Connected Through Power
Taking control - The why and how?
Why a Blog? Before I answer this question. I’d like to introduce you to Levi.
Levi, a Worimi brother like me who I initially met in Sydney last year. Levi Having grown up in Sydney, myself in Qld. Offered on the first day we met to take me to Redfern to connect. Since then that connection has grown into staying at his home in Melbourne talking in depth about the things that mean most to us: Aboriginal health, civil rights and empowering our people as individuals to be the best versions of themselves. Â
See, Levi is my brother. Not in the way all blackfellas are brothers, but quite literally like an older brother. We may not speak for months but he is always there to care, tell me to pull my head in and offer advice and open my mind to things I wouldn’t on my own (hard headed you see).
Now, if anyone else earlier this year would have told me that I need to go back to university I would have quite literally told them to fxk themselves (sorry). But in the midst of a 3.00am rant about my disenfranchisement with the current system responsible for our people’s wellbeing on a cold Melbourne morning Levi opened my eyes to something very important.Â
That is the tools at the disposal of our people which we have never had before. Tools we must not take for granted. Think of it like this, it wasn't until Whitlam that people from low socioeconomic backgrounds could even go to university. Your parents had to be rich. Now, in 2018 going on 2019 there are so many opportunities for our people to not only be included in conversations but dominate them.
It was that conversation where I made the decision to stop being a mediocre person and start making a decision. Not asking, hoping, waiting for some opportunities to come to our people. It was time to take them. I’ve since backed my mouth up on that one. I’ve walked away from money because I didn’t trust where it came from, I am in my first year of studying psychology and most importantly I've sat and spoken with the most important people. The members of different communities who these issues touch the most. Its time we take control back of our communities from the ground up, rather than the top down!Â
Now, a way in which our people have been doing this is through social media. Levi and I have been talking in depth about this over the past couple weeks about how were late to the party, and its true! Just like education offers our people a voice social media is a platform which for the first time since colonisation gives our people a collective uncensored voice on matters that affect us.Â
Many are already doing it, its time the rest of us start creating content regardless of your followers, regardless of your ‘marketablity’, we have the opportunity to create a very strong community effectively by reaching only one like-minded person, the potential to establish a solidified community on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook is unprecedented.Â
I know this isn't exactly news to anybody... But my message here isn’t to anyone with an online account. It’s to those with something to say but may be apprehensive. Write a blog, start a podcast, be a youtuber all you deadly people with something to say. In the words of the famous Condom man don’t be shame be game!
As mentioned a lot of inspiration for this platform has come from Levi. This bloke is phenomenal, he’s a young software engineer, but most importantly a profound young Aboriginal thinker who I have no doubt will be well known in years to come. Â
Levi's Blog: https://levimckenziek.com/
Youtube video on why social media is an important tool for our people:Â https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYeB0fw0jBI
