Mitch Tambo Indigenous Australian : Singer(Comments are from ABC’s Q & A program 27th June 2021)
(Tambo’s website notes: “Renowned for his didgeridoo playing, actor, presenter and performer Mitch Tambo is one of Australia’s most talented entertainers. A proud Gamilaraay man, Mitch lights up any arena with a passion and deep commitment to his First Nations culture and the people he represents.”
Mitch Tambo states: (discourse features; semantic fields; lexemes; syntactic patterns: “There’s nothing more royal or sacred on this planet than our women. We are from the oldest living continual culture on the planet and we are so overrepresented in this hell of domestic violence. … It’s, like, a brother’s sister’s friend’s brother’s aunty’s uncle passed away and you heard about it and you go, “You know what? Are you OK? I’m really sorry that happened. I’m going to empathise with you. I’m going to open up my heart and give you a hug because I’m sorry. Let’s talk about it.” You know, our people are dying in jails, overrepresented in incarceration. We make up 3%. There was a statistic the other
Social /cultural identity: lexical references to unique history: Stolen Generations, transgenerational trauma stuff ; We are from the oldest living continual culture on the planet and we are so overrepresented in this hell of domestic violence; You know, our people are dying in jails, overrepresented in incarceration.; And there will be people here tonight that will comment and they’ll go, “You’re not really a blackfella. Look at you, look at your skin. What are you, 1% in your finger?” It’s not about that. It’s about our spirit, it’s about what’s inside of our heart, our heart and our spirit. There’s so many mob like me that are this colour, because of our past, the Stolen Generations, and because of the obvious – our parents get together and they marry from different nationalities ‘cause of this beautiful culture that we’ve got here. But what you can’t take away is our spirit, the resilience of our ancestors, they’re here.
day that, you know, 41% in out-of-home care…
(Formal language that promotes social harmony: And it’s not to point fingers, and I don’t come from that position, because I want to bring us all together so we can heal. I’m crying out for healing for my people, because we hear this term all the time, “You’re resilient, you’re resilient,” but that doesn’t mean we want to be resilient, we want to be free. We want to be trauma-free. This transgenerational trauma stuff, it is scientifically proven that it can be passed on through the DNA, it is real. So, to answer your question, I just hope, I hope with all of my heart, that we are coming to a position in this nation where we can stop turning our head away, open our hearts and just grow a little bit of capacity for our story.”
National spirit/Basketball/social groups
(Identity and semantic fields of sporting excellence)
In his victory speech, Patty Mills alluded to the Australian national spirit that is a part of the basketballers’ success story. (Mills scored 42 points against Slovenia in the bronze medal playoff to help clinch victory._
“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. And it’s taken a lot of experiences, a lot of ups, a lot of downs, for us to get over the hump. And it’s our culture, at the end of the day, Australian culture, our Aussie spirit. It’s the boys being able to hang together and understand the meaning of what it means to represent your country, and how deep the layers go. For it to just come pouring out in moments like this.
“Now that we’ve made it over the hill,” he added, “this is the standard now of Australian basketball and we take nothing less. We say gold vibes only is the standard and we don’t accept anything less, on the court, off the court, all of our preparation, and it pays off in the long run. I don’t know whether to cry, laugh, smile, a lot of emotions.”