Today has been interesting. First of the Zoom calls I’ve joined. One thing that stood out for me and also from numerous conversations I’ve had today is how a lot of us (including me esp.) really need to intentionally educate ourselves on topics that is important to us. 1/

Academia has a lot of articles about us written by iTaukei & also non-IT academics who’ve spent countless days, weeks, months researching information we might need, to be able to begin to understand & articulate our thoughts about the subject matter of our iTaukei heritage. 2/

We all know we get racialised as black people when we are outside of Fiji, especially those of us who are dark-skinned Fijians (I can only speak from the UK diaspora perspective). But what we all really need to start doing, especially as parents of young children, teenagers, 3/

young adults even, is speaking power and truth into our iTaukei heritage because it’s clear that this conversation from us as parents to our children, isn’t happening enough. This failing is on US, the parents. And we can and MUST try to do better from here on end. 4/

I have a 16yo who has grown up here in the UK from a young age and has faced similar racial prejudice that the young Fijian diaspora are speaking about. Their lived experience is different to those of us who came over as adults & so we as parents have to educate ourselves too. 5/

But in saying that, nationality aside, racialised experiences aside, one thing that remains constant is, our heritage as iTaukei people, which extends far beyond our colonial history. Far beyond the white settlers that we seem to think our recorded history began with. It didnt 6/

It began with our ancestors more than 3,000 years ago. They are completely independent of each other. And is such an important & integral part of who we are & our identity as an iTaukei. I hope these conversations w/ the Fijian diaspora continues. Vinaka vakalevu @NawaqalivaMike