Indigenous fathers and their families have responded to an “offensive and racist” cartoon by Bill Leak published in The Australian newspaper on Thursday, using social media to share photos and memories of their family life.
Mr Leak’s cartoon, published last week, portrayed an Aboriginal man holding a beer can and not remembering his son’s name, while an Indigenous police officer holds his son by his collar.
The cartoon, painful as it was, turned into an affirmative moment on social media. Indigenous Australians have posted their own photos to Twitter of real and positive experiences of fatherhood using the hashtag #IndigenousDads.
The newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Paul Whittaker, defended its decision to publish the cartoon and praised Mr Leak for bringing confronting issues to light.
“Too often, too many people skirt around the root causes and tough issues,” Mr Whittaker said in a statement.
Mr Leak himself called his critics “sanctimonious Tweety Birds having a tantrum”.
Users challenged the stereotype shown in Mr Leak’s cartoon with photos and memories of love and dedication, and pride in Aboriginal culture.
Here are some of the tweets:
Loving, supportive and wise. From the barrage of tweets, it’s clear the message #IndigenousDads wants to convey – Indigenous fathers are all those things, and more.