Fifty-four years ago there was a demonstration involving about 30 university students, an old bus, and three or four “outback” New South Wales towns. These days the 1965 Freedom Ride is generally acknowledged as a significant event in Australia’s cultural maturity. But we are not supposed to draw any parallels with similar Indigenous-led protests today.



Modelled on the Freedom Ride demonstration in the United States in 1961, Australia’s version departed from Sydney on 12 February 1965 with a slightly different focus.



“When the idea was taken up in Australia,” recalls the Freedom Rider and professional historian Ann Curthoys, “it had a much broader meaning – black and white students travelling together by bus to draw attention to all kinds of racial discrimination. Indeed our concern was not transportation, which was not segregated, but rather places of leisure in country towns – pools and picture theatres and RSL clubs – which were. We were also to draw attention to the appalling conditions under which Indigenous people lived, in shanty towns, on reserves and missions …”



One of the enduring interventions which occurred on that fortnight round-trip was the “desegregation” of the pool in the north-western NSW town of Moree. Led by the legendary Arrernte man Charles Perkins, the activists first assembled out front of the town’s council chambers to protest racial discrimination.



In her book, Freedom Ride: a Freedom Rider remembers , Curthoys writes: “For about an hour, we carried placards saying ‘Hotels and clubs are integrated, but not baths’, ‘Are you proud of your council?’, ‘Color is not contagious’, and ‘Why whites Only?’.”

Culture war zone: how News Corp took on Yumi Stynes Read more

Next, the protest moved to the Moree Baths, where the activists were eventually successful in gaining entry for about 26 local Aboriginal kids who were otherwise banned by a 1955 council decree from swimming in the pool outside of school hours. A now iconic photograph of Perkins in the pool surrounded by joyous kids was taken by The Australian newspaper and the event was widely reported on by the nations news organisations.

Understandably, there was opposition at the time from white Australia towards the Freedom Ride. The very concept challenged both the sensibilities and the status quo of white Australia by revealing how endemic racism was in the fledgling nation. This week, over half a century later, we’ve observed how little those types of attitudes have changed.

It would be mildly interesting to point out to veteran television personality Kerri-Anne Kennerley – who did her best to minimise and delegitimise Indigenous-led Australia Day protests from her platform on morning television on Monday – how civil rights and Aboriginal rights activists can and have always engaged on one seemingly minor issue while simultaneously being conscious of and engaging with much larger and numerous other issues.

The “Change The Date” slogan is the equivalent of the “Why Whites only?” placard in Curthoy’s account, but Kennerley already knows that. Which makes the spectacle of her indignant pearl-clutching upon being called out by Studio 10 co-host Yumi Stynes as “sounding quite racist” while reproaching the motives of 26 January protestors all the more intriguing.

What Kennerley was attempting to do on Monday, and what the Studio program essentially attempted again with a segment in Tuesday’s broadcast, happens each year around 26 January. We also observed a reiteration of it in News Corp’s Daily Telegraph and I’m confident the same chestnut was given a whirl or two on radio station 2GB and elsewhere on conservative talk-back programs around the country.



Over the years Black pundits have repeatedly drawn attention to the manoeuvre, and did so admirably again in multiple responses this week, but – surprise! – those useful evaluations are wilfully disregarded by people and organisations seeking to perpetuate tried and tested, and tired, media routines.

On a recent episode of NITV’s The Point, themed on Indigenous protest, the panel discussed how these media routines and journalistic practices sought to delegitimise and perpetuate the marginalisation of Black voices.

There is no active racist cabal at play in newsrooms or across media organisations to achieve this end – after all, as Indigenous media stalwart Stan Grant put it, “they aren’t smart enough to exercise a conspiracy”. Generally the media routines and practices that offend us are simply a symptom of an industry bereft of fresh ideas and cultural awareness when it comes to reflecting an increasingly complex society.



The befuddled, passive racism that results in the character and complexion of the bulk of our media is borne of equal parts arrogance, ignorance, fear, and fragility – escalated by the concern that its privilege is suddenly imperilled.



Watching Tuesday’s episode of the Studio 10 program, I noted the gasps of dismay across the panel and studio audience, when Gunaikurnai and Gunditjmara woman Lidia Thorpe, video-linked to the Sydney studio from Melbourne, called out Kennerley’s white privilege. What was immediately made clear was that Kennerley, the panel and the Studio 10 audience demonstrably lacked the requisite tool kit to responsibly host discussion on critical race politics.



But that’s not to suggest that the Ten Network or other mainstream broadcast media should censor themselves from these discourses. The solution is temporarily handing these platforms over to the sorts of identities that actually deal with these issues professionally and day-to-day.



Evidenced by the number of incisive analysis and comment yesterday by Indigenous women in the media, a program like Studio 10 would be spoiled for choice and only have everything to gain by giving the likes of Kennerley and friends the flick for programs addressing Black issues and instead inviting in pundits like Amy Thunig, Chelsea Bond, Nat Cromb, Amy McGuire, Aretha Brown, Carla McGrath, Celeste Liddle, Nayuka Gorrie, Nakkiah Lui, Shannon Dodson, Teela Reid, Karen Wyld, Ruby Wharton, Josephine Cashman, in addition to Lidia Thorpe and Jacinta Price, and, indeed, Brooke Boney.



Imagine the breadth of opinion, the depth of analysis and the understanding of issues like family violence in Australian culture, or the contestation of our national day, that could be shared with a general audience of morning viewers in that scenario.