Jose,

You say; "it was a life they preferred to live", so you know for a fact they (Aboriginal people) preferred a shortened life expectancy, and a higher infant mortality from preventable diseases. No, you rationalise that by "believing" aboriginal people are simple folk who are contented to accept all that life throws at them, because of their limited mental capacity. All your guff is just so "Christian" of you.

BTW, How many Aboriginal people chose to leave the river bank and move into town, right next door to you. Oh, that's right they were so contented non would choose suck a life as being accepted with open arms by the white community. You are a crack up!

When I lived in Urunga NSW there was an aboriginal family who lived behind us who we as children played with. In fact, one boy Andy Boney was an exceptionally good athlete and always won at school athletics.
http://brucesanders.wordpress.com/tag/urunga/
Here is another family who knew and played with the Boney family.
http://www.facebook.com/secondthirdpioneers/photos/a.117848364907123/2504326029592666/?type=3
This period was after my contact with Andy as I knew him as a child. He was full blood and a great person equal to any of us his mates.

BTW, How many Aboriginal people chose to leave the river bank and move into town, right next door to you.
Paul1405,
The very moment young indigenous get sent to private schools in the South, 99% of them grab every possible opportunity to stay in the larger towns. And, if the money to travel is not provided for some reason, some commit a petty crime to ensure they get to spend their initiation in some jail.
The ones who score a token quota position in the Public Service, usually find life in the city more exiting.
Those who find actual meaningful employment are the ones who return home whenever possible.

Jose'

The tactic of taking one specific instance or example, and then trying to extrapolate that to imply all is so, is typical of those who mitigate and minimise, the typical racists, all with the aim of painting a false picture of the reality. You made a claim that Aboriginal people living in squalor on river banks found it acceptable, yet all you offer as evidence is a reference to one specific chap in Mr Andy Boney, I dare say Mr Boney was discriminated against in both the army, and later in the town he lived. How quaint that the newspaper article makes several reference to "coloured people", the same article written about Europeans organising a dance for themselves would not make reference to "white people", now would it.

As I've said before on this forum, many racists don't perceive themselves as being racists, not all racists are haters, in fact many are kind and even loving towards those they discriminate against. The racists will never accept the other as being their equal, they will always set them apart from themselves.

In your town in those years, how much social interaction was there between white and black, was there organised events where whites and blacks came together as social equals, I would say not.

You like these little anecdotal stories to make a point, here one for you;

"In 1965, Charles Perkins and his fellow Sydney University students ran the gauntlet of booing, fruit-throwing residents to take a group of Indigenous children for a swim in the Moree town pool."

In your day Jose', providing Aboriginal people knew and kept their place in society Europeans were willing to accommodate them, be it as inferiors to themselves, but acceptable none the less. It was only when Indigenous folk like Charles Perkins started to protest the discriminatory situation that some whites became extremely hostile, and resisted the call for Aboriginal equality. YOU are bloody well doing the same thing with the Voice today!

Paul, I could not be bothered answering your bigoted racist trolling. In my childhood we all mixed well and skin colour was not an issue as you make it out to be.

okay Jose'

A simple question, how often were dances held in your town where white and black came together as social equals? Enjoying each others company, maybe a black man met his future white wife at such a social event, you never know.