It is 2026, and Australians are still debating whether blatant racism should be called what it is.
Every week, Aboriginal peoples are expected to watch neo-Nazis protest in public, listen to crowds boo Welcome to Country ceremonies, scroll past racist comments online, or see people mock language, culture and identity for entertainment. The loudest voices often come from keyboard warriors hiding behind anonymous profiles, but sometimes the weakest response is the most common one; the laugh react, the shrug, the silence, or the excuse.
For too long, racism in Australia has been softened with words like “ignorance,” “confusion,” or “lack of understanding.” Whenever racist behaviour erupts publicly, there is immediately a rush from some individuals, organisations and commentators to explain things gently to the perpetrators.
Suddenly, the focus shifts away from the harm done to Aboriginal peoples and toward educating the people responsible for it.
People begin explaining the difference between a Welcome to Country and an Acknowledgement of Country. They start sharing Aboriginal history lessons, discussing colonisation, or listing Aboriginal achievements as if racism only exists because people somehow “don’t know better.”
But the reality is this: in 2026, people do know better.
This is not the 1950s. The large majority of these are not generations raised in complete isolation from Aboriginal voices or perspectives. Australians today have grown up in a world of constant access to information. There are books, documentaries, school curriculums, podcasts, films, universities, social media campaigns, Indigenous creators, public debates and endless opportunities to learn.
People have heard these conversations before. They just disagree that they should have ever been had in the first place.
They are racist.
They know Aboriginal people are the oldest continuing culture on Earth. They know what colonisation did. They know why Welcome to Country ceremonies happen. They have been told repeatedly.
But they are racist.
And contrary to what many online commentators claim, Welcome to Country is not some modern invention created out of nowhere. It has been modernised, sure.
But as highlighted in the article shared from the Sydney Morning Herald, the formal Welcome to Country seen today is described as “a modern progression of rituals practised by Aboriginal people for tens of thousands of years.”
The article references historical ceremonies in Victoria, in which Aboriginal nations conducted elaborate welcoming rituals for visitors to ensure the comfort and safety of both hosts and guests. One such ceremony, known as Tanderrum, was recorded in 1845 by William Thomas, assistant protector of Aborigines in the Port Phillip region.
Thomas described visitors being welcomed with fire, food, water and ceremony, writing that “the visitors are attended on the first day by those whose country they are come to visit.” He also noted that “during this ceremony the greatest silence prevails, both by attendants and attended.”
The article ends with a line that feels painfully relevant today: “We might dream of such a silence today as the ignorant, the boorish and the reprehensible stoop to booing one of the oldest ceremonies on this old land.”
At some point, society has to stop pretending every act of racism is simply an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Mocking Aboriginal culture online is racism. Booing cultural ceremonies is racism. Making jokes about language and identity is racism. Encouraging or celebrating neo-Nazi behaviour is racism.
And constantly excusing it, encourages it to continue.
That does not mean education has no place. Education matters deeply. But education cannot become a permanent shield protecting people from accountability every single time they cross the line. There comes a point where repeated behaviour stops being ignorance and starts being a choice.
This opinion piece is also not directed at children, who absolutely should be educated from an early age about respect, inclusion and the acceptance of all people. Teaching young Australians truth, empathy and cultural understanding is essential if future generations are to be better than those before them.
The issue being discussed here is not children's learning.
It is adults in 2026 who have had every opportunity to learn already and continue choosing racism anyway.
Too often, Aboriginal peoples are expected to remain calm, patient and endlessly educational while watching the same public conversations happen again and again. Meanwhile, the burden rarely falls on broader Australian society to confront the behaviour directly within its own communities, workplaces, friendship circles and online spaces.
Racism survives when people minimise it.
It survives when people laugh along, dismiss concerns, or insist critics are “overreacting.” It survives when organisations issue soft statements about “different perspectives” instead of calling out hateful behaviour for exactly what it is. Australia cannot continue claiming to value reconciliation while simultaneously normalising public hostility toward Aboriginal culture and identity.
Reconciliation was never supposed to mean Aboriginal peoples quietly tolerating racism while everyone else searches for softer language to describe it.
Sometimes racism is exactly what it looks like, and calling it out should not still be controversial in 2026.
It should be the standard.