We have a communication problem in Australia. Words that come out of a Black person's mouth are often heard so differently by white ears.
Take the ex-Green now crossbench senator Lidia Thorpe. She is constantly referred to as a "radical". Why? Because she is a champion of First Nations sovereignty.
Is that radical? First Nations people are the sovereign people of this country. This is, was and always will be our country.
The invasion and theft of our land does not change that. Never have our people ceded sovereignty.
The Uluru Statement From the Heart — which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to implement in full — speaks explicitly of sovereignty.
As a Wiradjuri person, authority rests in my elders, drawing their cultural legitimacy from our ancestors and exercised within our territory.
That is sovereignty. We practise it every day. We do not accept the idea that our sovereignty was extinguished by the British Crown.
Why should that be a radical proposition? Would we consider a politician proclaiming Australian sovereignty a radical?
Lidia Thorpe defends sovereignty, upholds tradition, values kinship. Are they not conservative values? They are certainly not radical things to me.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may disagree about the Voice to Parliament, and whether treaty should come first. But overwhelmingly we agree on sovereignty.
When sovereignty is something sinister, suspect
Throughout the world First Nations sovereignty is entirely uncontroversial. It is ratified in treaties.
American presidents deal with First Nations communities on a sovereign to sovereign basis.
New Zealand has wrestled with the place of Maori sovereignty. How do Maori exercise rangatiratanga — authority?
Maori political scientist Dominic O'Sullivan says sovereignty "is not an absolute and indivisible power, exercised over subjects by an all powerful crown".
He says it is a collective authority. Sovereignty, he says, "belongs to Maori as much as it belongs to anybody else".
But not here. In Australia, Black sovereignty is often presented as something sinister and suspect, something to be feared and resisted.
It is as if First Nations sovereignty would take something away from other Australians. Rather, Indigenous leaders like Lidia Thorpe talk of peace, healing, respect and rights.
Take other words. Dispossession? To us it is theft. We were not "dispossessed" of our lands. Our land was stolen.
Settlement? To us it is invasion. In the 1820s martial law was declared on my people. The war on the Wiradjuri was referred to as an exterminating war.
Racism? Another word that white people hear differently to us. To white people, racism is something we — Black people — experience. To us it is something other people inflict on us.
Racism is not simply discrimination or bigotry. It is not just an abusive comment. Racism is structural. It is built in.
It is abuse of power.
White supremacy? To some it may conjure images of a skin-head neo-Nazi. But to us white supremacy can be experienced in a church or a school or a hospital.
We see it on television. We hear it from politicians. It is something we navigate every day when we encounter the legacy of whiteness; the history of violence, oppression and injustice.
Whose voices are heard?
I read the Bible, yet I know that people who share my faith don't read it in the same way. The same words but they land differently.
I read about justice.
Deuteronomy 16:20: "Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that Lord your God is giving you."
Isaiah 61:8: "For I the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and wrong."
Psalm 50:6: "I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted.
It is abundantly clear that God is on the side of the suffering. Yet the words of God have been used to justify slaughter. To raise armies. To enshrine the divine right of Kings and Queens to plunder others' lands.
Words matter. As an Indigenous journalist, I am aware of the language barrier. Balance, objectivity — do these so-called journalistic values speak equally to us?
How can we bring balance when we are three per cent of the Australian population speaking to the 97 per cent?
In the interests of "balance" Indigenous journalists have to put ourselves in situations that are harmful.
Indigenous journalists will often interpret events and comments differently to non-Indigenous journalists. Our perspectives are unique and informed by history and lived experience.
Yet Indigenous journalists presenting Indigenous perspective are frequently accused of bias.
But who defines bias? A media culture in Australia that is overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon? When an Indigenous journalist reports issues of race in Australia, it is inseparable from the invasion, theft and colonisation of our country.
The reporting over Mparntwe — Alice Springs — is revealing. How do we frame the story? Whose voices are heard? What questions are asked? None of this can be separated from who we are.
White-dominated media has an appalling history of reporting First Nations people and issues. We are infantilised and treated as subjects or objects.
We are a problem to be solved. Or a scandal to be exposed.
This doesn't deny the urgency of the situation in Mparntwe. People need safety and protection. The children on the streets need love, care and support.
But who tells the story? Who sits in judgement?
In the criticism of the ABC's coverage this past week, First Nations voices — including reporter Carly Williams, who has been subjected to awful attacks — have been drowned out by white journalists and commentators.
All communication is translation and we are talking but not hearing.
Sovereignty? Dispossession? Theft? Racism? Balance? Faith? Justice? Same words. Different meanings.
Yindyang Yarra dharray. Gari Yala.
That's my language. Do you understand what I am saying? We understand English but do you understand us?
In a year when we are seeking a Voice, it would be good if we could actually speak to each other.
Those words, my language: They mean to speak slower. To speak truth.
Stan Grant is presenter of Q+A on Mondays at 9.35pm.
