June 10, 2019

The song sucks': An Indigenous rapper insults the national anthem as he explains it why nine State of Origin stars refused to sing Advance Australia Fair before series opener

An Aborigine makes a case that the words in the Australian national anthem do not apply to Aborigines.  There is some point in what he says but many others could say the same thing.  I, for instance, am not "young and free" (in the words of the anthem).  Old and decrepit would be more like it!  An anthem is not a history lesson.  It is just a few highlights of our history

And by deliberately alienating themselves from the rest of Australia, Aborigines certainly do themselves no favours.  People are a mirror and disrespect tends to get disrespect in return.  So if aborigines want respect -- which they often say they do --  disrespecting Australian traditions is exactly the wrong way to go about it


An Indigenous rapper has explained why Advance Australia Fair is offensive to Aboriginals in response to the boycott of the anthem by a string of State of Origin stars.

Adam Briggs, who performed on stage at Suncorp Stadium in Queensland ahead of the Game One on Wednesday, revealed why he thinks the national song 'sucks'.

'I want to help you understand what the Australian anthem sounds like when black fellas listen to it,' he said on a video posted by The Weekly before the game.

Briggs played through the song until he got to 'For we are young and free'.

'Now, since all children in Northern Territory detention are Aboriginal and we are the most incarcerated people on Earth, we don't feel particularly free,' Briggs said.

'And as for young, we've been here for 80,000 years but I guess we don't look a day over 60,000.'

Playing on until he got to 'we've gold and soil and wealth for toil' in our anthem.

'We don't see much of that wealth. Only one in 10 of us are financially secure,' he said.

He continued on until he reached the line that mentioned 'our land' which he said is exclusionary. 'You see that just reminds us that our land was our land before our home was girt by you lot,' he said.

'We'll toil with hearts and hands,' the anthem continued.

'See, we're still fighting for half a billion dollars in stolen wages so we did the toil part, but we're still waiting for the pay cheque - I guess its in the mail, he said referencing a class action launched in 2016.

Briggs then continued until he stopped at the line: 'We've boundless plains to share.'

'Hold up there, sharing? We can't even share our opinion about a song without the whole country freaking out so that's when it's played, some of us don't feel like standing up or singing along,' Briggs said.

'The song sucks,' he said finally.

The explanation comes as the anthem continues to polarise.

Drawing attention to one of the same lines Briggs did, Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek and Liberal MP Craig Kelly recently called for the line 'young and free' to be removed from the anthem.

Instead the pair proposed the line be changed to 'strong and free' to acknowledge Indigenous history.

Nine players, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, chose not to sing at the State of Origin Game One in protest of the anthem they believe to be offensive.

Blues trio Cody Walker, Josh Addo-Carr and Latrell Mitchell vowed to abstain from singing the national anthem, along with Maroons rival Will Chambers, ahead of the first clash on Wednesday evening.

Indigenous player Justin Hodges gave his opinion before the game and said he chose to sing but respected those that didn't.

'I've never really had a problem singing with it because I always thought about the guys that have put their life on the line for us in terms of of the soldiers and all those people,' Hodges said. 'That's why I sung it, for those guys who give us the freedom to play rugby league.'

SOURCE 






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