No, me neither. Until Crikey.
As Bob Gosford points out in his piece in Crikey, when hundreds of Aboriginal men get together we’re just not interested in reporting on them unless they’re doing something bad.
The Stop the Violence march and rally had all the ingredients of a good news story; hundreds of men and boys chanting “Stop the violence!” as they marched shoulder-to-shoulder down the main street of town, impassioned speeches by community leaders and an inspiring and all-too-rare display of common goodwill and purpose to mend the heart of a broken town.
But apart from brief coverage on local ABC TV and radio and a short grab on the Nine network via its local affiliate station Imparja, the event received no coverage in any print or electronic media anywhere.
OK, so I live in a big city a long way from Alice Springs and you could easily argue that this story was just too local for big news. But then, we sure manage to fit plenty of negative coverage of Aboriginal men into our news.
As Human Rights Commissioner Tom Calma said in April 2008 with particular reference to the vilification of Aboriginal men by politicians and the media in the context of the Howard/Brough NT Intervention…:
“Over the last 18 months we’ve seen sustained media coverage of child abuse and family violence, but we’ve rarely seen or heard how indigenous people and communities across Australia are taking positive steps to respond to this violence, abuse and neglect.”
I really love images of men standing up in opposition to violence against women (and other men) and I just couldn’t let a fantastic photo like the one above go by. I would argue that these kinds of images make everyone feel better, not only women, and certainly not just black men – surely all men must get a lift out of seeing men do good, out of feeling a sense of solidarity in opposing violence?
[…] September 2010 by Jo Tamar Before you go and check out blue milk’s post on a recent anti-violence march (with a fabulous pic!), think about these […]
I hadn’t seen it either. I’m thankful I have now though – you’re right, it’s the kind of thing that gladdens the heart.
Could/would you cross post this to LP?
That’s so good bluemilk. I worked in Redfern/Waterloo for 6 years and the alternative story of wonderful goodwill, reconcilation and social justice seldom got out there either …
No i didn’t see it either blue Milk, mind you i have given up on getting any useful info re the indigenous population from the MSM. this does bother me somewhat as i am not as connected as i used to be, but i get plenty of positive news from Triple R. The Long Grass Sessions on monday morn is a regular fav, tho i have neglected it a bit during this longest of election campaigns.
Hey,
Well I live in Alice Springs, and the real disgrace is that this event did not even make the local paper (which came out yesterday)! Of course the riot that happened at the local footy ground did, along with an Indigenous young man throwing a punch at a whitefella. Of course.
I am waiting to see Friday’s paper as it may be in there…i hope.
Judith thanks for the insight from Alice Springs itself.
[…] super uncomfortable when you take a stand but it means so much when you do it. In the spirit of that other post of mine, I just want to say again how much I really love it when men do […]
Sigh… I’m not surprised at how this was treated by the MSM. This kind of stuff doesn’t sell papers — or so everyone* thinks.
*A very small conglomerate of rich white males, usually.
[…] Blue Milk writes about the march in Alice Springs by Aboriginal men to “stop the violence” and the lack of media coverage about positive Aboriginal stories. […]
[…] Did you see this? by bluemilk […]
[…] Did you see this? by bluemilk […]
[…] of child sexual abuse when it happens because it lacks the big ‘stranger danger’ cues); it ignores the role men/fathers play as allies to women/children sexual abuse survivors; and it plays into myths about sexual abuse, […]
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