The enduring social power of 2016’s #IndigenousDads hashtag

Despite its critics, social activism was stronger than ever on Twitter in 2016.

In Australia, hashtags like #blacklivesmatter, #letthemstay and #loveislove dominated according to Twitter’s own statistics, but the country’s #IndigenousDads movement also had lasting power.

On Aug. 6, people began sharing images of their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fathers and grandfathers after a “racist” cartoon was published in The Australian newspaper, sending the grassroots hashtag trending.

Drawn by Bill Leak, the cartoon came on the back of an ABC news program that exposed the horrific mistreatment of young people in the largely Indigenous juvenile detention centre, Don Dale, in Darwin.

Joel Bayliss, a youth justice coordinator from Borroloola as well as Arrernte country in the Northern Territory, and an Indigenous father himself, continues to keep the hashtag alive.

Amazed to see an image of himself and his children light up Twitter that day in August, he recently delivered a TEDX talk in Adelaide on how social media can inspire social change.

When he first saw the cartoon, Bayliss told Mashable he felt profound anger: Who is this person to come out and take away from what happened at Don Dale?

As he explained in his talk, “in a single image, Leak had undermined my love for my children. Belittled my relationship with my parents.”

“What I got from that cartoon was that Leak was shifting the blame from the guards onto Aboriginal parents,” he added. “Yes, there are issues surrounding why those kids are in care, but that wasn’t the focus of Don Dale.

“The focus of Don Dale was the breaching of human rights.”

However #IndigenousDads was able to transform that ugliness into inspiration.

“It was such a beautiful movement, so it turned all that negativity on its head,” he told Mashable.

“People still tweet about it whenever there’s something negative happening within Australia. People are still coming back to that positive story.”

While there’s no longer the huge swell of contributions like there originally were on that weekend in August, he believes his community will long use and remember the hashtag. It showed what social media can do.

“In the past, Aboriginal people have not been able to talk about their issues,” he explained.

“Now obviously, everyone has the phone to instantly talk about it and join the conversation. Everyone has the chance to drive social change.”

Bayliss acknowledged there has been some pushback on digital activism from within the Aboriginal community, with some suggesting that sitting and tweeting from behind a computer screen is not tackling the real issues.

“I dispute that,” he said. “Well, here’s an opportunity for us for us to say, ‘hang on, we are great Aboriginal dads.’

“Those photos that were shared were from community members who have the opportunity to make a difference. It wasn’t just people within urban settings.”

Given Bayliss’s career, facilitating restorative justice meetings with young people who may get referred by police or court to a family conference, he could say a lot about raising children.

Still, his message to parents is quite simple: “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

“There are really good Aboriginal mums and dads out there, and there are really good non-Aboriginal mums and dads out there,” he said.

“I think we need to highlight the positives.”

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