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People are becoming very wealthy on the poverty of our people
by Prof. Gracelyn Smallwood 27 August 2015
S
ince the NT Intervention, Alcohol Management Plans and the introduction of the Basics Card, there has been a massive increase in the consumption of illegal drugs, outbreak in family violence and abuse, appallingly high unemployment rates and an insatiable ingestion of home brews and other toxic substances. Known activists are in accord
that prohibition does not work and it is those respected leaders who were never consulted by successive governments on social policies for our people, that has, at the end of the day, hastened genocidal trends of First Nations People today. We are now seeing the horrific end results of increased suicides, increased renal failures, increased incarceration, increased violence and abuse and rising deaths of all ages in every community that could have been avoided.
Where are all the researchers and organisations that received massive dollars from the government to try and close the gap? Are they still trying to reinvent the wheel? Where are their research outcomes aimed at closing the gap? Why are our people still the most disadvantaged group in society today? It appears the more things change the more they stay the same! This week the mayor of Mount Isa called for a curfew on young people and said if they are on the
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streets after hours, they should be removed by DOCs and placed in a so called ‘safe environment’. Most of those young kids are not committing crime so why are they being singled out for special attention when all they’re doing is escaping something they shouldn’t be witnessing at home. Activist Dr Gary Foley said years ago, “If every Black Australian dropped dead tomorrow, the unemployment amongst white people would double in this country”. That figure would now be four times white unemployment, if we all passed on today. We all know the lawyers, anthropologists, financial advisors, nurses, doctors and consultants on all aspects of Indigenous disadvantage - who’ve been hanging around our mob for years - are raking in the big bucks. And what of those white people who worm their way into black organisations with the promise to train local murries up to take over their jobs - as part of a succession plan - and yet they are still in those senior jobs well after their expiry dates. We all know the good whitefellas who are not in it for the money and they know who they are and would appreciate what’s being said here in this context. So many people are becoming very wealthy on the poverty of our people. They are reinventing the wheel in research. We already know about racism and unresolved trauma, grief and loss. NGOs and institutions are employing both black and white people in positions, to try and close the gap. The majority of these people employed are very inexperienced and therefore set them up for failure and
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Professor Smallwood said she ‘thought all those protest marches of the 70s and 80s were meant to rid our community organisations of coconuts and meant to achieve self determination where we have black ownership and management of our affairs’. Image: nma.gov.au
the GAP continues to widen, whilst resources continue to be wasted. These so called white experts and those black gammon experts are not even meeting the Key Performance Indicators for the communities they’re meant to represent. Very rarely are independent audits done on Aboriginal organisations. The loudest noise I’m hearing on all of this is the conspicuous silence from disgruntle leaders. Where has the speaking out gone to as we watch helplessly by while attending yet another Sorry business of our young people, OUR FUTURE. Unless people start making a noise through protest or media stories we will continue to see white people running our organisations and the gammon blackfellas - board members and staff - condoning what these white people say and do as being in ‘our best interest’.
I thought all those protest marches of the 70s and 80s were meant to rid our community organisations of coconuts and meant to achieve self determination where we have black ownership and management of our affairs. When will our youth stop committing suicide? When will our children stop seeing violence within their homes? When will our people stop taking drugs, drinking and gambling excessively when their worlds are collapsing around them. When is this nightmare going to stop? Martin Luther King said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We need to break the silence of apathy and become proactive and loud. We need to reclaim our lives and stop relying on others to shape our destiny.