Yahoo News IndigenousX takes over Guardian Australia opinion for Sorry Day | Jack Latimore
This year’s Sorry Day marks exactly 20 years since the Bringing them Home report, exposing the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families – the “stolen generation” – was tabled in parliament. Unfortunately for First Nations people, in that period we’ve only experienced steady rises in the rate of child removals almost year upon year. The broader Australian public should be shocked to hear this.
Yet, despite many Blak voices and our allies continuously drawing attention to it, this appalling trend continues almost unabated. How is this possible? The answer is a complex tangle of poor policy, paternalistic mismanagement, arrogant governmentand political expediency. The simple fact that very few of the 54 recommendations from the Bringing Them Home report were ever implemented goes some way to explaining why we have not moved forward on addressing this issue.
Today IndigenousX has commissioned four Indigenous contributors to share their perspectives on Sorry Day with Guardian Australia. It is the smallest glimpse of the kinds of things we hear from our Twitter hosts and collaborators week after week, month after month. For the past five years IndigenousX has existed not only to celebrate Indigenous achievement and diversity, but to amplify these Blak perspectives so that non-Indigenous Australia understands where we are, how resilient and proud we are, and more fully how we continue to be affected by a state founded on colonial violence while struggling to assert our rightful place in the lands that have been our homes for tens of thousands of years.
This Sorry Day we invite our mob, our mob’s allies and the broader Guardian readership to join us here in sharing and listening to our experiences at the hands of successive Australian governments, and to consider our opinions on what needs to happen to put things right.
Readers will hear from:
community activist, historian and writer Tony Birch about the depths of grief and suffering still experienced by victims of the stolen generations, the appropriation of language used to discuss the issue and the enduring responsibility we all have of acknowledging the commonwealth’s crimes;
regular IndigenousX collaborator and civil rights activist Natalie Cromb on the unjust demonisation of First Nations parents and families;
award-winning young writer Evelyn Araluen Corr who has spent time listening to stolen generations community support groups, such as the Kinchella Boy’s Home Aboriginal Corporation and Grandmother’s Against Removal, as they prepare themselves to commemorate the day; and
educator and academic Bronwyn Carlson on her students’ impressions and interpretations of key dates occurring across the next week.
As so many of us are still so close to the trauma inflicted by child removal policies, we ask that you do listen carefully and respectfully to these stories, and to the experiences and perspectives of others shared in the comment section below. If you choose to engage in discussion, we also ask that you do so respectfully. This issue is all too often seen solely as an academic or political debate without appreciating the real ongoing trauma forced removal of children has caused, and continues to cause, to those individuals, families and communities who have been affected by it.
Throughout the day we’ll be drawing attention to some stories and comments shared below. We’ll also be discussing the stories we’ve commissioned today and telling you a bit more about who we are and what it is that IndigenousX does.
And we’ll also be keeping an eye on the closing day of the conference in Uluru, where 250 delegates are trying to reach a common position on a proposal to amend the constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The Guardian’s Calla Wahlquist is reporting on the talks. In a big week for anniversaries, Saturday marks 50 years since an earlier referendum which finally entitled Indigenous people to be included on the commonwealth census.
We hope you enjoy the discussion.
