On the stolen generation

[sqbr]

Something I've seen a few people imply about the Stolen Generation, and something I used to believe myself, was that while regrettable it was just the result of an unfortunate combination of children taken into care being badly cared for in the past, and non-specified racism making government agents more likely to assume indigenous parents were incompetent.

While both of these factors come into it, afaict it went well beyond that (anyone who knows more about this is VERY welcome to pipe up)
EDIT: and they did! You're probably better off just reading the comments than my badly expressed blargle.

Most of this I got from Wikipedia and then this article.

The aim was no just to protect badly treated children. For a start, these kids were not treated the same as white orphans etc, or the way aboriginal kids adopted by white families are now. They were fast-tracked through a bare bones education into becoming servants, in effect creating a nicely demoralised underclass. Families were deliberately broken up, parents were lied to and kept from their children, and every attempt was made to destroy any remaining vestiges of aboriginal culture the kids held on to.

Secondly, while I'm sure some of these kids were pretty malnourished etc with their parents (I've heard horror stories of the way a lot of indigenous kids live now¹) if things were so bad that one in three kids needed to be removed then presumably their parents were starving too, and "we've set things up so that either we steal you or you starve to death" is not an excuse. And from the sounds of things the kids were malnourished in the institutions too, so how is that an improvement?

Of course people said it was in the best interests of the children, even back then you had to have a nice sounding explanation, look at The Belgian Congo. But I'm sure enough people could see how terrible it was that if enough people had really cared then things would have stopped, or been done better. And it did not improve the children's lives, statistically they're worse off (in terms of health, education, and criminality) then the ones left behind.

Sorry to rant, but it bugs me. Also there's a somewhat personal connection, since my grandad is proof of how nasty things were even for the white kids caught in the system: he was removed from his loving family (a ukranian uncle) and pushed into an orphanage "for his own good" (by his english speaking relatives²) and it made him bitter, angry, and paranoid his whole life (well, until he got alzheimers anyway)

I will admit that since the whole thing came out there's claims that child services etc are too reticent to take genuinely maltreated kids into care³. But that doesn't negate anything, any more than claims that the Germans were too open with their immigration after the war somehow negates the holocaust. (Yes, Godwin's law, I know. But it's relevant!) (nb, to anyone who disagrees with both "over-reactions": I'm not saying they're necessarily true, just that even if they were it wouldn't matter)

(1) Apparently things were actually better then they are now. Yay progress.
(2)Who then disowned him completely when he married a jew. We don't speak to the canadian side of the family much...
(3) Yeah, I wasn't sure how true this was, and apparently it's not. Have rewritten this paragraph, it refused to come out right the first time.

Comments

[i-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

Prime Minister Rudd read out some parliamentary excerpts during the apology where it was explicitly stated that it was a tactic to wipe out the Aboriginal peoples by breeding them out.

I had heard of this but that was the first time I had ever heard historical quotation.

Also I think people forget how recent it was. The only member of the stolen generation I've met was only about 10 years older than me. They only repealed the legislation in 1970. Aboriginal people only stopped being classified as Fauna about 30 years ago. I was only BORN 30 years ago. But I never got taught any of that in school!

[theducks.livejournal.com]

1970 was /40/ years ago ;)

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

38.

[i-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

Um Yeah - I know - I don't see your point.

I never said they stopped the legislation 30 years ago - only that aboriginal people stopped being classified as fauna around 30 years ago. They didn't happen at the same time.

I also said that I was 30 and that the only stolen person I met was about 10 years old than me - making him 40.

So I don't see what you are getting at.

[theducks.livejournal.com]

That they started being recognised for electoral purposes in the 1960s, so the end of that was 40 years ago, but yeah, just nitpicking :)

[i-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

Actually they could vote nationally long before depending on their right at state level (which meant outside WA & QLD) and aboriginal people did vote in SA in 1901 for the first commonwealth parliament.

In the 1960's they changed it so they could vote regardless of state right and got the vote in QLD and WA.

So really they were recognized for electoral purposes right since federation and not allowing them to vote was illegal under the laws of the time.

The legislation reclassifying them as people passed in 1967 and last year was the 30 year anniversary (I remembered it being in the paper)

Although it makes you think in NSW the 'fauna' had the right to vote in 1856 but the women only got it in 1902.

[i-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

Sorry can't count 1967 /was/ 40 years ago.

But they got the vote before that.

[alias_sqbr]

Prime Minister Rudd read out some parliamentary excerpts during the apology where it was explicitly stated that it was a tactic to wipe out the Aboriginal peoples by breeding them out.

I really must get around to watching the whole thing, I've only seen the actual apology bit. That sounds pretty damning, if not surprising.

I am constantly surprised by the recentness too, that it was people on the borderline between my parents and grandparents generation doing the stealing (and the borderline between my parents and mine getting stolen) They really, really should have known better by then.

I think people think this sort of thing is "too depressing and/or controversial" to teach children *mutters*

[warpwind.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine from church was very nearly stolen. Fortunetly his family were friends with some reasonably connected people and were warned whenever inspectors or whatever came by. He and his siblings used to go off and hide in the bush sometimes for days. His family took very good care of him and he grew up to be a well educated police officer and later a musician and lecturer. He's also retained his knowledge and ties to the land and is a much wholer person for it. Additionally I've met his mother and I have no idea how people would get the idea that she wasn't an excellent caregiver, she loves her grandkids to bits.

[alias_sqbr]

Wow. It's nice to hear that some people got away. And yes, I'm sure most of the "negligent" parents were fine.

[infamyanonymous.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like someone posted above, it was largely to breed them out. The original theory was that the Aboriginal people were primitives who were likely to die out.
And yes, they were covered under the Fisheries and Fauna act.

It was considered a kindness, to help them by making them less 'savage'. Sadly, they didn't actually look very far into the families they were sent to. The woman I've met who was taken from her family was practically a slave. She was sexually abused, as were her siblings who were sent to other families. She was about 40 years old. I don't need to go on, but her entire family suffers from depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and the accompanying problems.

The point I want to make is that the problems we see in Aboriginal communities now are not the same as 30-50 years ago. It wasn't like taking a kid from an abusive, drug addicted mother and putting them in suburban family with 2.4 children and golden retriever.
I'm not saying that the current problems are the result of removing children from their families, but I'm fairly sure the proliferation of such problems is due to the 'caretaker' attitude of white Australia.

Have you seen Rabbit Proof Fence?

[alias_sqbr]

I'm not saying that the current problems are the result of removing children from their families, but I'm fairly sure the proliferation of such problems is due to the 'caretaker' attitude of white Australia.

Oh absolutely.

It wasn't like taking a kid from an abusive, drug addicted mother and putting them in suburban family with 2.4 children and golden retriever.

Mm, that's the point I was trying to make. People like to pretend that it was all just the same as child services/adoption etc now (well, a rosy view of child services now, I get the feeling it's still often pretty unpleasant) when it was completely different.

I didn't feel comfortable assuming anything about indigenous communities in the past, but I really need to learn to make clear the distinction between "I think this is true" and "Say, for the purposes of argument, that..."

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

When people talk about there being "good intentions", what they omit is that it is because the perpetrators actually thought that eradicating aboriginality and aboriginal culture WAS doing good, even if it came at a cost. The depth of racism inherent in the idea is so deep that most people don't really believe it today.

I don't really buy the idea that child services are lax in taking children out of care because of the Stolen Generations. I think its mostly because they don't have anywhere better to put them.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Have you seen this photo?

[alias_sqbr]

Mm, there's I guess three groups: the few people who had "good" intentions by modern standards (ie they genuinely thought the kids were going to be mistreated), those who had "good" intentions by the standards of the day, and those whose motives were questionable by any measure.

The depth of racism inherent in the idea is so deep that most people don't really believe it today.

I think it's a combination of people not wanting to recognise how racist people used to be, and their own current levels of racism meaning they don't really care or see why it's so bad.

I don't really buy the idea that child services are lax in taking children out of care because of the Stolen Generations. I think its mostly because they don't have anywhere better to put them.

Oh, quite probably (and out_fox below apparently has had experiences to back that up) I didn't word that paragraph very well, I just meant to point out that "We don't have to feel sorry for past misdeeds since we've caused harm by over-reacting in the other direction" is a spurious argument either way.

[out-fox.livejournal.com]

re: child services removals now, I can only speak for the QLD situation but with DOCs the inaction on cases that need it is defintely because they're tragically under resourced and being used as a dumping ground/last stop for families - even entire communities - that really need more preventative care measures, primary health care services, infrastructure.. the lot.

They are more conscious of where Aboriginal kids are placed now - but again the gap in equality of education limits the number of Aboriginal social workers, health workers that the families would trust and other Aboriginal families that can afford to be fostering kids.

re: the Stolen Generation, have you read the full Bringing Them Home report? Or Robert Manne's "In Denial" in the Quarterly Essay series? They cover the evidence of it being totally genocidally motivated and used to capitalise on "free" labour of the stolen children. Not that everyone knew this because my Dad lived up North and he believed the newsreels that were shown in the whites cinemas about "saving" the poor Aboriginal "orphans".

Which reminds me that I meant to add some print resources to your DBW Australian resources post *toddles off to do that*

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I get the feeling I have been Ill Informed re: child services. Thankfully I have a very well informed friends list to set me to rights :)

have you read the full Bringing Them Home report? Or Robert Manne's "In Denial" in the Quarterly Essay series?

*blinks*

You know, it never occurred to me that people other than government ministers could read that sort of thing. And there it is, on the internet, for anyone to read.

Though *cough* as a rule I actually really suck at reading dry formal non-fiction over about a page. It caused me no end of trouble during my Phd. I've spent the last three weeks trying to get the energy to read a travel guide book. Still, I'll try to at least skim the introduction or something.

*start to read dedication*
*feels sniffly*
*decides to read the rest when I'm not at work*

As I expected, this post has largely highlighted my own ignorance rather than fixing anyone else's, but hey, that's still a good thing :)

Thanks for the resources! I'll add them to the post when I get to that section of my inbox.

[http://users.livejournal.com/doctor_k_/]

Nutrition in indigenous kids is a very different issue in this decade. Kids who are raised eating a traditional diet (bush tucker) tend to have a healthy adequate diet, kids (and adults) who are raised on Maccas and processed foods available at community shops are hideously malnourished. Fresh fruit and veg are hard to come buy, and expensive in remote communities. With no link to traditional ways, there's little collection of bush foods.

[alias_sqbr]

You know that makes sense. I always get this feeling that there's this wall of ignorance and miscommunication between me (and most Australians) and what's really going on in aboriginal communities. Hmm.