Omg my mentions!! I thought it was about my houseplants but no, it was @Jan__Fran reminding people what’s what. Thanks sis 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 #QandA
But a few follow up thoughts (I haven’t seen the ep yet so will comment once I have iA):

- at a macro level, the fact that media ownership is so concentrated in Australia is a problem. It means that vendettas become national narratives, and there is so little space to push back
- there is also little incentive to push back, and little protection to those who do. A group of creatives/writers etc put together a petition a few weeks into May 2017 (led by Maxine Beneba Clarke) and I asked them not to publish bc I was worried for their safety.
- I don’t know if I would have made the same decision had I known how bad it was going to get, but there is / was also so little understanding for how it was going to play out that I was fumbling in the dark.
- Concentrated media ownership is one thing. Another is this strange idea that still hasn’t been dealt with around fealty to the concept of ‘being Australian’. After all, being ‘unAustralian’ was the one of the main charges against me, a crime which is so nebulous as to be unreal
- but there’s nothing like a confected story/cultural crime to keep a story going. But gosh, within media ranks people believed it too. I got asked by a POC Journo who I thought was onside why I didn’t see it coming and whether perhaps the whole thing was due to my ‘age’/naïveté
- which I have many many feelings about but I won’t go into.
- Folks who contributed to the mess have not and don’t seem to ever be held accountable for their actions, which is a source of frustration... so when legends like Jan speak truth to their faces, it’s a real moment of BOO YEH!
- that being said, I wonder what true accountability/justice would look like.

ALSO! I’d like to say that tho the Murdoch boys threw their full weight into destroying me, mfs did not succeed, Alhamdulilah. Bc as Stormzy says, omg what a God I serve—
- I am thriving, Alhamdullilah. I am just about the publish my third book, have more than one tv series in development, got married, have bylines in publications all over the world, and have an even stronger backbone and desire to live w integrity than ever before.
- That does not absolve them of any crime. I worked my ASS off to get here, and left the country I loved to be able to heal. It just goes to show that at the individual level, you can survive their assaults, and you can thrive, and in some way, that can erode their power over you
- For friends who had power in the media, and who didn’t say and haven’t ever used your platforms to denounce the mess and injustice you’d saw playing out in front of you, I do wonder. Why do you do what you do, if not to speak truth to power? Bc lots of you didn’t. And don’t.
- and I will never understand that.
- don’t rely on those with strength and integrity, like Jan, to do the heavy lifting for you. Step up to the plate.
And shoutouts to all the First Nations people who have been fighting the good fight from day 1. The more I’ve learnt about the struggle, the deeper and more profound my respect for the FN struggle has been. #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe — and it’s #NAIDOC2020 !!
You can follow @yassmin_a.
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