Jack Davis No Sugar Analysis

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’.

Long histories of colonisation and discrimination have resulted in marginalisation of Indigenous Australians and Torres Straight Islanders from dominant societies (GrantCraft, 2015). Indigenous Australians communities lost their culture and values through forced assimilation and lost

Throughout the early 20th century, the Australian public was led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged in their communities, and that there was a high risk of physical and sexual abuse. Aboriginal children were being removed in order to be exposed to ‘Anglo values’ and ‘work habits’ with a view to them being employed by colonial settlers, and to stop their parents, families and communities from passing on their culture, language and identity

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.

The play presents complex notions about family bonds, based upon their shared cultural experiences and the way in which they reinforce their cultural Australian identity and help members of the family endure the physical hardship and social isolation. Jack Davis’ social realist drama, ‘No Sugar’ explores how the varying levels of family unity, rebellion and cultural identity depicted in different characters influences their survival. In this play, the term ‘survival’ operates on two continuums. It is conveyed as the physical sense of life and death through the play’s protagonist, Jimmy Munday, as well as the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit is predominantly reflected in the parallel yet contrasted lives of Mary and Billy Kimberley as well as Gran’s deteriorating health after losing family members. Although Davis articulates the endurance of the Indigenous Australians, he incorporates figures of white authority who seek to demolish the Indigenous race and culture. Set in the time frame of 1929 to 1934, ‘No Sugar’ presents a critique of the conventional colonial British views of that era; and their effect on the preservation of Indigenous spirit and culture.

The British invasion of Australia has unfortunately had multiple negative impacts on all Indigenous Australians, and additionally has created historic legacies that frequently effect the way in which people perceive, and work with Indigenous peoples. One of the historic legacies evident throughout Aileen’s case is the horrific occurrence of the stolen generation. One of the most profound consequences of colonisation, involving the removal of Aboriginal children from their families into missions, reserves or other institutions (Dudgeon, Wright, Paradies, Garvey & Walker, n.d.). This historic legacy can be identified in Aileen’s case, which has potential to impact on the processes taking place, and the decisions being made by the stakeholders.

The powerful interaction of power and privilege is thoughtfully explored throughout The Secret River (2015) by Diana Reid which shows the discriminatory ,ethnocentric practices between the Australian Colonizers and the Indigenous people that defines the period. Before Colonization in 1788, Aboriginal Civilization was composed of over 600 different nations that organized the Australian landscape which was more than 40millenbia (Broome 2010). Privilege is a benefit that only a single person or group of individuals usually has because of their position whereas Power is the potential to control the people and events .(Barbara 1994). Several factors lead to power differences between the Indigenous and European cultures that resulted in dispossession

Tom Wright demonstrated through his play ‘Black Diggers’ the harsh reality of the treatment of indigenous Australian during the time of World War 1.’Black Diggers’ captured the exclusion, the violence and loss of opportunities faced by the Indigenous Australians. Australia 100 years on still shows similar hostilities towards Aboriginal individuals, some movement has been may towards Aboriginals being equal but still not much meaningful change has occurred.

In the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, where by British supremacy within Australia was actively felt, Richard Broome outlines the control practiced by white people over the Aboriginal population. Basing predominantly upon the Aboriginal Protection Boards acting under special legislation and the informal ‘caste system' , Broome powerfully illustrates the treatment and discriminatory effect of these two methods of control on Aboriginal people.

Jack Davis, Noong-ah, was born in 1917 in Perth. His mother was taken from her tribe in Broome and reared by a white family, his father, William Davis was also removed and reared by whites. Davis grew up in Yarloop in a big family of 10. According to Aboriginal poet Kevin Gilbert, Davis’s mother displayed grace and courage and self-sacrificing spirit. Jack had eight years of education in public schools, then worked as a mill-hand, an engine driver, boundary rider and drover which brought him into contact with the tribal people and afforded examples of the everyday treatment and victimisation of the First Australians. “No Sugar” by Jack Davis was first performed as part of the Festival of Perth in 1985 to great acclaim. Throughout the play, Davis depicts the First

The methodical mistreatment of the Australian Aborigines demonstrates one of the highest offences of institutionalised racism within a nation. In Jack Davis' text "No Sugar", He exposes the deeply embedded hypocrisies and ironies, along with the inherited inequitable distribution of power between races in post-colonial Australia. Within scene II of the text, Neville states; "“I’m a great believer that if you provide the native the basic accoutrements of civilisation you’re half way to civilising him”. This statement by Neville emphasises the ignorance of indigenous culture the white Australian's had at the time of the early 20th century. Seemingly, Neville is using the term "civillisation" according to Eurocentric ideals, ignoring the rich,

Noel Pearson’s speech ‘an Australian history for us all’ discusses his approach to trying to solve some of the most systemic problems facing Australian Aboriginals today. The speakers are successful in understanding the ideas and values of the speech. Through the uses of various language techniques and context, Pearson’s speech details the struggles of the relationship between the first European settlers and Aboriginal Australians.

The recent Australian film, Rabbit Proof Fence, similarly condemns the social, political and cultural mores of colonial and post-colonial Australia in relation to its past treatment of indigenous Australians. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, it too, is set in the 1930’s and reflects similar attitudes and values whites have to black people. The film is a true story based on the book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, the daughter of one of the half-caste children in the film who, together with two other Aboriginal girls, was forcibly removed from her family in Jigalong, Western Australia. These children form part of what is now known as the “Stolen Generation”. They, like many others who lived in the first part of the 20th century, were the victims of the official government assimilationist policy which decreed that half-caste children should be taken from their families and their land in order to be made “white”. The policy was definitely aimed at “breeding out” Aboriginality, because only half and quarter caste children were taken.

For this week we read two texts: Emmanuelle Saada’s, Empire’s Children: Race, Filiation, and Citizenship in the French Colonies and Margaret D. Jacobs’, “Maternal Colonialism: White Women and Indigenous Child Removal in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940.” Both texts explore racial mixing in terms of a superior (in their own eyes) white race imposing itself onto an indigenous race.

Jack Davis' No Sugar, first performed in 1985, is a post-colonial realist work written in protest of the 1988 Bicentenary celebrations. In this broadly applicable play, Davis highlights the discrimination against Aborigines between 1929 and 1934 and particularly its justification under the government policy of `protectionism'. Focusing on the experiences of the Millimurra family, No Sugar underscores the view of Aborigines as uncivilized, the attempt to assimilate them to white culture through Aboriginal reserves such as the Moore River Settlement, and the resilience and determination of Aborigines faced with almost complete disempowerment. A fundamental concern of No Sugar is the notion of the definition of power along racial lines. This