing the blast. Reconciliation Australia revoked its endorsement of Rio Tinto and suspended it from the Reconciliation Action Plan program.
432 known Aboriginal deaths in custody
Black Lives Matter brought thousands of protestors to the streets to campaign for an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody. Many signs at rallies referenced the 432 known deaths since 1991 from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody’s final report.
End to imprisonment for unpaid fines
Western Australia became the last Australian state to end imprisonment for unpaid fines after the state’s Legislative Council passed the Fines, Penalties and Infringement Notices Enforcement Amendment Bill 2019 (WA). Only a Magistrate can now sanction jail time for unpaid fines, and anyone in WA’s prison for unpaid fines is to be released and any existing warrants for unpaid fines cancelled. The death of Yamatji woman, Ms Dhu, in custody in 2014 was the catalyst behind the push for these changes. CEO of Aboriginal Legal Service of WA, Dennis Eggington, declared that unpaid fines should not be a death sentence.
SBS was not the SBS viewers thought it was
Former SBS journalists aired claims of racism. As veteran SBS news director Jim Carroll is due to retire in December 2020, staff pleaded with their board of directors to make a cultural change. SBS news directors have been White men for the past 32 years, apart from Irene Buschtedt, who held the position from 1993 to 1995. A social media post later outed the SBS leadership team as an all-White 55+ board. This was a shock to viewers who saw SBS as a culturally sensitive broadcaster and as such expected its board to be culturally diverse.
WAP by Cardi B rubbed critics the wrong way
American rapper Cardi B released an explicit track titled WAP which featured American rapper Megan Thee Stallion. Some hailed the track as a feminist masterpiece while others dismissed it as pornesque and explicit despite male rappers frequently releasing explicit songs (such as Slob On My Knob by Three 6 Mafia, Back Dat Ass Up by Juvenile and Freek-A-Leek by Petey Pablo). Discourse around the policing of Black women’s sexuality by men and non-Black people ensued.
Who gets to tell Australian stories?
Media Diversity Australia published Who Gets To Tell Australian Stories? which identified the huge gap in representation between those reporting Australia’s news and current affairs and the broader population. Broadcasters responded to the report by promising to do better in their representation.
Passing the baton from a White man to a White female
With a blow to their employees, SBS picked a White female, Mandi Wicks, as its new director of news and current affairs. Even after news staff had previously urged the board to make some cultural changes – code for “someone who is not White”, SBS managing director, James Taylor, insisted that Wicks had connections with Australia’s diverse communities through her current role.
Blasian elected Vice President
Kamala Harris, the daughter of an Indian Thamizh mother and Jamaican father, became the first woman, first Black person, and first person of Asian descent to hold the office of Vice President of the United States of America. In her victory speech, Harris declared that she won’t be the last woman in office because “every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
