Aka,

I hope you're not trying to suggest that inter-marriage is some sort of plot, a devilish racist conspiracy, some way of forcing Indigenous people to marry non-Indigenous people ? Choice is a consequence of equal rights, and for all people in small minorities who can move and work and socialise fairly freely amongst the whole of society, their colleagues and friends and lovers are very likely not to be from their particular minority, but from the vast mix of people who make up the majority. Ergo, inter-marriage. Ergo, children. Ergo, yes, probably paler kids than their Indigenous parents. But vice versa, that many more non-Indigenous people who will not have non-Indigenous children, which sounds fine to me ? Do you have a problem with that ?

Obtuse ? Moi ? How do you mean ?

Let's run through it all again: Cameron has given what he claims to be examples of stolen generations:

* He has offered the names of seven individuals/families without any details: were they put in dormitories while their parents went out to work ? were they taken into care on spurious grounds ? what grounds ? in what ways were these grounds spurious ?

* he has described the dilemma for the head of the APB Penhall in not being able to take a child from its mother legally;

* he has described the case of a nine-year-old girl abandoned by her mother and taken into care.

With the greatest respect to Mr Raynes, it could, at a stretch, be said that he is being obtuse (forgive me, Pauly, for this vile personal attack) by not providing details of the first cases above. But I'm pretty sure that even he would agree that the other two cases have nothing to do with children being 'stolen'.

Joe Lane
Adelaide
rmg1859@yahoo.com.au

We're up to Page 26 now on this topic. If that's anything to go by then I can't envisage to ever achieve reconciliation. One lot perpetuates the wrongs, the other lot perpetuates the myths of the wrongs. No-one seems inclined to put forward any solutions. We're wasting time & resources with this to-ing & fro-ing of the past. WE CANNOT CHANGE THE PAST ! We can acknowledge the past & there's no logical explanation for letting this past interfere with attempts of reconciliation. Keith Windshuttle,Henry Reynold's, Noni Sharp etc. have written their stuff & we cannot change it. What we can do is to focus on the future & stop making mountains out of anthills & denials on both sides of the argument. Put paid to this pontification & we just might make some progress.

I think Aka's on the mark here. These disgruntled old non-Indigenous men will never accept any evidence that the Stolen Generations existed, because that would belie the fantastic self-narratives that they've constructed. It's quite fascinating that two of the most intransigent denialists are 'white' men who married Indigenous women - one wonders how the existence of the Stolen Generations threatens their identities so much that they would support the second-rate 'research' of a disciplinary pariah like Windschuttle over much better scholars such as Reynolds, Reid and, indeed, Raynes.

individual, you're correct when you say

<< We're wasting time & resources with this to-ing & fro-ing of the past. >>

That's what the Apology was about. It was an attempt to draw a line under this sorry chapter of Australia's history in order that we can move on together. Why it is that people like you and the other denialists on this thread want to keep picking at the scabs of societal and cultural wounds that might otherwise have some chance of healing is truly beyond me.

One thing that is common to all the denialist posturing on this thread is that all of you claim authority on the basis of your individual perspectives, with little reference to the copious information that comprises the big picture nationwide. It is people like you who stand in the way of reconciliation, regardless of your denialist bluster.

CJ,
That did hurt :( I can't help being an old non-Indigenous man, but I take comfort in the fact that I will never have non-Indigenous descendants. Unless I get lucky, of course, and have a one-night stand when I'm ninety two.

You're right, that bird has already flown.

And after 45 years or so loosely involved with Aboriginal people in many situations, why do you think I might be disgruntled ? I've met some wonderful Indigenous people, people who I love and respect now decades later, but like with any human group, especially amongst those with power, I've regrettably known some utter b@stards, scumbags, incompetents, frauds and thugs: Indigenous organisations have their share of alpha-male bullies: yes ? no ? Such people, I believe, destroyed my wife's career and contributed to that extent to her passing (pass that on, please). So yes, you're right, I'm a disgruntled old non-Indigenous man.

Individual, I agree with you 95 %: but if we misunderstand the past, we don't really understand the present, and we can make fundamentally wrong predictions about the future. To use CJ's metaphor, if we pick at the wrong scab, the wrong ones get neglected and can infect the whole body - to use another metaphor, we can find ourselves barking up the wrong tree.

But like you, I want to know the truth: what really happened in the past. Were Indigenous people forced to live in such dreadful conditions that family unity and physical existence was threatened ? Crudely, were they more hard-up than white fellas ? 3-4 % of all white kids were taken into care up until the time women could get the single mother's benefit, so why assume that a smaller proportion of Indigenous children were also taken into care, and for the same reasons ?

So if Mr Raynes, or anybody else, can give me some reason for believing in the existence of a 'stolen' generation, I'll run with it. Not a denialist (ptuh ! ptuh !) CJ, but a sceptic.

A disgruntled sceptic. I think there are a lot of us around.

Joe

Cameron,

Is it true your book is only eighty pages long ?! Good grief, Windshuttle's 1500 footnotes would be longer if they were compiled into a book. And BBoy hasn't found one of those to be inaccurate or dodgy yet, but we live in hope.

BTW, what has happened to BBoy ? And Tom Clark (sorry for that vicious ad hominem, Tom) ? Haven't heard from the Nga Tamatitoe lately either :>( I guess he is preoccupied with his boyfriends' kohunas, but I liked your term 'murdochrity', quite inventive.

To summarise and elaborate yet again:

* it was never legal, in any state or territory, to take children, Indigenous or non-Indigenous, from their families, more particularly from their mothers, without a reason which could stand up in court (and in the court of posterity, i.e. us);

* apart from the tragic case of Bruce Trevorrow, no case has yet been brought in any court in Australia which demonstrated that an Indigenous child was taken (or kept) from her/his mother without reason, consonant with the state's duty of care for all children within its jurisdiction. Even you concede this:

"What I can say is that the Supreme Court in South Australia found that the Aborigines Protection Board in SA had no authority to remove a child from their parents other than by using s.38 of the Act. And almost none of the removals and withholdings that did occur were done under this part of the Act." (Cameron Raynes, 20 March, 3.29 pm).

How else then, what other 'part of the Act' ? Once you provide a few details, Cameron, we can get this show on the road.

Joe

Well CJ seeing as my and Joe’s views on the “Stolen Generation” have been influenced by the ethnic background of our wives, in the interest of fairness perhaps you could reveal the ethnic/gender background of your partner, if indeed you have or had one.
“It's quite fascinating that two of the most intransigent denialists are 'white' men who married Indigenous women”.
And if you are going to mention Professor Henry Reynods just cite one reference from him supporting “Stolen Generations” from the Torres Strait. After all one of his friends was Eddie Mabo.