A poem by Aboriginal writer and performer Steven Oliver which confronts Australian racism, hypocrisy, fragility and privilege has climbed to almost two million views on Facebook.
Oliver performed Real two years ago at the 2015 National NAIDOC Awards ceremony in Adelaide. The event was broadcast by National Indigenous Television (NITV), and the footage was shared on their Facebook page. It’s been growing a fan-base ever since.
Oliver wrote Real in response to a discussion “this country was having… about who had the right to call themselves Aboriginal, yet most of those people had no connection to Aboriginality apart from their racist views”.
We can’t embed Facebook videos on new Matilda – bug in the system – but you can watch the same performance from Oliver below, on Youtube.
https://youtu.be/G_-lt8VVGW8