It is 2022. Why does a flag create so much conversation in a town?

Dear Editor,

It is 2022. Why does a flag create so much conversation in a town?

On the back of NAIDOC Week, with the theme of Get up, Stand Up, Show Up, now is the time to be an ally. Get up and be proud that the flag is flying high for all to see, because more people (especially travellers through town) would be questioning why isn’t the Aboriginal flag flying in this town?

Indigenous Culture cannot be ignored, flying the Aboriginal flag is not favouring a culture. How can one favour a culture when this is the oldest living culture in the world? How can you insult a culture that has been here for over 40,000 years? Stand Up for a culture that is still surviving after years of colonisation, massacres, White Australia policy, stolen generation, deaths in custody and racial vilification. Show Up and be proud that we live here on beautiful Wiradjuri country. Some great names to look up are Sir William Cooper, Sir Douglas Nicholls, I am pretty sure they weren’t sitting around and doing nothing for their people. Sovereignty was never ceded We are all on Aboriginal land.

I pay my respect to the land of the Yorta and Yorta and Bpangerang peoples that I am writing this letter on, and I acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wiradjuri and Nari Nari Nation and the First Nations people of Hay.

Kind Regards

Tessa Pynor