Stan Grant's Speech On The Australian Dream

Improved Essays
A powerful speech by Indigenous journalist Stan Grant in which he says the "Australian dream is rooted in racism" has gone viral.

Key points:

Grant spoke about the impact of colonisation and discrimination in Sydney
He said when Adam Goodes was booed "it said to us again, you're not welcome"
Speech viewed more than 736,000 times on Facebook and 15,000 times on YouTube
Grant addressed an audience in Sydney on the impact of colonisation and discrimination as part of the IQ2 debate series held by The Ethics Centre.

The speech was made last year but was published online just a week before Australia Day. It has resonated with Australians, having been viewed more than 736,000 times on Facebook and 15,000 times on YouTube.

In his address Grant was
…show more content…
we heard a howl of humiliation that echoes across two centuries of dispossession, injustice, suffering and survival," Grant said.

"We heard the howl of the Australian dream, and it said to us again, you're not welcome."

He said we sung of the Australian dream, "Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free".

"My people die young in this country," Grant said.

"We die 10 years younger than the average Australian, and we are far from free. We are fewer than 3 per cent of the Australian population and yet we are 25 per cent — a quarter of those Australians locked up in our prisons.

"And if you're a juvenile it is worse, it is 50 per cent. An Indigenous child is more likely to be locked up in prison than they are to finish high school."

He referenced a famous poem from Dorothea Mackellar, saying his people's rights "were extinguished because we were not here according to British law".

"I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges," Grant quoted from the poem My Country.

"It reminds me that my people were killed on those plains. We were shot on those plains, diseases ravaged us on those

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