Forgotten, unknown and mistreated in our your own land

The perspective of an Aboriginal such as me, would like to ask you if you would like to suffer loss, pain and grief? 

 Well our ancestors did and this will sooner or later happen to us.  

Forgotten, unknown and mistreated in our home land. For the past 35 years moving from place to place Dungog, Anembo, Millmerran. Seeing the past continuing to unfold in front of me. As a proud member of the Baiali tribe, all I’ve seen is our people continue to get manipulated on the idea that we are on equal footing as the others. But this is not true, it’s all just a facade. 

To this day inequality has been demonstrated in our society throughout the 231 years of slavery and neglect of the Aboriginals is still prominent, and society needs to be aware of the ongoing injustices between indigenous people and the rest of society. More needs to be done to diminish the inequality in Australia, as Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders are still feeling the effects of the stolen generation. 

Education and employment gap: 

One of the main things that hurt most is the gap in education. Stereotypes since the beginning of their civilisation on the fact that my people are useless, dumb or incapable of knowledge are in fact being exemplified within our society to this day, and we are not to blame. While those who have left our traditional lifestyle and chosen the typical one of living in houses and getting 9-5 jobs have the opportunity of sending their children to schools. There is still us as part of the majority who prefer to live the life of our ancestors who are in hindrance of receiving the same level of education. 

Personally, I decided to live the traditional way and as a result of this my children are raised in this environment. My oldest Marlee wanted to become a teacher, it was something she aspired most, but this slowly changed over time with the type of role model she was expected to learn from at school. As statically proven teachers in rural areas are often appointed as opposed to willingly wanting to teach, meaning lack of interest disengagement and most of all low levels of effort. With no resources we are not expected to succeed and being successful becomes impossible and unreachable. 

This is not the only case. While some of us receive low levels of education, others are enforced into learning the way of the whites or religious things which we are told to conform  to, this is further proven in the play ‘no sugar’. The short story covers all the inequalities in our society and the point about religious teachings being forced as opposed to optional, this is evident in the scene where the millimurra family who are the central characters of the play  are now living in Moore river, where the youngest Cissie and David are being forced into learning a specific song for church alike the ways or the whites. I was disgusted yet not surprised too. 

Housing disadvantage:

Not many of you are aware of this but ⅗ indigenous Australians live in remote areas. 45.4% of the Aboriginal and torres strait islanders are either unemployed or unable to potentially ever own their own house. Can you believe that as the original owners of this nation they may never have the ability to ever call a house their home. Eddie Mabo who was an indigenous man that dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of his people. 

In his fight for equality, there was a doctrine that was called ‘native title’. The high court ruled that Aboriginal people have rights over the land and that these rights existed before the colonisation, yet this is not practiced as to this day 200 years later we still hold the lowest stats for employment and education as well. 

Recently i read the play ‘No Sugar “ by Jack Davis. I choose to mention this as there is a scene which is a direct example of the housing disadvantages faced by once again the Millimurra family. Due to political ventures,officials like Neville Sargent and Ms Dunn misled the members of Norham into leaving claiming that it was due to scabies. Also those who refused to leave would be under arrest. 

It just shook me how even now despite the common phrase’ closing the gap’ it angers me that nothing notable has been done between the 1930s until now to combat these issues and to diminish the alarming rates of youth imprisonment.

Heath gap: 

In the feature article, ‘The size and causes of the indigenous health gap’ the writer states and I quote ‘Indigenous Australians generally experience worse health than non-Indigenous Australians. This completely supports the fact and point im aiming to get out here, the gap is so large and present factors continue to enlarge it to this day. 

Essentially for females, Indigenous life expectancy at birth in 2010–2012 was 73.7 years, compared with 83.1 years for non-Indigenous females, a gap of 9.5 years. Furthermore The difference was slightly greater for males, with Indigenous life expectancy estimated to be 69.1 years compared with 79.7 years for non-Indigenous males, a gap of 10.6 years. These differences in health start at birth and continue throughout life. 

Moreover it is said to be that indigeous males have a greater chance of obtaining any cardiac related issues. Personally and im sure many of you share similar opinions, I reckon that with the constant advancements in technology so focused on materialistic needs, the health gap is left behind and neglected leaving the aborignal people or men in particular at risk of a low rate of mortality. 

This frightening statistic is also evident like the others in the play ‘No Sugar’. I believe that the author intended to portray protagonist Jimmy munday as the representation of the cardiac issues faced by indigenous males. By the end of the play, jimmy in fact passes away as a result of having a heart attack further proving the severity of the health gap. Overall us the indigenous community have been failed time and time again 

So to those arrogant and clueless people who continue to adhere to certain stereotypes surrounding the lack of knowledge aboriginals have, or that their prone to violence and unemployment. What about us, what about my people what about the way we feel, how about the promises made to us.

Shame on you all, it’s time for change and without it, we continue to be stuck in the past.