Speaker notes from my keynote at linux.conf.au 2020
Who is watching?
Why are they watching?
Why does it matter?
Why does it matter to you?
Why does it matter to us ?
And why might it matter to me?
This week, I'm in Brisbane participating in the solemn Red Hat ritual known as NHO: New Hire Orientation. I will receive my Red Fedora. I'm excited.
It's also NAIDOC week. For those that don't know, NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islander Day Observance committee. It's grown to become a week long celebration of first people's stories, achievements and ongoing resistance in the face of a colonial, genocidal denial of their existence, and their rights.
Not quite 2 months ago, I joined Red Hat as an Engagement Lead in the Open Innovation Labs.
It's the beginning of a new journey. I feel a bit like I'm stepping carefully in to a rowing boat. I'm being mindful, and cautious, so as not to overbalance. I don't want to tip arse over tit into the river. So far, it's been fun, interesting, perplexing, and exciting. At times I've felt utterly joyful, at others, overwhelmed by doubt I could do what I said I'd do.
It was easy!
Ok - I did have help from cafuego, so there's some bits of the process that were just magic to me. But once I had access to the environments, I enabled the migrate modules, and followed instructions on drupal.org and hey presto it was done!
I did need to do manual clean up - re position blocks into differently named regions, and recreate some menu items for taxonomy.
I also got stumped for a bit about why I could no longer free tag, but that turned out to be a simple setting change.
How do we take the war out of our words? Sharon Strand Ellison's Powerful Non-Defensive Communication approach highlights our natural defensive reaction to feeling unsure, anxious or attacked when communicating with others.
She outlines these six different defensive reactions:
Six years and 9 months... is a relatively long time. Not as long as some things, longer than others. Relative. As is everything.
But Six years and 9 months is the length of time I've been on the board of the Drupal Association.
Imagine you work in a hardware store. You notice a customer puzzling over the vast array of electric drills.
She turns to you and says, I need a drill, but I don’t know which one to pick.
You ask “So, why do you want a drill?
“To make a hole.” she replies, somewhat exasperated. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Sure,” you might say, “But why do you want to drill a hole? It might help us decide which drill you need!”
"Oh, okay," and she goes on to describe the need to thread cable from one room, to another.
The time has come
To say fairs fair...
Dear members of the committee,
Please listen to the Uluru statement from the heart. Please hear those words. Please accept them, please act to adopt them.
Enshrine a voice for Australia’s first nation peoples in the Australian constitution.
Create a commission for Makarrata.
Invest in uncovering and telling the truth of our history.
We will be a stronger, wiser nation when we truly acknowledge the frontier wars and not only a stolen generation but stolen land, and stolen hope.
I'm angry and defensive. I don't know why. So I'm trying hard to figure that out right now.
Here's some words.
I'm writing these words for myself to try and figure this out.
I'm hoping these words might help make it clear.
I'm fearful these words will make it worse.
But I don't want to be silent about this.
Content Warning: This post refers to genocide.
