Waleed Aly won Australian television’s top gong on Sunday night, and gave a typically measured yet powerful rebuke to intolerence.
In his accepting of the 2016 Gold Logie, Aly first joked about the (pathetic) controversy surrounding his inclusion and that of SBS’s Lee Lin Chin amongst the nominees for the prize, suggesting that their ethnicity was the key to their nomination rather than their talents.
“Do not adjust your sets,” the Channel 10 presenter, writer and academic said, cheered on by the gathered celebrities and other members of the Aussie television industry.
“There’s nothing wrong with the picture.
“If you are in the room, I’m sure there’s an Instagram filter you can use to return things to normal, you’ll be fine.
“This is happening.”
Aly’s most poigniant moment came, though, when he describe how a member and the audience had come up to him just that night and wished him well; that his name was Mustafa yet he had to use a different name because otherwise he wouldn’t get work in an industry more usually associated with tolerance and progressiveness.
Watch an edited version of Waleed Aly’s fantastic Logies speech (above) or the full unedited version (below):
