SOCIAL media was humming with plans for protests on Australia Day. Or should that be Invasion Day? The Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, the Blackfulla Revolution and other groups put up posters on Facebook advertising their rallies.
How should mainstream Australia respond to this? Ignore it? Condemn it? Demand that we all support Team Australia?
For some years now I have flown the red, black and yellow Aboriginal flag on my car on   January 26. Not because I am Aboriginal. I'm not. But I want to send a message that there are two sides to this story. 
Aboriginal Australians were here first. They watched the ships arrive in Botany Bay. Many died of smallpox all around Sydney Harbour soon after the British settled in. There was a Frontier War that went on for more than 100 years. "Wild Blacks" attacked settlers and Native Police "dispersed" Aboriginal families who lived on "Crown" land. There was violence and there was bloodshed. The First Nations peoples lost their land to the settlers.
But this is not just a story of the distant past. Aboriginal people today will tell you of grandmothers who were raped by whitefellas and then had their babies taken away; of grandfathers punished for speaking their own language; of uncles not allowed to ride on the school bus because their skin was too dark; of mothers refused a rental inspection until their white partners appeared; and of sons still called "black bastards" in school playgrounds.
Racial prejudice is still operating in Australia and the naked racism of the past is clearly and painfully remembered by the people who suffered under it.
Some Australians tend to get angry and defensive if reminded of the violence and racism that characterised 1788 to 1975 - the first 187 years of white settlement in the Great Red Land. "We didn't kill anybody," they say. "And we are not racists." That may be true, but what has been done to make reparation for the wrongs that were done? Money won't do it. Extra dollars for Aboriginal students or Aboriginal health programs have not prevented a huge surge in the number of First Nations people being sent to juvenile detention and prison over the past 30 years.
Our ever-rising Aboriginal incarceration and suicide rates tell us that we have a serious problem to address in Australia in the here and now.
What is needed to turn this situation around is respect.
If mainstream Australia showed respect for the First Nations peoples, cultures and languages, then protests and rallies would be unnecessary.
Tourists would not be permitted to climb Uluru. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the far north who do not speak English as a home language would attend bilingual schools and more of them would complete Year 12.
The Union Jack, symbol of the jingoistic British Empire, would be removed from the Australian flag. Negotiations would begin on a treaty between the settlers and the First Nations peoples, who are most definitely still here. There will be one million First Nations Australians within the next few years.
The Polynesian people of the South Pacific believe they are tuakana (elder brothers) to the Maori of New Zealand, the source of their wisdom and cultural resilience. If non-indigenous Australians could see the First Nations peoples as elder brothers and sisters, possessing an ancient wisdom regarding the environment and spirituality of the Great South Land, they could learn from their cultures and their traditional knowledge.
In the past Aboriginal people saved the lives of white explorers who could not find waterholes or edible plants. But the white settlers were not open to learning the languages and social conventions of Aboriginal groups, which could have created co-operation and maintained peace and harmony.
Perhaps it is time to acknowledge the truth of what Captain James Cook wrote in his log, that in many ways the First Australians are wiser than we are. We could learn from them as Elders.
And as the first sign of respect, we could celebrate Australia Day on another date.
Dr Meg Perkins is a registered psychologist, researcher and writer.mperkinsnsw@gmail.com