Robert+Whitaker

//Walkabout//, is a film about two white Australian children who become lost in the Australian desert. On their journey back home they encounter an Aborigine who is on his walkabout. When an Aborigine turns 16 they must live on their own for 4 months. By surviving they demonstrate to their clan that they have become a man. The Aborigine has no voice throughout the film, due to the fact that he doesn't speak English. The irony of the film is that, while the Aborigine helps the children survive, and make it home safely, he ends up dead. A group of white hunters see him and believe that because he is with two white children, he is up to no good. The larger concept is that the Aborigine shows the children how to survive within his society whereas the white population in Australia has refused to show Aborigines how to survive within their society.

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//The Burn Stick//, a children's book by Anthony Hill, is a story about a Aboriginal mother whose mixed race child is taken from her. From the early 1900's up until the late 1960's Australian Welfare forcefully seized mixed race Aborigines from their tribes to be put in white missions. Mothers had no say in what happened to their children, instead their White fathers did. These children were taught English and brought up as though they were not an Aborigine. The Australian government believed that learning the white man's way was more beneficial to children of mixed race than the Aboriginals ways. Children often never saw their parents again, and if they did it was years later after they had been totally transformed. This so called stolen generation numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Much like in the film //Walkabout,// due to these policies from the Australian government, mixed race Aboriginal children did not really have a place. White Australian society rejected them even though they had been educated to the same standards as all of the whites. In turn they were also rejected by their Aboriginal tribes because they did know who to live and survive or apart of a clan.

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//No Disgrace//, a poem by Coralie Cassady, speaks of Aboriginal pride today. The poem talks about how it used to be hard to show your Aboriginal face in white society, and how they have constantly been put down. However today they are picking themselves up and recovering from the land loss, public discrimination, and loss of Aboriginal culture. Cassady speaks of how the Aborigines found a voice, through Painting and music. And how today Aboriginal painting and music is internationally recognized. Aborigines are making their own tracks and rising up from discrimination.

//No Disgrace

Coralie Cassady, QLD

There is no disgrace, So proudly show your Aboriginal face.

Once upon a time, We Aborigines were regarded as small-time.

But positive happening for Aborigines, Are beginning to brilliantly shine.

Aborigines, you are doing just fine.

We have been constantly put down, Messed around, But our Aboriginal culture still strongly abounds.

Who is now having the last laugh?

One thing's for sure, Aborigines don't do things by half.

Internationally recognized Aboriginal band, Yothu Yindi, Sing to the world, About our heritage, misery and loss of land.

Aboriginal painting adorn many walls. We have picked ourselves up, Since our two hundred years ago fall.

We are definitely making our own tracks, We are no longer considered as 'myall blacks'.

Unfortunately due to the brutal discrimination, and constant oppression towards Aborigines over the years, devastating effects have occurred.

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