The Stolen Generation by David Keig Good morning fellow students. What I wish to share with you today may seem shocking, frightening to imagine happening to you; and yet, it is part of Australia’s history. Picture you as a small child. Someone you don’t know, who doesn’t respect your family or your culture, forcibly removes you from your crying and screaming mother, promising that you will never return. The Stolen Generation.
It may have been that many Australians were and still are chauvinistic, fearing those who are different. In Uyen Loewald’s sarcastic poem ‘Be Good Little Migrants’ she portrays her attitude at the discrimination of Australia’s harsh treatment to those ‘below’ them. In “growing up Asian in Australia” by Alice Pung we are met by a various collection of short migrant stories in Australia talking about their Australian Migrant experience. Scathing in its criticism of Australian attitudes to migrants “Be Good Little Migrants” is spoken from the patronising point of view of the Australian Superiority to refugees. The use of collective pronouns puts the poem in first
During ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ the Europeans held power of the sovereignty of the young ‘half cast’ children. Examples of these were portrayed when one girl runs away, is found and brought back by the tracker. She is then beaten and her hair is shaved off. Another example is when the girls are taken away from their mother, this scene portrays a strong sense of loss of sovereignty and the validity of the power over their sovereignty held by the Europeans. Mr Neville and some of the others working for the
Is Australia a racist country? Many believe that Australia is a racist country, but what is the true definition of ‘racism’? Dictionaries have a common definition which is “the belief that people of different races have different qualities and abilities, and that some races are inherently superior or inferior”. Racism is a sensitive subject, where language plays an important role and even though some people in Australia are racist that doesn’t mean that the whole country should be labelled as racist. Different aspects can explain why we are not racist, for example our past shouldn’t affect our future, we do have different policies for immigrants and refugees and lastly Australia does respect and support Aboriginal and foreign people.
The best known and probably most horrible of these non-indigenous atrocities is of course the Stolen Generations, the transgression for which the government gave the parliamentary apology. The displacement of at least 10% of aboriginal and half-caste children between the years of 1869 and 1969 (although there is ample historical evidence, including recollections of this author’s mother and aunt who had ‘stolen’ children in their class at primary school, indicating that the displacement continued into the 1970’s) remains a central reason for the mistrust between the indigenous and non-indigenous people, as the events of the Stolen Generations are seen as a demonstration of no confidence in indigenous social order and even an attempt to accelerate what was thought to be the inevitable ‘dying-out’ of the aboriginal race (Perry
Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld also witnessed the abduction of two young Aboriginal girls. Two little girls, while waiting to board a train, were taken away by the colonists for the colonist’s own personal gain. Reverend Lancelot, who observed the colonists at the station, recounts what he saw; “They [the British colonists] reserved two small girls about seven years old for lascivious purposes”(Welsh 180). The girls were both forcibly taken from their families who were given no reason for the abduction. Abducted girls usually became spouses.
His idea of slavery had changed very much by the time he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Unfortunately, not everyone saw slavery from the same moral standpoint. Only a month after being published, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was banned by a library in Massachusetts, and many more did the same. Some white people who were not abolitionists immediately tagged it as trash and an attack on their beliefs, even though slavery had been abolished for a while by then. Blacks often thought of it as racist, even though it was generally accepted as an attack against racism.
He criticised the ruling arguing that it would do nothing to change the hearts and minds of southern white racists. He believed that it was counterproductive. It had just infuriated white citizens and whipped up tremendous opposition to Civil Rights. He claimed that his decision to make ‘Earl Warren’ Chief Justice was ‘the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made’ Civil Rights Organisations: They began the fight for
An event that has issues in the past and in the novel is linked to the Ku Klux Klan (KKKs). This extreme racist group would go out and kill people based on nothing but their skin colour. Though to white people they were known as good people and followers of Christ. Racist graffiti painted on the gate of a Canberra Aboriginal youth organisation. Racist graffiti painted on the gate of a Canberra Aboriginal youth organisation.
The Holocaust: Dehumanization of Innocence LaLa229 July 4, 2011 The Holocaust represents one moment in the history of the world where dehumanization is displayed. The Holocaust should have never occurred due to bigotry and hatred of Jews and other “inferior” groups and races of people, who were looked down upon by the Nazis. The Nazis deemed themselves “superior” and were cruel and heartless. The Jews, Poles, Soviet P.O.W.S., homosexual, Gypsies, disabled, mentally ill people (some German), and others were an alien threat to the so-called German community. All races and groups hated by the Nazis endured pure torture, while the Nazis were in the effect of exterminating the people.