The Anoriginals only want the truth when it suits them.

Oh! let's have the truth about invasion day.

Ok, let's call it invasion day,
But let's have the truth about the lack of advanced civilisation that was here when the British arrived and how the advanced society in Australia today was bought here
by the advanced civilisation that arrived.

There were already houses and streets in England back then.

My grandson was sent out of class as a racist for making this truthful and factual
Observation in class recently. How come only the Aboriginals can talk up their culture
But my grandson can't.

I said to him, you come from a very advanced culture, look at the orchestras
medical advances, electronic inventions, glorious artworks. Even back in the earlier centuries, Europe had great paintings and artworks. I said, I'm British and I'm proud to come from such a wonderfully advanced culture with all its beauty.
My grandson has every right to be proud of his culture and he should be allowed
to mention these great achievements at school.

But you can't tell the truth, and mention the achievements of white culture, you are
only allowed to label them as bad invaders.
The Aboriginals can't handle the truth of white invention and achievement.
And no it is not racist, it is factual and the truth.
But western schools label it racist. Excuse me, but the truth is what schools are supposed to teach. They teach ideaolgy instead. That's why Europe is in the danger
It's in today , our kids grow up with a guilt complex and let other races walk all over them.

Nick,

We need to be careful to remember how words might have had different meanings in earlier times. A policeman might be 'removed' when he was, what we might call now, posted to another station. A teacher might be removed from one place, to be promoted to a better position at another school. In earlier times, 'removed' meant 'moved', or simply 'went'.

I would support Big Nana's observation that children 'went' to mission schools, and I would add, very likely with their parents' - or at least their mothers' - approval, even their insistence. That certainly was the case down this way. People aren't stupid - they know that their kids need some education.

Perhaps these days in remote 'communities', they now 'know' that their kids DON'T need much education if they are going to spend their lives on welfare. But how long might that last ?

Perhaps that is why we are sort of arguing at cross-purposes. From my reading, 'removal' often and perhaps always meant 'moved', 'transferred', 'went'. So the 'removal' of children simply meant that children enrolled at a Mission school, etc. You have mistaken the use of the word to mean force of some sort. Again, you need evidence of thst.

We forget that - as far as I can tell - in WA, back in the 1930s, the number of staff in the Native Welfare Department was extremely small, across a huge state. There would have been the superintendents at government stations like Moola Bulla and Moore River, and barely five other staff like Neville travelling around the State, and looking after the books and correspondence back in Perth. How and why so few would be able to round up anybody beats me. Across the Kimberley ? I simply don't believe it, from what I have read of the available files.

[TBC]

[continued]

On a slightly different track: get something straight - nobody has ever forced Indigenous people to go to university. More than 120,000 have done so in the last thirty years, nearly 20,000 are currently studying, more than 40,000 have graduated. Those who did not find it to their liking, or had all manner of pressures on them to drop out, did so and nobody stopped them.

My point about Indigenous academics was that they seem to be doing little to encourage the most disadvantaged Indigenous people, in rural and remote areas, to start the long and many-stepped journey to higher education, which is something which every community desperately needs, especially if they are ever to replace non-Indigrnous qualified staff with their own people. Whether people want to make that journey is up to them. I hope they do, so that, at last, the Gap can begin to be Closed.

You may think differently ?

Joe

Though I would watch the movie again, been some time. Regardless of the accuracy of the events portrayed, nowhere could I find any claim that it was anything more than a movie based on the book 'Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence' by Doris Pilkington, the daughter of one of the central characters Molly Craig. It is regardless, an extremely entertaining movie, with fine performances by the three non actors, the girls who played the central characters. There is no doubt in my mind that there is truth in the story interwoven with fictional poetic licence, how else can you make this kind of movie if it is not like that?

I can also see how some white Australian in particular, are uncomfortable with anything that might invoke references to past injustices, as this movie does, injustices perpetrated collectively against Aboriginal people, a people who were extremely vulnerable to abuse. For many the best defense against this shame is attack, or denial "it bloody well didn't happen!", this kind of attitude is yet another form of abuse, The European as he moved around the world was very good at abusing indigenous people, why should Australia have been any different?

Paul1405,

But you yourself would strenuously object if you were charged and convicted on the basis of stereotyping:

Prosecutor,
"Your Honour, from speculative gossip affecting people like Paul1405 and the understandable negative stereotyping of him by police, Paul1405 sports the sort of reputation that would make any heinous crime possible where he is concerned, so no evidence is required and the court should summarily convict and sentence him".

Judge,
"I agree". "Furthermore, Paul1405 and his 'White C[bleep]' forebears have a nasty, notorious rep that is taught in schools, and on children's TV by the taxpayer-funded State Propaganda Unit".

"Members of the Jury, there is no need for evidence, convict the SOB because he is a 'whitey' and 'Anglo' and we all know what they are like".

"Oh, and it is 'Wimmins Only Day' on the State Propaganda Unit. Stand by for a tsunami of feminist mantras that you WILL be listening to. Now lets check that goose step in the way out".

Dear Paul1405,

Spot on.

I have used the term willfully ignorant but it really is more determinedly ignorant. I suspect a very high proportion of those claiming the event didn't happen have not read the book and probably a good proportion of those have never seen the movie.

It obviously comes from a different place to natural skepticism, we all see different things in evidence laid before, but this is akin to a religious determination to view things in a singular light and to discredit conflicting evidence with deep resolve.

Perhaps it is a sign of uncertain times.