My favourite short sharp history podcast covers Sorry Day. Worth a listen. https://theretrospectors.com/when-australia-said-sorry/ #TodayInHistory #Australia #reconciliation #SorryDay

#sorryday #australia #perth #westernaustralia #naidoc #reconciliation #bringingthemhome #aboriginal

We will come in at our National Treasure Dr Fiona Stanley all out of chewing gum.

https://youtu.be/bEnW2Uego7I?t=4480

By all means watch the whole thing if you want, but that and Uncle Walter's lovely welcome were the highlights for me.

5/5 #SorryDay #StolenGenerations #FirstNations

In closing this thread, I send love to all the Stolen Generations survivors, and those who never made it back Home.

My thoughts are with First Nations families and communities still feeling the loss of family members, and have seen the trauma their loved ones carry/ied.

I'm thinking of the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are still being forcibly taken from their families - being denied love of family, and connections to family, community, language, culture, lore and Country. I admire the work of activists fighting for them to come Home.

Justice and truth-telling are core to what is needed - retribution, repatriation, reparations, and healing intergenerational trauma caused by the forced removal and enslavement of First Nations children. And white people need to stop repeating the past.

Please take a moment to remember the Stolen Generations today.

This is not the right time for settlers to post about vote yes, or alleviate their white guilt, so please be respectful.

5/5 #SorryDay #StolenGenerations #FirstNations

In closing this thread, I send love to all the Stolen Generations survivors, and those who never made it back Home.

My thoughts are with First Nations families and communities still feeling the loss of family members, and have seen the trauma their loved ones carry/ied.

I'm thinking of the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are still being forcibly taken from their families - being denied love of family, and connections to family, community, language, culture, lore and Country. I admire the work of activists fighting for them to come Home.

Justice and truth-telling are core to what is needed - retribution, repatriation, reparations, and healing intergenerational trauma caused by the forced removal and enslavement of First Nations children. And white people need to stop repeating the past.

Please take a moment to remember the Stolen Generations today.

This is not the right time for settlers to post about vote yes, or alleviate their white guilt, so please be respectful.

4/ #SorryDay #StolenGenerations #Indigenous

If interested in educating yourself, below are some more resources.

Movies, documentaries:
Servant of Slave, 2015 Screen Australia.

Lousy Little Sixpence, 1983, directed and produced by Alec Morgan, co-produced by Gerry Bostock.

Books:

Jane Harrison, 2006, Stolen, Currency Press

Marie Munkara, 2014, A Most Peculiar Act, Magabala Books (teachers notes available)

Sally Morgan, Sister Heart, Freemantle Press (teachers notes available)

Doris Pilkington Garimara - University of Queensland Press
(1991) Caprice: A Stockman’s Daughter.
(1996) Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence
(2002) Under the Wintamarra Tree.
(2006) Home to Mother.

(2006) Home to Mother. All from University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.

Non fiction
Natalie Harkin, 2019, Archival-Poetics, 2019, Vagabond Press

Rita Huggins and Jackie Huggins, 1994 (republished 2005), Aunty Rita, Aboriginal Studies Press

Betty Lockyer, 2009, Last Truck Out, Magabala Books

Archie Roach, 2020, Tell Me Why: the story of my life and my music, Simon & Schuster Australia

Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter (Illustrator), 2020, They Took The Children Away, Simon & Schuster Australia

3/ #SorryDay #StolenGenerations #Indigenous

Government removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children commenced in the early 1900s. Before then, settlers were stealing First Nations children (women and men) without government authorisation.

The policies that allowed the forced removal of children ended in the 1980s.

However, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are currently being removed at far greater rates than ever in the history of invasion and colonisation of this continent. https://cacyp.com.au/update-inquiry-into-aboriginal-children-removals-and-placement/

Too many setters argue that all the bad things happened a long time ago, but the Stolen Generations, enslavement and Stolen Wages happened in many of their lifetimes. And the bad things are still happening.

In recent years, Sorry Day has also become a day of activism for the many children still being removed, wage theft, and the unfinished business of the Bringing Them Home Report recommendations. This activism is First Nations-led, and does not over-shadow Sorry Day's purpose of a day of remembrance for the Stolen Generations.

And no, the voice will not stop the bad things happening - it's one more toothless committee the government will ignore, just like previous committees and governments - so don't fucking @ me, I don't care how you intend to vote.

2/ #SorryDay #StolenGeneration s #Indigenous

These State and Federal governments' practices of child removal was based on eugenics and was a form of genocide. Christian doctrines underlined these removals, and churches run many of the institutions the children were incarcerated in.

Basically, the idea behind the removals was to quicken the eradication of First Peoples (to create easier access to land and resources for settlers) by removing children and forcing them to assimilate. Alongside this was State control of Aboriginal women and girls relationships and reproduction rights.

This forced removal of children by government and church is a form of genocide, recognised in the UN Convention of Genocide > https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

At the same time, First Peoples were regarded as a free source of labour to build the new empire. So the children were trained in basic skills, and then sent out to work on farms/stations, businesses, and in private homes, as young as 9 years old.

They were not paid, and would be captured if they escaped. They were given basic shelter and food, and often subjected to physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Pregnant girls/women would be sent back to the Homes (institutions). Once they'd given birth, the baby was taken and the girl/woman sent back to work.

This domestic servitude and labouring was a form of slavery > https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/10-things-you-should-know-about-slavery-in-australia/i0nc7x4vw

This enslavement finished by the 60s in Australia. People are still fighting for their stolen wages.

TBC

Acknowledging that today (26 May) is the 26th Sorry Day. And I am thinking of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people stolen by government and church, and the many who never came home 💗 :firstnations:

#SorryDay is a day of remembrance for the many 1000s of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children forcibly removed from their families and communities. And a day of reflecting on the the pain their families felt, and the intergenerational impact.

The word sorry in Sorry Day does not refer to apology or regret. It comes from the Indigenous practices and protocols of grief and loss, known as Sorry Business.

Sorry Day centres First Nations people who suffered loss due to these race-based government policies, not on settlers who feel remorse/white guilt.

This annual day of remembrance is one of the very few actioned recommendations of the 1997 Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families (Bringing Them Home Report), which was the result of a royal commission >https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/bringing-them-home-report-1997

The Healing Foundation has more information about the Stolen Generations, including an excellent portal of resources > https://healingfoundation.org.au/

In the next post (ie linked) I'll do a quick explainer on Sorry Day and the Stolen Generations >

#Indigenous #FirstNations #AboriginalAndTorresStraitIsldners #StolenGeneration #SorryDay

For those people who assure us ‘I’m not a racist’ but Spud makes some compelling points, please try this experiment on #SorryDay

1. Find a couple of first home buyers who have repeatedly failed to secure the purchase of a home - they might even be your family or friends.

Say ‘Sorry’ for their situation and ask if there’s anything the government could do to make it better. Note carefully whether the foundations of your own home shake as a result.

2. Find a family who has recently lost their rental home and is now homeless because they can’t afford the latest rent hike or maybe they’ve had work hours arbitrarily cut.

Say ‘Sorry’ that they are not to blame for the situation they are in and ask what would make things better for them in this period of crisis. See whether your roof leaks in response to your humanity.

3. Find a victim of sexual assault who’s case failed because the defence counsel of the accused individual or organisation found a legal loophole to indemnify the (allegedly) guity party.

Say ‘Sorry’ and ask whether the process could have been handled better. Hope that in future we might become a fairer and less brutal society. Realise you could just have helped someone you love.

4. Read the #UluruStatementFromTheHeart and listen to the #YesToTheVoice case.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/25/peter-dutton-seeking-to-amplify-misinformation-on-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-albanese-says