Alaskan indie rock band and fans of eccentric punctuation Portugal. The Man have pulled out of a scheduled performance on Sunrise tomorrow morning over “recent statements” the show has made pertaining to Australia‘s Indigenous people.
The band made the announcement in a statement on Twitter this afternoon:
We were scheduled to appear on Sunrise tomorrow morning but we have decided, as a band, that we do not want to be part of that show at this time. We come from rural Alaska and hold very close to our hearts the indigenous people of our home.
While we are by no means experts in your countries history we know there are problems that, like ours, are yet to be resolved and only being amplified by the recent statements on Sunrise. Uncle Allen Madden will be welcoming us all to our show in Sydney tonight. Love and Respect
Madden is a board member of Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council and a traditional owner of the Gadigal land on which the show is being performed.
Given that the band didn’t specify a specific incident and also given that Sunrise has a pretty horrendous habit of saying some extremely dumb shit, it’s impossible to say with any certainty what it is, specifically, that they’re talking about, but it seems very likely it’s the all-white panel that very casually debated the idea of further Stolen Generations.
Good call nixing that one, hey.
