MIRANDA TAPSELL in her own words WHAT IF IT WAS YOUR SON?

THE BELOVED ACTRESS (WHO HAS STARRED IN HOMEGROWN HITS ‘THE SAPPHIRES’ AND ‘TOP END WEDDING’) IS A PROUD LARRAKIA AND TIWI WOMAN BORN IN DARWIN. HERE, IN HER OWN WORDS, MIRANDA SPEAKS OF HER EXPERIENCE WITH RACISM AND WHY REAL CHANGE MUST HAPPEN FOR A BETTER AUSTRALIA

- JOHNNY DIAZ NICOLAIDIS

I should be in bed, eating a whole tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream and binging Insecure on my laptop. I’m truly done with the complacency so many nonIndigenous people have on this continent we now call Australia. I’m sure my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters feel the same way. It’s been a hell of a year. You’d think that after all the books, television shows, films, podcasts, tweets, educational resources and doctoral theses that my community have created and shared with the mainstream that no-one, absolutely no-one, would ask me ridiculous questions such as whether I still experience racism, or if it even exists. But nah. Of course I have been asked that. By everyday people. By professional journalists. In 2015, I encouraged my industry (previously known as the arts, now communications) to be more inclusive – and honest – with how we reflect our society on our screens. For a lot of non-Indigneous people that seemed to do the trick. Racism, apparently, was sorted.