Dear Paul,

Our education curriculum is so important. Textbooks
record the dominant understanding of our nation. In
colonial nations such as Australia foundation narratives
are fashioned to establish the legitimacy of the nation.

In Australia it seems as if this fashioning requires our
Indigenous peoples to be portrayed as primitive and
savage. Most people who've been educated in Australia
hold racial stereotypes of Indigenous society. We've imbibed
these stereotypes as part of our education. Resistance and
refusal to ask anything different supports these stereotypes
and leads to discriminatory attitudes which contribute
to and impact Indigenous Australians.

Shattering these stereotypes is crucial to improving the lives
of Indigenous Australians. Our textbooks need to do better.

"In 2014–15, Indigenous women were 32 times as likely to be hospitalised due to family violence as non-Indigenous women."

Yep, just bad behaviour. </sarc>

But aboriginal women can be sacrificed in the name of protecting the fantasies about aboriginal culture.

What an absurd remark.

As if domestic violence only exists in
Indigenous societies.

As an exercise in getting the facts of aboriginal culture watching the writings and presentation on NITV that depict australian aboriginal thougt and claims and their social exclusitivity from our society.

This helps in understanding if they are part of a society in which they are equal or seperate for which they have a prefernce to be different. Do they want to become part of Australia and blend into or a culture they want to isolate from?

Josephus,

Indigenous people of Australia want self-determination
within the existing nation. They want to have a say
and be able to advise on laws that specifically affect
them. They want to be acknowledged constitutionally
as being the first people of the Australian continent.
They never ceded their sovereignty. They want truth
telling of history. All reasonable requests.

THE TRUTH ABOUT ABORIGINAL CULTURE>
The treatment which women experience must be taken into account in considering the causes which lead to the extinction of the native tribes. Amongst them the woman is an absolute slave. She is treated with the greatest cruelty and indignity, has to do all laborious work, and to carry all the burthens [sic]. For the slightest offence or dereliction of duty, she is beaten with a waddyu or yam stick and not infrequently speared. The records of the Supreme Court in Adelaide furnish numberless instances of blacks being tried for murdering lubras. The woman’s life is of no account if her husband chooses to destroy it, and no one ever attempts to protect or take her part under any circumstances. In times of scarcity of food, she is the last to be fed, and the last considered in any way. That many die in consequence cannot be a matter of wonder…” — George Taplin, The Native Tribes of South Australia, 1878

“After marriage, the women are compelled to do all the hard work of erecting habitations, collecting fuel and water, carrying burdens, procuring roots and delicacies of various kinds, making baskets for cooking roots and other purposes, preparing food, and attending to the children. The only work men do, in times of peace, is to hunt for opossums and large animals of various kinds, and to make rugs and weapons.” – James Dawson, Australian Aborigines: The Language and Customs of Several Tribes of Aborigines in the Western District of Victoria, 1881.

“Cont