Reporting on Indigenous issues is still woeful but we will keep making noise and keep showing up

I cannot celebrate while Indigenous deaths are justified and our humanity is debated

Tuesday commemorates 10 years since I founded the @IndigenousX account on Twitter.

For those who aren’t familiar with what we do, IndigenousX began as a rotating Twitter account where a different Indigenous person would take control of the account for the week and tweet about … well, whatever they wanted to.

I had written an article for our anniversary some time ago – reflecting, commemorating, celebrating the past 10 years of IndigenousX.

This isn’t that article though.

I don’t feel like celebrating right now.

For all the positive changes that we have been a part of over the last 10 years, this week I am not feeling like we have seen much positive change at all.

Not when it is so painfully clear that there’s still some Australian media who, after a police officer was found not guilty on all charges for the killing of an Indigenous person, appear happy to present the cop as the hero and the victim of the shooting as a villain.

Our justice system put him on trial for his own death, and now our media are following suit.

Related: The need for Indigenous Australians to be their own narrators is more important than ever | Will Cooper for IndigenousX

Most media organisations in Australia have Indigenous staff now, when many of them did not 10 years ago.

Most of them have reconciliation action plans or now spell Indigenous with a capital ‘i’, or no longer use the term “blacks” when writing about Indigenous affairs.

They still justify our deaths, though.

They still refuse to let our communities mourn.

They still pretend that white objectivity in Indigenous affairs is a thing.

They still think our humanity is a topic suitable for debate among learned white experts and random media commentators alike.

They still only employ Indigenous journalists when there’s a grant for it … then they’ll still ask that same journo to write an article criticising all the free money Aboriginal people get.

I would have loved to celebrate IndigenousX’s anniversary – to have stopped for a moment to breathe, to reflect, to maybe even pat myself on the back for the decade that I poured my heart and soul into.

Instead, I will do what we always do: try to provide comfort and support where we can, first and foremost, and then provide our platform and our resources to help those who want to speak truth, to create change, to say NO MORE.

I will take the opportunity to say thank you, though.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of IndigenousX in any way this past decade.

IndigenousX was created for lots of different reasons, but a very important one was because Australian media are so woeful when it comes to reporting on Indigenous issues. Often, in my view, maliciously so.

While they justify our deaths, our communities mourn.

IndigenousX will keep offering support where we can.

We will keep making noise.

We will keep providing a platform for our communities for as long as they want us to do so.

We will keep showing up.

And until we get justice, we will do our best to make sure Australia doesn’t get peace.

• Luke Pearson is the founder and director of @IndigenousX and IndigenousX