The first thing I noticed, aside from the amateurish font and layout (an eyesore for a web designer), was the difference in language compared with other film review sites, who perhaps tackled this delicate issue with some decorum, careful not to perhaps “offend” any Indigenous Australians with it’s language and opinion which might not be so reserved for the latest Hollywood blockbuster. “Racism Down Under” this review reads. “Rabbit Proof Fence Chronicles Treatment of Half-Castes”. I couldn’t resist – it was blatant that whoever wrote this was fairly uneducated in the sensitivity of certain Australian issues.

I did notice firstly that the word “Aboriginal” as an adjective was never used – as if the author was told that there was no such thing as “An Aboriginal”,

It was only recently that I decided to move to northern New South Wales, and found myself in the town of Casino – a culture shock to say the least. My semi-ignorant views became a little more solidified – but in a negative direction as I witnessed a town demographic I had never seen before, and suddenly I was perceiving a particular attitude and various quips about the “high population of Aboriginal occupants in Casino – just high enough to match the amount of pubs on every street corner”. Suddenly there were issues that needed to be confronted. For so long the only ideas I had about Aboriginal people, were those I had collected through my limited life experience in a “white middle class environment.” In my opinion, they were overpaid by the government (issues that only surfaced when I personally, had quibbles with Centrelink), they drank too much, they didn’t look after their children, out in public, and they didn’t want to work, preferring to scam money off of a Government which felt guilty, which to my opinion was due to a change in awareness and thinking when it came to it’s previous mistakes in the 1930s, which are all the classic urban myths of an “uneducated white middle class Australia”.

The first thing that came to my mind is “good on them…if they can pull it off”.

I personally would like to see this “Arts Integration” branch out into the field of popular music. Until now, the average “White Australian” has only seen Aboriginal music as being banging sticks together and blowing into hollowed out, painted pieces of wood. This can still exist under the category of “Traditional Indigenous Music”. But I believe that a more contemporary approach is needed to reach the minds of the younger generation – those who will be judges and jury of the next generation. Should they grow up believing that Aboriginal kids are ‘different?’ Or just a ‘different skin colour?’ “Immediately there are problems of interpretation – does race stand for skin colour, or geographical place of birth, or nationality, or culture, or something else – some essential psychic or moral quality that can be differentiated” (Jakubowicz, 1994, p.28)

Some topics in this essay:
Indigenous Australians, Study Guide, Deborah Mailman, South Wales, Indigenous Music”, White Australian”, Strait Islander, Australian Indigenous, You’re Aborigine, Secret Life, indigenous australians, middle class, indigenous people, “white middle, indigenous students enrolled, non-indigenous australians, social commentary, secret life, education institutions, indigenous students, australian indigenous, “white middle class, integration indigenous people, indigenous people film, students enrolled education,