I come from a people west of the Blue Mountains, the Wiradjuri people, where in the 1820’s, the soldiers and settlers waged a war of extermination against my people. We were shot on those plains, disease ravaged us on those plains. It reminds me that my people were killed on those plains. I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges. An Indigenous child is more likely to be locked up in prison than they are to finish high school. We are fewer than three percent of the Australian population and yet we are 25 percent, a quarter of those Australians locked up in our prisons and if you are a juvenile, it is worse, it is 50 percent. We die ten years younger than average Australians and we are far from free. Australians all, let us rejoice for we are young and free. We sing of it, and we recite it in verse. We heard the howl of the Australian dream and it said to us again, you’re not welcome. We heard a howl of humiliation that echoes across two centuries of dispossession, injustice, suffering and survival.
We heard a sound that was very familiar to us. But I can tell you what we heard when we heard those boos. I can’t speak for what lay in the hearts of the people who booed Adam Goodes. And they hounded that man into submission. A man who was told he wasn’t Australian of the Year. Thousands of voices rose to hound an Indigenous man. Suddenly the front page was on the back page, it was in the grandstands. It happened in the sporting field, it happened on the football field. Who are we? What sort of country do we want to be? And this happened in a place that is most holy, most sacred to Australians. It looked into its soul and it had to ask this question. In the winter of 2015, Australia turned to face itself. “Thank you so much for coming along this evening and I would also like to extend my respects to my Gadigal brothers and sisters from my people, the Wiradjuri people. Stan’s iconic talk continues to move and inspire millions. The IQ2 debate, ‘Racism is Destroying the Australian Dream’ was a finalist in the United Nations Media Peace Awards for its role in stimulating public awareness and understanding. On the IQ2 stage in 2015, Stan Grant opened the hearts and minds of the audience with his powerful speech on racism in Australia.