Opposition Leader Michael Gunner tells a great story about his childhood growing up in the Territory.
When he was in about Year 10 at St John's College, his mate Eddie dropped around to his home.
His mother later asked him the question: "What's Eddie?" Her son looked back at his mum with a puzzled look and asked: "What do you mean?" What she meant, of course, was what nationality was his part-Chinese, part-Aboriginal friend. But her son, having spent his entire childhood surrounded by kids from a myriad of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, was colourblind to any difference.
It's this sort of life experience that makes true Territorians some of the most racially tolerant people in this country. And it's why so many of us are shocked by two events this week that go against everything real Territorians stand for. 
The first was the disgraceful vandalism of the Darwin Lord   Mayor's home. Death threats and racist slurs were spray painted on Katrina Fong Lim's front fence, including the words "death", "die" and "gook".
The second was the unprovoked bashing of a group of indigenous people in Bicentennial Park at the hands of three white thugs, one of them brandishing a baseball bat.
These two events reinforced the misguided stereotype many southerners have about people who live in the Top End; a myth that says we're a bunch of racist rednecks who would happily bring back public lynchings if Canberra didn't keep an eye on us.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Our lived experience means we know that no amount of motherhood statements muttered over deconstructed chai lattes in Fitzroy cafes will ever make any real inroads to indigenous disadvantage, but that doesn't mean we care about the issue any less.
We just realise solving our nation's greatest challenge requires more than a feel-good, three-word slogan. Nor does it mean we are the kind of people who take joy from seeing anyone attacked because of their race. How we respond to these latest issues will say much about the kind of people we are. And on that point, we should congratulate our Lord   Mayor for the way she handled the vile attack on her home.
The great irony about the racist attack against Katrina Fong Lim is that there are few non-indigenous families in our city who have been here longer than hers.
The fifth generation Territorian, like her prominent sisters, speaks with a true Territorian drawl and a quick wit that could cut down the smarmiest blow-in in an instant. Rather than play the victim, as others in similar positions have been happy to do, the Lord   Mayor stuck up for the people of her great city, a city she rightly describes as a multicultural utopia.
"I don't think those people (behind the racist attacks) were either born or brought up in this community, because you don't live in a community like we have here, that we are so proud of, that's so multicultural ... you don't get brought up in a place like this and undertake acts like we are experiencing," she said on Thursday.
I was reminded of those words as I dropped my son off at school the next day. A school shared by students from many cultures, religions and walks of life. One I'm confident will help teach him the same colour-blindness experienced by others raised in Australia's most cosmopolitan city.As for the perpetrators of the vile attacks this week, the sooner they piss off back down south, the better.