May has seen great changes
AS STEVEN May leads the Suns on to Traeger Park in Alice Springs today, the AFL’s only current indigenous skipper feels there has been giant strides towards cultural awareness in his lifetime.
May will wear No.67 today and co-captain Tom Lynch 50 to celebrate the anniversary of the landmark 1967 referendum that altered the constitution to change the rights of indigenous Australians.
It was in May’s first year at Melbourne Grammar School in 2008 when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made his historic apology to the stolen generation.
While May, whose grandmother was among the stolen, was bursting with joy, he could see the ripple of unease that spread through the conservative ranks of the student body during an assembly.
“I was very angry. I didn’t want to stay at the school. I wanted to leave. I was thinking ‘I can’t be with these kids’,” he said.
“I was probably ignorant, but they were as well.”
While May relates to his mother’s tribe, the Gunbalanya people, and carries the Kinga, a saltwater crocodile from east Arnhem Land, as his totem, his father – with whom he has no contact – is an indigenous man from Western Australia.
“I want to inspire younger generations not to have limits on themselves,’’ he said.
“The stereotype of indigenous boys is exciting, shy and quiet, and that is a fair assumption because a lot of boys are like that.
“But a lot of them aren’t also, and maybe it is about allowing them to be comfortable to be themselves because of the culture change and I think they come down to AFL clubs, away from their families, and go into their shells.’’