Burned Stick Quotes

Respect for Aboriginal culture and traditions which is part of the Aboriginal reconciliation and integration movement in Australia is highlighted many times throughout Crow Country and illustrates the best and worst of Australians. The way different characters show respect towards aboriginal culture and feelings contrasts two different attitudes. Today, opinions about aboriginal life and culture are shared through politics, social media and protests. Kate Constable’s book portrays extreme behaviour with racism and provides the reader with a perspective on just how cruel people can be. We have a very superficial understanding about aboriginal culture and this novel encourages readers to explore aboriginal culture and beliefs.

The piece is classified as Aboriginal Australian literature. It was published in the 1960’s. The purpose of the text is to give hope in a new beginning after the events involving the racial tension between the Aboriginals and the white settlers. The poem is directed to the Aboriginal people of Australia who suffered from these events

The Novel Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey revolves around a young boy named Charlie Bucktin living in the small Australian town of Corrigan in the 1960’s. Charlie is exposed to the confronting issues of racial prejudice, injustice and moral duality. He is challenged to question right from wrong, has to come to the realization that law doesn’t always uphold justice and we as readers are positioned to understand that people are capable of holding two conflicting values and remain in confortable harmony. The ideas are portrayed through Silvey’s use of narrative conventions that are used to either challenge or reinforce our values, attitudes and beliefs on the issues explored.

Charlie articulates how he “never understood why you would ever feel the need to shoot the fish in the barrel… (if) they’re in a barrel, you’ve already caught them… they can’t escape... why bring guns into it?” Silvey’s use of characterisation and first person point of view portrays Charlie’s realisation of the community’s racial prejudice towards ‘the other’. The “fish” is symbolic of Charlie and how he is different to the people of Corrigan; who are like vultures – constantly seeking the chance to attack those that are considered the ‘minority’. Charlie’s close friend, Jeffrey Lu, is a gifted and committed cricket player who persistently tries to get himself in the local team, however, due to his Vietnamese background, “he’s ruthlessly bullied and belted about by the boys at school.” The emotive imagery and alliteration of “bullied” and “belted” further depict Charlie’s internal conflict in addition to his realisation of the community’s racial prejudice towards the peripheral of society. The use of emotive imagery positions readers to realise the extent to which powerful words can have; causing readers to recognise how crude and harrowing humankind can be towards the marginalised. Thus, Silvey effectively conveys to the reader how the indigenous race were isolated from ‘white Australian’ society; how intelligent individuals were ostracised; and, how groups of people with racially different backgrounds were isolated from mainstream Australian society.

The play the dreamers is about the impact on modern Aboriginals since the settlement of the “white” community it focuses on the

Gilbert’s poem portrays many Aboriginals plight’s within Australia and conveys notions of despair, anguish and anger for his fellow Aboriginal comrades. Again, Gilbert uses strong visual imagery in “the anguished death you spread” which helps convey the persona’s feeling of horror and anger at the Europeans. This is further emphasised through the poet’s vehement and repetitive use of second person pronouns in “you” which conveys a sense of blame and accumulates into an accusatory tone and generates a strong sense of detachment between the author and the European settlers. Furthermore enjambment enhances the accusatory tone in “you pollute all the rivers and litter every road” because the lack of punctuation and pauses makes the lines sharp and quick, creating a sense of anger in the author. In addition the author’s use of metaphors in “humanity locked in chains” creates a sense of struggle and inability to escape the oppression the Aboriginals are in, whereby the word “chain” is symbolic for trapped and lack of freedom. Kevin Gilbert’s emotional poem brings light to the pain and suffering Aboriginals are going through, which is a stark contrast to the image of Australia, being a free and accepting

The notion of the contemporary indigenous identity and the impact of these notions are both explored in texts that have been studied. Ivan Sen’s 2002 film ‘Beneath Clouds’ focuses on the stereotypical behaviours of Indigenous Australians highlighting Lina and Vaughn’s journey. This also signifies the status and place of the Australian identity today. Through the use of visual techniques and stereotypes the ideas that the Indigenous are uneducated, involved in crime and the stereotypical portrayal of white people are all explored. Similarly the notion of urban and rural life is represented in Kennith Slessor’s ‘William Street’ and ‘Country Towns’.

The Stolen Generation refers to the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families and assimilated into European communities between 1880 and 1970. These children were made to adopt white culture in attempt to allow aboriginal people to “die out”, through forced rejection of their heritage and banning the use of their own language. Children faced physical, psychological and sexual abuse, sexual and labour exploitation, racism, grief, and suffering. Between 1 in 10 and 3 in 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were taken by government, church, or welfare authorities and placed into institutional or foster care with non-Indigenous families.

Violence against Aboriginal women is rarely understood as a human rights issue. Aboriginal women are often known to be the main victims of racialized, sexualized violence. To the extent issue, violence against women are more frequent, to be described as a criminal concern or a social issue, but it is a human rights issue to be discussed furthermore. Aboriginal women and girls have the right to be safe and free from violence. Woman are being targeted for violence because of their gender or because of their Aboriginal identity. In this essay, I will be discussing the discrimination between these two following readings, “Orientalism” and “Stolen Sisters, Second Class Citizen”.

When European colonists settled in Australia they treated the Aboriginal people extremely different to that of their fellow white men. The Aboriginals were not seen as first class citizens through the European eye and as a result were victims of extreme oppressions and had nearly no rights or freedoms. Since then Aboriginal people have fought to be treated equally to the white men through various different ways. I will discuss the previous struggles faced by the Aboriginals, the Australian strife for equality and finally the level of success and degree of rights and freedoms given to Aboriginals in modern Australia.

This image was chosen because it captures the beginning of significant changes that altered the history of the Aboriginals people of Australia forever. Sociologists and historians including Michel Foucault acknowledge history as being an important factor to consider when studying social behaviours because ‘historical analysis aids the task of explaining the present conditions in society (Holmes, Hughes & Julian 2015 p. 8). To understanding structural inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia today, the origin of the cause needs investigating. This image depicts the start of structural inequality for the Aboriginal people which was created by the invasion and colonisation of Aboriginal land by the British Empire

‘Australia’ also showed how the government controlled how children of Aboriginal descent were brought up with language used such as “The mixed raced children must be dislocated from their primitive full blooded Aborigine, how else are we to breed the black out of them”. This presented again the reason as to why the Aboriginal children were taken away from their own cultures to be raised in something completely different.

In the article ‘Could You See to the Return of my Daughter’, the author outlines the stereotypical of the Aboriginal man towards their families. The NSW Aboriginal protection borad aiming to change the Aboriginal tradition and the way their actions approaching to their parents. In addition, he argued about how the Aboriginal women and children were treated in the NSW Aboriginal Protection Board. Haskins concludes the role of the Aboriginal fathers or patriarchy in history in protectining their daughters.

Belonging comes from an understanding, or the knowledge that an external sense of being comes from an internal sense of connection and safety. This critical analysis will portray how the text “Stolen” by Jane Harrison relates to the concept of belonging. Stolen is a play that tells the stories of 5 Aboriginal children that were stolen away from their families and were forced to grow up in institutions, following the European way of life. The children were segregated from their communities and treated as inferiorly. Their worth was seen as minimal and only useful to Europeans as slaves. “Stolen” is an example of not belonging to the environment that one is living in. The children are stolen from their parents, their culture and traditions,

In 1788 the first Fleet arrived in Australia bringing European soldierse, convicts and settlers. This bought aboriginals in contact with white people for the first time. Some aboriginal groups tried to resist this occupation and they used violence and force the archive it. This essay will explain why that resistance was justified by examining the causes, identifying some examples of Indigenous resistance and will assess short and long term effects of this conflict.