For better or worse Australia Day is fast approaching, and as the Australian public is wont to do, the singular issue that’s been latched on to this year is the saga surrounding a billboard.
The ad – which sported a rotating series of images, one of which featured two very much Australian girls who just so happened to be muslim – was pulled down by the billboard’s owning company after a flurry of mashed out complaints from bigoted idiots all blue in the face from bleating about “real Australia” despite having a tenuous-at-best grasp of what that term actually means.
A swiftly put-together GoFundMe raised a shiteload of cash in response to the ad being pulled, managing to haul in over $157,000 at the time of writing. The campaign has booked full-page ads in a slew of publications around the country, putting the image of the girls squarely back in front of people.
However, the campaign has not been without its concerns. Indigenous groups pointed out the sad irony of an Australia Day-related campaign being able to raise such a large amount of cash for an ad in a short amount of time, and yet Indigenous support services that are crying out for funds still go wanting.
Overnight Mariam Veiszadeh, on behalf of the campaign, has now confirmed that surplus funds raised will indeed be donated to Indigenous support groups.
In a post to Facebook, Veiszadeh stated that independent media platform Indigenous X and non-profit organisation Children’s Ground will both benefit from the cash raised.
Additionally, writer/all-around badass Nakkiah Lui weighed in on the subject in a typically fiery and poignant take.
Really, as if anyone could ever hope to say it any better than that.
You can check out Children’s Ground and Indigenous X via their websites.
Source: Facebook.
Photo: GoFundMe.
