It’s hard work being an Aboriginal writer, columnist, activist; it’s hard work and risky sticking our necks out in this increasingly polarised, dangerous and, in my opinion, increasingly white-supremacist society we call Australia. I don’t mean hard work in the digging holes sort of way or risky in the dying at sea kinda way; the labour we perform is emotional, the risk is damage to our health and threats from the outside including death threats.

Yes, I have received death threats.

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Any Indigenous person who writes anything on the topic of Indigenous rights and white privilege (and for some of us it’s our job); any of us who is “uppity” enough to dare to have an opinion on our own wellbeing and on the wellbeing of our own communities must do so knowing we will be attacked and trolled.

This is the risk we take, particularly in January when it appears whitefellas are particularly sensitive. They build straw men, make logical leaps so broad I would have thought them only possible by superheroes and produce facts they refuse to back up – because there is no evidence. Then they tell us they have won the argument.

There is one particular straw man that has irritated me this month because it is insidious, compelling and effective. Essentially, it works, but not because it is brilliant logic. It works because it is emotionally powerful; it can shake us to the core. We fail again and again to avoid it, and the people who use it think it’s the killer gambit. Sometimes it is.

It is hard to come up with a reasonable response that the sort of people who would ask that question will accept. Recently it was thrown at us in a nuclear-style scorched Earth attack by Kerri-Anne Kennerley, who trolled the Indigenous population on her platform on Channel Ten. A week before that someone dropped it in my path hoping I would fall over it, imagining that as soon as it was deployed they had won the argument.

You’ve seen it before.

What are you doing for the children in remote communities?”

Claire G. Coleman (@clairegcoleman) I'm fighting for my people to have pride. I am good at one thing, I am not a social worker or a physician. I am a writer. The tool I have can only be used to change people. I am using it to make people less racist and teach my people pride. That's my fight.

The best response is one that will leave the argument in pieces: I am not a social worker, therapist, medical doctor or a member of any other profession that would qualify me to do the necessary social work on the ground. I am not a parent or a member of the Indigenous families or the communities this question relates to. I have no particular skills in dealing with suicide, alcoholism or social problems; I have not been trained at this sort of work.

What use would I be in that sort of situation? I would merely get in the way.

Because I am a writer, my skills and talents lie in the effective stringing together of words to inform and inspire. People say that if I cared I would be “on the ground” in communities but that is precisely where my skills would be least useful. My skills are most useful right were I am, writing. This is true of many academics, writers, journalists and media people – they do not have the skills and training to “help the children” in remote communities. All we can do is fight to change the nation as a whole.

I am using my skills to fight the racist attitudes that are harming the country.

The best thing I, personally, can do for the remote communities is to report and inform and change the way people are thinking.

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I am doing the best I can for Indigenous communities by doing what I do best – my job. Because writing is my job. The “what are you doing for the children?” straw man appears powerful and compelling but it’s a pretty poor argument. All it has is an appeal to emotion, to the strong reactions we all have to children in danger.

The long term fix for the problems is the empowerment of those communities so that they may help themselves. That should be the aim of government and society, training Indigenous social workers and medical professionals so that communities can get the help they need. My part in that important work, and that of my peers, is to write so people understand the importance of Indigenous self-determination.

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