Q&A host Stan Grant revealed moment he was called N-word by stranger outside ABC studios
Stan Grant says he was called the N-word by a young passerby with his girlfriend at ABC headquarters
- Stan Grant opened up about racism
- He said he was called N-word by a stranger
Indigenous TV journalist Stan Grant says he was racially abused by a passerby while standing outside ABC headquarters.
The Q&A presenter made the shocking revelation during a speech at the national summit on the safety of Aboriginal children in Adelaide this week.
“I was standing outside the ABC tapings… and a young man and his girlfriend walked past me and when they got close to me he yelled the N-word loudly at me, right at me,” Grant said.
Q+A host Stan Grant told an audience that a man once racially abused him while filming outside ABC’s studio
“So what if I’m on television, so what if I stayed in the White House with Barack Obama — so what if I could call the Prime Minister [Anthony Albanese] and he picks up the phone. At that moment I was that person for that person.’
Grant said the stranger’s despicable remark had been completely random.
“We don’t know when someone is going to say that,” he said.
“No matter how successful you are, someone can always bring you down…racism can hit us anywhere.”
The national summit took place between March 29 and 31 and focused on the safety of Aboriginal children.
The event was organized by the South Australian group KWY.
The group works with over 1,000 children and parents each year experiencing violence or the threat of losing their children to child protection services in Adelaide and regional centres.
The Government of South Australia has an annual budget of more than $500 million, but only allocates about $69 million of that to support services for new families.
SA’s Child Protection Minister, Katrine Hildyard, has previously said the Malinauskas government plans to allocate $3.2 million to set up a new commission that aims to improve outcomes for Aboriginal people.
She says the government has also committed to increasing the total budget for services to new families by $13.4 million.
“We know the current system is not working for Aboriginal families and children,” she said.
‘Listening to the wisdom and experience of Aboriginal people is extremely fundamental to arrive at a better approach.
The Q&A presenter made the shocking admission when speaking at the national summit on Aboriginal child safety in Adelaide this week (pictured, Stan Grant with partner Tracey Holmes)
“This includes our government acknowledging how that legacy of colonization and experiences of intergenerational trauma and racism impact the issues Aboriginal people face.”
Aboriginal Children’s Commissioner April Lawrie also appeared at the summit.
She used her time on stage to say that the government’s child removal policy was flawed and failed to address why families were in need in the first place.
“We are deleting [children] but we don’t support [families]’ said Mrs Lawrie.
‘That says more than what you see in data.
“That’s the compelling story of what’s going on in our Aboriginal communities, what is the state’s relationship with our Aboriginal families.”
This problem is not only present in South Australia, with 952 Aboriginal children across NSW being taken from their families in 2019-2020, according to The Guardian.
This was an increase of 2.6 per cent from the previous year and brought the total to 6,688 Aboriginal children in foster care at the time – about 41 per cent of the total number of children in the system.
This is despite the fact that only 6 per cent of children under the age of 18 are indigenous to Australia.