Hi David,

Well, there is a huge variety of 'urban Blacks', from (a) the ratbag fringe which doesn't even support a treaty or reconciliation or anything but a return to a pristine traditional Australia (somehow), right through to (b) a welfare-oriented, more-or-less culture-free population on one hand, and (c) an education- and employment-oriented population, also mostly culture-free, on the other hand.

I think that down this way, people replaced (rather than 'lost') their cultural practices with an amalgam of Aboriginal and 'Western' cultural practices very early, well before 1900. i.;e. whatever worked best, as they saw it.

Language, for example, was more or less replaced - and voluntarily - by English by then, except for the everyday, 'kitchen-table' language - local words for man, woman, child, dog, house, food, drink, eat, sit, sleep, etc. Most certainly, the hunter-gatherer vocabulary was put on the back-burner by the early generations and not learnt, or forgotten, by the next, in spite of the efforts by missionaries to keep it going. [Leftists: discuss, with outrage].

People are getting on with life in a modern, western society, some choosing welfare and/or crime, some choosing effort, education and work. Pretty humdrum, really.

Joe

Hi Joe,

Not everything is pretty humdrum for some.

In our area in suburban Melbourne, in a great bushland
setting and park we had a wonderful Aboriginal gallery
that for decades offered shelter to Aboriginal artists,
musicians, dancers, actors, poets, story-tellers, sculptors,
emu-egg carvers, didgerido woomera and boomerang makers,
providing a supportive environment and a venue to create,
distribute, and showcase their diverse Indigenous talents.

It included a cafe, and school visits were a regular
occurrence, as were tourists and of course the gallery
was strongly supported by the locals.

It was a social enterprise operated by the Aboriginal
Artists Development Fund Inc. A not for profit organisation.
The AADF was established to create sustainable independent
revenue streams for Aboriginal artists and their families.

Parks Victoria closed it down in 2013. With no explanations
given - except that they had another client interested in
the gallery. Colin McKinnon Dodd, the founder of the Gallery
fought hard to keeo it open. As did the locals. To no
avail. Parks Victoria was culturally insensitive and gave it
the boot.

There were 1600 year old canoe trees there carved by the
Wurundjeri people which had been there for thousands of years.
The closure was heartfelt by us all.

The Gallery was left in disuse.

Colin McKinnon Dodd died on Nov. 20th 2014. Age 55.
A great man. He and his Gallery - a great loss to the community
and to Indigenous artists and people.

Foxy, NO, loudmouth is right.
All that you describe IS, for all intents and purposes,
Pretty Humdrum!
You might have some empathy for what you have described, but everyone else really couldn't give a toss.
I for one am just one of the majority of people who are sick and tired of having all this over-inflated virtuous adoration of something so completely inconsequential and therefore undeserving of special and focused treatment, such as the venue you so lovingly describe.
If you feel so moved and taken by such things, well good for you.
I just hope you weigh up and realise their relevance and importance in the greater scheme of things and how the greater majority of the population rate them.
Certainly no-where near your level of fixation.

ALTRAV,

We all have different viewpoints on many things.

That is as it should be. It all depends on our
values, our social environments, they way we were
raised. What we were brought up to believe in,
and also of course our own experiences.

As the story goes - two men looking out of a window,
one sees mud, the other sees the stars.

It's all a question of perception.

And the story I told Joe - was merely to illustrate
and make the point that we don't all view things in the
same way.

Of course, you have never been to the gallery that I
describe or seen the work that was being done there.
Therefore your viewpoint is even more narrow not having
experienced what I did.

Foxy,

I always wish ventures such as Miamia well, but I wouldn't expect that many Indigenous people visit them or are even aware of them. But well-meaning whites think they're great :)

Joe

Joe,

Mia Mia Gallery survived for close to twenty years.
School-visits were a regular thing. As were tourist buses.
The cafe was always crowded and the art works sold very well.
It was very valued and a big loss to the community.
It was not something that should have been allowed to close.
And it was a great pity that it did. The Gallery is now in
disuse and rotting. A sign of stupidity and waste.