Sorry Blairbar, it's not all about you - how people with Indigenous ancestry define themselves is up to them, not you or me. Non-Indigenous people controlling and defining Indigenous people is not as common as it used to be. In any case, I don't know anybody who defines themselves by fractions - many people of course might claim si8multaneous heritages, but I don't know that people really calculate it all mathematically. I'm half Irish and half Scottish, and I have no trouble being both at once.

VK3AUU, I don't think that there will ever be the slightest problem on those grounds. The family tree test would immediately distinguish genuine from ring-in, as well as accent, etc., and frankly I think that Africans would have too much integrity to try it. How light or dark as person is, is not much of a guide anyway: generations of racist policies in the past ensured that there were many, many light-skinned people who were classified as Indigenous, usually raised by their Indigenous mothers, and they have returned the favour by sticking to the Indigenous 'side'.

Btw, non-Indigenous people who marry Indigenous people, in my experience, are often more gung-ho and committed than many Indigenous people to what used to be called the Aboriginal cause: inter-marriage is a bit like religious conversion, and usually, once you are committed, it's for life. The children of those marriages thus often have two very committed parents.

rmg1859@yahoo.com.au

Joe

"Sorry Blairbar, it's not all about you - how people with Indigenous ancestry define themselves is up to them, not you or me".
Dear Joe
This is what I posted:"I am quite relaxed about how my children, and other children with shared indigenous and non-indigenous genes classify themselves. Yes it is their business, not yours or mine."
What is your problem?

What a refreshing and positive article. Shows that the younger generation of mixed race indigenous Australians are making considerable inroads into an integrated society.
Whatever your racial or cultural background, this is a country of opportunity and diverse choice. One can choose to wallow in the past or take advantage of the present and plan for the future.

It does amuse me somewhat when I hear someone refer to themselves as "indigenous" when they are whiter than me or have a parent who belongs to another racial minority eg Asian. I know one such person with a mixed race (aboriginal & caucasian) mum and chinese dad who looks Asian but claims 'aboriginality'. Have cousin married to man whose genetics are about 1/16th but who it seems can still qualify. I guess it gets them some perks - makes up for what their predecessors missed out on and has helped in their general success in life. Is there any 'cut-off' point where one cannot possibly be deemed 'indigenous'?

Meantime let's hear more of the success stories. There are plenty out there .....