NAIDOC: Breaking down the ‘us’ and ‘them’

Eve Jeffery

This article first appeared in The Echo July 2014

There are few who would disagree that Arakwal woman Yvonne Stewart is a strong, intelligent woman who is a role model for indigenous people, in particular, Aboriginal girls.
This assumption is flawed in that Yvonne is actually a strong, intelligent woman who is a role model for all people regardless of race and, in particular, a wonderful example to all girls regardless of nationality or creed. And there’s the rub for reconciliation.
Too often white fellas, in their ‘tolerance’ of the first peoples, relegate Aboriginal Australians to a ‘them and us’ status as a nation and a people. White Australia, in its rush to fall over itself over-compensating for the horrors of the past, is missing the point: we can only be reconciled when we are one body of humanity.
It has become a habit in recent years for the worst type of separation to happen and it is not helping the ‘Aboriginal problem’…READ MORE