Just before midnight I was doing the usual pre sleep internet troulling when I came across Beyond Blue’s latest campaign. After very successful campaign in support of the LGBTI community last year that used the metaphor of being left handed, Beyond Blue has come back with another powerful campaign.

The new campaign ‘The Invisible Discrimination’ is one that will stop you in your tracks and seriously make you think. Using a dark, slimy man wearing an awful black turtleneck jumper is used as a metaphor for the voice that second-guesses or judges Aboriginal Torres Straight Islander People. With a survey revealing that 97% of ATSI community have experienced racism. The one-minute thirty-second campaign cuts straight to the chase using ‘real life examples’ of when the ATSI people have experienced invisible and passive racism, allowing the viewer to feel effected and empathise with the character. I believe the most powerful part of this campaign is that the examples shown like people telling racial jokes in a pub, moving away on the train and being watched while buying milk as they are all situations we can imagine still happening today.

Finally the part of this campaign that makes it successful is the behind the scenes cut where you hear from the Indigenous actors about their real life experiences of passive racism. This version gave me chills up my spine hearing about other people’s experience of people moving away from them on the train or as a kid always being watched in shops as people assumed they would shop lift. This edit allows you to see that the people in the online video are not just ‘actors’ they are people who can directly relate to the campaign making it even more real and hard hitting than the first time you watch it.

Post by Ashleigh Maher