Andrew Bolt, a popular newspaper columnist for the Herald Sun, a newspaper released in Melbourne, Australia, is being sued by nine Aboriginal people who are accusing him and his newspaper of racial discrimination.

Aboriginal is a broad name used in Australia to describe the people who were native to Australia before the British arrival and subsequent colonization in 1788.

The cause of the legal preceedings are a series of articles deriding the nine for their stated cultural heritage as Aboriginal. The nine plaintiffs have lighter skin then some images of Aboriginal people, and some have one parent who was not Aboriginal.

The Australian government officially defines an Aborignal person as “a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he or she lives.”

All nine are from Aboriginal descent and have been accepted into their communities as Aboriginal.

The articles and opinion pieces, written by Andrew Bolt, centre on the allegations that the nine plaintiff’s, who were specifically mentioned by name in the pieces, are not actually Aboriginal and are merely claiming to be so in an attempt to gain publicity and political influence.

The blog entries included titles like ‘White is the new black’, with the articles running with ‘It’s so hip to be black’ and ‘White fellas in the black’.

Black fellas and white fellas are Aboriginal slang used to describe people of Aboriginal descent and non-Aboriginals respectively.

The nine are demanding an apology from Mr Bolt and that the articles and blogs are not reproduced.

The trial in Melbourne continues.

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About the author

Maddison Kennedy