Aboriginal Stereotypes And Stereotypes

One of the biggest myths is that if you have fair skin, or blue or green eyes, or light hair, you can’t be an Aboriginal or Torres Strait

Stereotypes come about from ignorance, stupidity, and insensitivity. Two characters, Joe and Red are so unbelievably racist that they hallucinate a “Big Indian” and try to get rid of him. Therefore, they prove themselves to be racist by believing preconceptions without any other information about the group of minority. Stereotypes are always going to be around, especially if two people like Joe and Red think they can get away with their behaviour. People will be continuing to take a step backwards if the false information about a culture is going to affect their judgement. In the short story, “A Seat In The Garden,” Thomas King attests to the fact that Joe and Red are held hostage by their own prejudices and stereotypes of Indigenous people.

Identity is often constructed based on affiliations with particular groups. When one identifies with a group, one mimics the perceived qualities of that group (Swann, Jetten, Gomez, Whitehouse & Bastian, 2012). For Indigenous Australians, they may conform to the above negative stereotypes partly because of how they are represented in the dominant culture. Forrest notes that dominant cultural perspectives bombard Indigenous Australians (Forrest, n.d.). Therefore, prevailing negative stereotypes and conformity with those stereotypes can be attributed to the dominant culture.

To begin with, a clarification must be made. Although for the purposes of this assessment I will be using the term Indigenous Australians, it is not the most appropriate term to be using, as the technical definition of indigenous is ‘originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native’ (‘Indigenous’, 1987). The more correct term would be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

Native Americans as a whole have been typecast as drunks ever since the coming of the white man’s “fire water.” TS Naimi, MD et al. reports that alcohol is responsible for 11.7% of all American Indian and Alaska Native deaths, compared to 3.3% for the U.S. general population (939). This disturbing discrepancy reinforces the age old notion of the “drunk Indian.” Generalizations aside, is there some truth to this stereotype? Are Indians more likely than other races to be drunks? Of all the races, “Native Americans have the highest prevalence (12.1%) of heavy drinking…A larger percentage of Native Americans (29.6%) also are binge drinkers” (Chartier and Caetano 153). Although some research has been done on genetic causes, little is

Common stereotypes and generalizations have been present throughout history. Native Americans have always been seen as the outsider, even though they had the land now called North America, way before any settlers did. A popular stereotype in the late 18th and into

These stereotypical binaries of the childlike and savage Indian are directly linked to the narratives of white settler society and colonization. Essentially, by classifying all First Nation cultures under a monolith of a few stereotypes the white setter society claimed dominance over the First Nation peoples as they created the lens through which the First Nation’s history and identity would be read. The influence of the press and government policies lead to the acceptance of these stereotypes as defining truths about First Nations people which aided the settler societies in solving the Indian problem by destroying what it meant to be Indian. In this way, the stereotypes not only developed the idea of assimilation to save the Indian, but they

This make them to be most disadvantage in our society. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have experienced social, cultural, economic, legal and political discrimination. They had experience dislocation and dispossession from their traditional land and culture. Some of them had loss of traditional languages. They are being separate from children and families. They were forbidden to speak in their own language or to practice their culture. There were laws that limiting their rights. Many had died through the disease that was brought by the European colonial. They have suffer physically, mentally and socially abuse as a result of these historical issues (Wikipedia

Associated with wearing skins, living in teepees, and riding horses Native Americans are viewed as ‘country’ and lack of knowledge. Shown as dumb and have a lack of formal education, most of them live in poverty invested areas. Because of this, they feel that “one representation is better than no representation.” When a group feels underrepresented their psychological relevance and has a toil on the overall ethnic group and can make a difference in lives. Inaccurate and negative representations of Native Americans can be detrimental to the overall perception to the race in general.

So they have to work up to thirty two hours of work a week without pay and can not own land that is rightfully there's. Knightly's techniques to convey his message about Aboriginal is inclusion( he includes us in his work to give us a story we can relate to) and irony (the Aboriginals were the caretakers of Australia but they are the least accepted out of all the races in Australia.)

There is little said about aboriginal people in early Australian history books. What we do know is that the view of Non-Aboriginal people was very ethnocentric. The opinion was that Aboriginal was that they were savages and

The representation of Indigenous Australians in fiction and nonfiction texts are influenced by a range of factors. In the contemporary world of multicultural Australia, there has been a variety of ways groups of people are represented in texts. The Indigenous population is often portrayed in ways that strengthen harmful stereotypes. However, there are also a variety of positive outlooks and portrayals expressing their strength and achievements. In texts studied in year 8 English, the representation of Indigenous Australians in Crow country are characterized as outcasts and reflect cultural distinction. Newspaper articles regarding “Adam Goodes” demonstrates how preconceived thoughts from many Australians destroys sporting stars outlook upon

When the European arrived in Australia, it was not what they expected they discovered a culture that was completely different to themselves. Anthropologist have discovered that the social structure of the Aboriginal culture was very unique to what it was expected to be (Williams and Jolly 1992:9). The European were surprised by the role that women play in Aboriginal culture sometime seeing the women being treated unfairly and sometime being able to control their own fate (Williams and Jolly 1992:9). It evident that Aboriginal women hold a unique position in their society, therefore they have a balance of power operating between the male and female. Women and male have different roles in Aboriginal society depending on the dreaming. Aboriginal

Closing the gap refers to a formal commitment by the Australian government to address Indigenous disadvantage. In comparison to Non-Indigenous Australians; Indigenous Australians face significant differences like poorer health, lower levels of education and employment. The goal of this paper is to describe and explain the psychological impact of prejudice and discrimination towards Indigenous Australians, to describe and explain the role of self-fulfilling prophecy in the perpetuation of negative and/or discriminatory attitudes towards Indigenous Australians and to examine why discrimination occurs using Social Identity Theory.

The media has always played a pivotal role in providing information regarding anything that’s happening around in the world. However, the Australian media seems to have lacked at various aspects when it comes to matters regarding the representation of the Indigenous Australia. The Australian media has always managed to focus on the amazing wilderness that surrounds Indigenous Australia but rarely has there been any detailed curiosity relating to their culture and history. Aboriginal History is being completely overshadowed by ‘the mainstream Australia’ and its landscape. Not only their history but their voices are not heard through media very often as well. Along with that, racial stereotype is another big problem resulting in poor media representation of Aborigines. With the population as low as 1%, many Australians may go through their entire life without knowing anything about Aboriginal Australians, let alone meeting one. So, their knowledge about Aboriginals completely depends upon the media representation. They still only get their information about the Indigenous Australia through the media. Therefore, it would be seemed best that the media show an honest picture of what is life for an Aboriginal Australian.