Part-white or part-Aboriginal?

"Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are some calling for a national debate on Aboriginal identity... or in more accurate terms they are calling for a general free for all to slam Aboriginal people who don't 'look Aboriginal'. To slam Aboriginal youth, Aboriginal parents, Aboriginal communities, and Aboriginal people who aren't Aboriginal enough according to some observers and commentators, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. This however, does not make them, or anyone else, any 'more' or 'less' Aboriginal than anyone else.  In fact, I think it is probably a good thing that these people are starting to speak up in the media, it might create an opportunity for them to have discussions with others who can share their own stories, and help to reconcile some of the issues some people seem to have with the identity of others.

Lots of questions are being raised, and keep getting raised, but the answers still seem elusive. This is because the questions are often leading (or perhaps misleading is more accurate). These issues are commonly being framed against the backdrop of accessing 'government assistance', but it is mostly just for show. The real issue usually boils back down to 'colour', rather than identity or who has the right to access assistance schemes.


Are there non-Indigenous people who identify as Aboriginal for supposed benefits? I can only assume there would be, although I've yet to see specific proof of it. 


Are there people who want to validate their own insecurities by making identity debates more about colour than connection, or culture? As this stage of the game it seems unequivocal.


Are there problems with the implementation of government programs? Of course.

Rather than a national 'debate', I am calling for a series of national education.

Today's lesson is about what happens when you combine two racist stereotypes:

1. The idea that Aboriginality is something that is 'bred-out' of people over time. That once a person's physical appearance and/or 'blood-quotient' reaches a certain point, then that person can be considered to be not Aboriginal and; 

2. The idea that Aboriginal people are a 'privileged group' in this country. 

The result? 

"the part-whites who are making a racket out of being so-called Aborigines at enormous cost to the taxpayers".

That is the heart of some recent and on-going tension in the media, but that isn't a recent quote. 

It was said in 1988, by Bruce Ruxton... but it sounds like something that could have been said much more recently.

This recent debate is actually quite old, and it is reliant on the fact that people don't know it is an old debate. Aboriginal identity has been problematiced by beauracracy, and by the assumption that all Aboriginal programs are available to Aboriginal people, which obvious to anyone who investigates that claim, is nonsense. ABSTUDY is means tested. Scholarships are competitive, as are 'identified positions'.

In fact, there are plenty of 'identified positions' held by people who are openly non-Indigenous.

Any serious journalist with even a passing interest in Aboriginal identity, and an interest in serious reporting, would quickly find something like this research note, available from the Parliamentary Library, titled "Definition of Aboriginality". (Unfortunately you can no longer find it, as it was removed from the Parliamentary Library website not long after appearing in this blog... which I can only imagine  is simply a timely coincidence. Luckily I'd already put bits of it on my blog, which you can see below.)

 It used to come up when you do a google search for 'Definition of Aboriginality'... 

 It mentioned:  

 "In his analysis of over 700 pieces of legislation, the legal historian John McCorquodale found no less than 67 different definitions of Aboriginal people. 

Though colonial legislation initially grouped Aboriginal people by reference to their place of habitation (e.g. aboriginal natives of New South Wales and New Holland), 'blood' quantum classifications entered the legislation of New South Wales in 1839, South Australia in 1844, Victoria in 1864, Queensland in 1865, Western Australia in 1874 and Tasmania in 1912. Thereafter till the late 1950s States regularly legislated all forms of inclusion and exclusion (to and from benefits, rights, places etc.) by reference to degrees of Aboriginal blood. Such legislation produced capricious and inconsistent results based, in practice, on nothing more than an observation of skin colour." 

Sounding familiar yet? "based, in practice, on nothing more than an observation of skin colour"!

What a long way we have come...

but wait, there's more:

"When policy entered a more progressive period in the late 1960s and 1970s the blood-quantum definitions, which had never been accepted as meaningful by Aboriginal communities themselves, were relatively easy to abandon." 

 

"In the 1980s a new definition was proposed in the Constitutional Section of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs' Report on a review of the administration of the working definition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Canberra, 1981). The section offered the following definition:

An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he (she) lives.

This three-part definition (descent, self-identification and community recognition) was soon adopted by Federal Government departments as their 'working definition' for determining eligibility to some services and benefits." 

"The advantages of this three part definition were not, however, apparent to all. In 1988 the Victorian State president of the RSL, Mr Bruce Ruxton, called on the Federal Government: 

to amend the definition of Aborigine to eliminate the part-whites who are making a racket out of being so-called Aborigines at enormous cost to the taxpayers'.

 

" the three part definition has generally been found to help protect individuals from the tendency among 'mainstream Australians' to consider 'real' indigenous people as people living somewhere else and others as manipulating the system."

 "It also sits well with the definition used by the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1986:

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies ..., consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories ... They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.^"

And here endeth the lesson...

 ... but right now, as I write this, I get the image of a man trying to explain to an angry mob why he shouldn't be burnt at the stake for arguing that the world is actually round... and that the matter was actually resolved quite a long time ago... and that we don't burn people at the stake anymore... and that it is kind of silly to believe in a flat earth in 2011... 

If people want to attack my identity without knowing me or my family, or my history, or why my identity is so important to me, I can live with that.

I know who I am, I know where I come from, and I know where I am going. 

My identity is NEVER, and has never been questioned by anyone who matters. This has been as true in my personal life as it is on some random place like Twitter. 

I am very proud to be able to say that while I have never attempted to speak on behalf of anyone but myself, I have struck a chord with a great many Indigenous & non-Indigenous people around the country. I am also proud that some people seem to see me as a something of a role model, particualrly those who may not always feel as comfortable as I do to stand their ground when confronted with challenges to their identity. 

The reason I don't get too upset about identity challenges, (or about people who think my observation that 'Aborigine' went out of fashion decades ago in most places in Australia, apart from in the Australian media is 'political correctness gone mad'), is for two reasons. 1. I do not know these people, and they do not know me. and 2. I do know me.


That second reason is something I take great solice in when voicing my ideas and opinions; the knowledge that most of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in my life, (and people I don't know in real life, but who follow me on twitter) agree with me is very gratifying, but it would not change my views if this was not the case.

But if I am suffering some sort of 'politically correct madness', it is kind of nice to know I am not alone, and that lots of people right around the country, and overseas, share it with me.

A few randoms in the media, or the occassional random out in public, having their own views about my life, and what I should identify as is awesome, good for them. I feel privileged that they should be so concerned about my well being. I wish them luck in their endeavour to label me as they see fit... unfortunately for them though their mission is doomed from the start. They cannot touch me. Their labels mean nothing to me. All that matters to me is my view of myself, and having the respect and support of my family, friends and colleagues is a great added bonus. 

If we want to discuss Aboriginal identity and/or failure in Aboriginal programs that is fine by me, in fact I strongly encourage that conversation; because it will expose the myth that Aboriginal experience and/or identity centres exclusively around colour. The myth that you can judge an Aboriginal person's bank balance, as well as how much adversity they have faced, based solely on observance of skin colour. The myth that if you are Aboriginal, but haven't experienced as much adversity as the next Aboriginal person, that you are 'less Aboriginal' than them.

... and to answer the question that is the title of this article: No.