Deadly Questions is a Victorian government initiative that encourages the public to ask questions about being Aboriginal in Australia.
The website offers a way for people to submit questions, including those some might find offensive, and the video or text responses are posted alongside.
Rapper and Yorta Yorta man Adam Briggs, Hawthorn player Jarman Impey, Richmond Tigers AFLW player Natarsha Bamblett, and senior Wurundjeri elder Aunty Joy Murphy are some of those involved in the initiative.
Some of the questions featured so far include: 'Why should I be sorry for something I didn't do?', 'Are you less Aboriginal if you are fair-skinned', and 'Do Aboriginal people use Instagram?'.
But in keeping with the successful ABC iView series 'You Can't Ask That', which the campaign appears to be similarly modelled on, the questions provide an opportunity for those answering to reframe the conversation.
"It's not about feeling sorry," Briggs says in the video.
"I don't need every whitefella with dreadlocks to come up and tell me he's sorry. I need true acknowledgement. And that comes from the top down. From the government."
One of the questions musician and playwright Richard Frankland answered is: 'Why can't Aboriginal people get over the past?'
"I'm open to anything and I'm open to people using these questions to step across the cultural abuse,"he told AAP.
"These questions actually humanise what's been dehumanised."
The project wants to start a conversation, rather than let assumptions fester in a vacuum, ahead of a push in state parliament towards historic Treaty legislation.
On the site, Murial Bamblett, who is Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung, has answered the question 'What does a Treaty mean to you?'.
"I want to be able to walk down the street and be the proudest person because my culture is recognised, that my status at as the First Peoples is recognised and that I’m accepted for the first time, as the First People," she said.
According to the 2016 Australian Reconciliation Barometer, many Victorians feel they don't know much about the state's Aboriginal heritage.
They also don't feel comfortable asking questions for fear of offending or appearing ignorant.
With AAP
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