Although our original site will still be up for another couple of years, it is disappointing knowing that it will eventually be gone, and with it, thousands of articles that are a record of the years gone by. To save what we can we will be republishing a number of ageless articles a week on our new site, extending their life, hopefully, for many years to come. This piece from March 24, 2015 (and on other sites prior to that) by me is one that I will keep republishing for as long as I can.
There are times in our lives when we witness or hear something that belittles an individual, the act of which repulses us and the memory of it lingers with us over the years. These cruel acts offer an insight into how people who are different to us cope with the attitudes that persist in mainstream society.
Having spent many years working in remote Indigenous communities I have been fortunate to have heard many wonderful stories about our old traditions and culture. I have also been exposed to the horrors of racism we endure and the sickening dogma of white supremacy. Two events stand out. They are ‘horror’ stories, made seemingly more horrific because the racism and white supremacy was energised by the church.
I have related these stories on blog sites over the years and I make no apologies for repeating them again. The timing is appropriate, given that Aborigines have again been placed front and centre in the news and facing a barrage of negativity.
These are stories you don’t hear in the news.
The first involved my brother Jake*: a shy bloke who might well be reading this and I don’t want to cause him any embarrassment.
Jake lives in remote South Australia and has done so all his life. Until a few years ago he’d never ventured beyond the borders of SA apart from the annual trip to Alice Springs to play in the Imparja Cup; a national Indigenous cricket carnival. It was thus with great excitement that he had the opportunity to visit Canberra a few years ago – his first big interstate trip.
We were at a busy bus stop in the city together. I was looking at the direction from which the bus would approach but kept talking to Jake, who stood behind me. After a couple of minutes a bus came into view and I turned to Jake to let him know this was our bus.
He wasn’t there.
A line had formed behind me and there he stood at the very end, having let a dozen or so people move ahead of him.
I beckoned him to come up the front with me.
He refused.
I beckoned again.
Still he refused, and he continued to refuse.
In frustration I walked up to Jake and asked why he wouldn’t come to the front of the line – a spot he had earlier occupied.
I was not prepared for his answer.
“Aren’t I supposed to let the white people on first?” he humbly asked.
It’s very hard to relate how I felt about his response. I can say that I felt like crying. The sadness turned to anger when he told me why he thought he had “to let the white people on first”.
You see, unlike me, Jake was raised on a mission. The Christian Father – apparently God’s representative – taught the Aboriginal kids from an early age that as black people they weren’t as good as white people, though assured them that “God still loved them”.
So our great white God prefers white people. How fickle.
The second incident was told to me by one of my university lecturers, an Aboriginal lady (name withheld). From humble beginnings, said lecturer spent her infant years on a pastoral station in the Kimberley region, where, as was the norm back then, Aboriginal births were recorded in the stock register (along with the sheep and cattle). Dates of births weren’t recorded. Once she was of school age, she was sent to a mission to live.
But I digress.
One year the mission sent a teenage girl to work on a nearby pastoral station for the summer break. Upon her return to the mission she was frightened, distraught, crying. She told one of the nuns that the ‘big boss white fella’ had raped her.
What did the nun do?
She whipped the girl for telling lies. “You mustn’t tell lies about a white person”.
The following year she was sent to the station again, despite her desperate pleas not to go.
Again she returned frightened, distraught, crying. Again, she told the story of being raped.
Again she was whipped for telling lies. Black people, apparently, tell lies about white people.
A couple of months later it was discovered the girl was pregnant. She was carrying the rapist’s child. What did the nun do? She whipped her for being pregnant.
So again our great white God prefers white people.
*Not his real name.
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Michael,
A great story about black women whose maximum education level, according to the white education system, is about that of 8 year old white women.
But surely a white male god who made men, not women, in his own image, can prefer those who are his image?
Thanks Michael,
A straightforward and distressing story. Revealing just what ‘white’ colonialists brought to Oz. To think that these horrors were incidental to the bringing of ‘outcast’ English to these shores is nonsense. At around that same time, amongst other imperialists, the English and Dutch brought such horrors to many lands to ‘deal’ with the ‘natives’. Disguising ‘royal guile’ through brutal murderous organizations such as the East India Company, and the Dutch East India Company. The East India Company was scheduled for Oz, but didn’t arrive because it was too busy subjugating and killing ‘natives’ in Canada and America. So Oz colonists had to suffice with brutal English military and judiciary and corrupted religious missionaries.
The race to colonize had been ongoing since Columbus revealed the Earth was not flat, and there were riches to be gained without falling off the edge. The pursuit was ratified as ‘holy’ and legal in the late 15th century by Pope Alexander VI via the papal bulls, aka The Doctrine of Discovery and The Doctrine of Dominion.
But, not to worry, the English had already had it fixed in its Magna Carta, where the notion of Terra Nullius and jurisprudence Doctrine of Reception which was carried forward from ancient Greek / Roman law, where they wanted the huge lands of the Scythians, so by lies of convenience, they held that the Scythians (despite their language and self-organization) could not possibly own property as they were in a ‘state of Nature’ like ‘mere’ animals roaming and eking out food.
So the colonizing imperialists had it all stitched up – Christian moral high ground. In particular, the English with their precious Magna Carta. No wonder, as a mob, they were stiff, angry, afraid, captured and confined, brutal, haggard and mostly drunk. To say the very least, a cloying and unimaginative demeanor they spread wherever they ventured – a habit that whilst substantially diminished today, has been and continues to be spread like an psycho-epidemic particularly from the halls of grim power.
Regardless of one’s views on matters religious, this year’s National Council of Churches Australia – World Interfaith Harmony Lecture is to be delivered on Wednesday. The website foreword on the speaker:
“Professor Dr Anne Pattel-Gray is a scholar, theologian, activist, prolific writer, and a nationally and internationally renowned Aboriginal leader. The former Head of the School of Indigenous Studies at Melbourne’s University of Divinity, Professor Pattel-Gray earned her Ph.D. in 1995 from the University of Sydney in the Studies of Religion with a focus on Aboriginal Religion and Spirituality and was awarded a Doctor of Divinity from India in 1997. She is a recognised expert in de-colonising biblical narratives and developing Indigenous theology, and brings significant insights into the cultural knowledge and religious life of Aboriginal people, and the impact of colonisation and missionisation on First Nations peoples of Australia. Professor Pattel-Gray has a long history of advocating for the rights of Indigenous peoples.”
Last night I listened to a taste of her deliveries on ABC RN Sunday Extra, Acknowledging respect and inclusion of Indigenous Nations spirituality.
Amongst other things, these words of hers were notable to me, ” …sick and tired of the schoolyard politics of our national leaders. Like petty little children – pick, pick, pick. Where’s the maturity? Where’s the integrity? Surely we can run a political campaign without denigration.”
Funny thing, wam, is that particular Aboriginal lecturer went on the get a PhD at one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Even more prestigious is that she follows our football team.
Thank you, Clakka. Great comment. It sounds like you and I share similar interests.
The tragedy of colonialism is that the colonised are seen as far less than the colonisers (in Australia we did not recognise Aboriginal people as people until 1967!)…. and the colonisers have used their religion as validation for their superiority. God’s people, whether Catholic or Anglican or Protestant, it didn’t make any difference, God’s people, hence the land was given to them by that God…. and aboriginal people were to be enslaved, whether as workers or as gratifiers of sexual urges. The history of colonisation is an unfinished story
We continue to see that in Israel and the West Bank
Thank you Michael and well done.
It is hard to beat Clakka’s opening statement:
“A straightforward and distressing story. Revealing just what ‘white’ colonialists brought to Oz.”
His Majesty’s Loyal Australian Opposition seems intent on re-writing history if the remarks of Opposition 2IC Sussan Ley delivered on Jan 26 are any indication.
See this report:
[ https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/sussan-ley-compares-first-fleet-landing-to-elon-musks-mars-mission/upnyhhhu7 ]
A sample portion:
“Deputy Opposition leader Sussan Ley has used an Australia Day speech to compare the arrival of the First Fleet to Elon Musk’s SpaceX Mars mission, calling British settlement a “daring experiment”, while criticising Invasion Day rallies across the country…(mobs undermining unity)..
..Ley began her speech at an Albury church on Sunday saying the ships did not arrive to “destroy or pillage”, but to embark on a “new experiment”..
..”All those years ago, those ships did not arrive, as some would have you believe, as invaders,” Ley said, referring to the First Fleet’s arrival at Sydney Cove in 1788.”
A short time later Ms. Ley delivered these profound observations:
“She also described “how improbable and how incredible the Australian experiment has been”..
..”Like so many other colonial stories, it could have ended in disaster and collapse…
..”The imperial impulse to extract wealth and rule through naked violence could have been the norm. But that would not be our fate as a nation,” Ley said.”
It’s hard to know what planet Ms. Ley resides upon; consequently I suspect she’s just visiting.
BTW, a really good rebuttal of Ms. Ley’s nonsense can be found here:
[ https://johnmenadue.com/coalition-mindlessness-and-the-colonising-of-australia/