Message to media: We are people too

NATIONAL: NICOLE WATSON* is sick of seeing the same negative stories printed in newspapers. It fails to showcase the real strength and humanity in Aboriginal communities right around the country.

There are times when I avoid reading a newspaper, because I know intuitively that if there is an Aboriginal story, it is likely that the writer has painted a picture of dysfunction and hopelessness.

I would never try to deny the grinding poverty and tragedy that afflicts so many of our people.

But if we allow the adversity to define us, then we deny that part of our humanity that gives us so many reasons for hope.

In this column I will name just a few of those reasons.

Our resilience is extraordinary, as is our capacity for forgiveness.

Growing up, I often heard stories of the indignities and hardships that our elders endured, at a time when bureaucrats wielded so much power over their lives.

Whenever the aunties and uncles reflected on their experiences, I would wait for the inevitable bitterness.

But it never came. Our sense of community is awe-inspiring.

In my personal experience, those who best understood it were my two great-grandmothers.

Granny Roberts and Granny Watson were very different women, but both had a seemingly limitless capacity for generosity.

Neither had money, but they always shared whatever food and clothing they had with whoever needed it.

As an adult I have met other Aboriginal people who have similar stories of great-grandmothers who were giants.

Like me, they never knew how privileged they were, until those giants were gone.

One of our greatest strengths is our ability to laugh in the face of adversity.

To this day I am still mesmerised by my father’s stories of the brutality police unleashed on young black radicals in the 1970s.

But even at his worst moments, my father would always find a way to make light of the pain, the injustice.

Not only were the activists of the 1970s fearless, but they were also resourceful.

That they established community survival programs with little funding, but truckloads of grit, is something that we can be very proud of.

Today the resilience, selflessness and ingenuity of our elders, continues to find resonance across Australia.

The unsung heroes of our community organisations drive school buses, cook meals for people who would otherwise go hungry, offer comfort to those struggling with addiction and provide support to victims of domestic violence.

Most do this for neither recognition nor a high salary, but for the love of their people.

The Aboriginal Legal Services are an example of the many community organisations that deliver essential services in the face of obstacles that, at times, must appear insuperable.

Paltry government funding means that staff in these places work long hours and earn less than their counterparts in mainstream legal aid.

The work is so stressful that some last for only a brief stint before declining health necessitates a career change.

But many of the lawyers and field officers in the ALS movement have been there for decades.

Unsung heroes are not only in our community organisations, but also in our homes.

Each one of us is aware of an Aboriginal parent who makes great personal sacrifice in order to give their kids the opportunities they missed out on.

Perhaps, you dear reader, are one of them. Many of us who do not have children relish being aunties and uncles to the children in our extended families and communities.

In spite of everything that has happened to us, we’re still proud of our identity and we jealously guard it.

I cannot comprehend the agony of being taken away from my family and then raised to equate Aboriginality with inferiority.

But I honour those Stolen Generations survivors who have fought to reclaim the identity that was seized from them.

While the media has done much to highlight domestic violence in our communities, it has ignored the courageous steps taken by some of our men to face up to this difficult issue.

In recent years, Aboriginal men in places such as Alice Springs, Katherine and Brisbane, have marched against violence. I salute those deadly brothers.

We are a resourceful people who have created a myriad of ways to maintain our dignity in the face of policies whose only intent was to dehumanise.

For the most part, our goals are humble.

We want the things that are our due as Australian citizens. But we also demand that the rights that belong to us as Aboriginal people are respected.

After two centuries, surely it’s time for Australians to accept that we don’t want to become the same as them.

We know all too well the harm that the persistent denial of our humanity has caused to us.

But I wonder if the vast majority of Australians have any real grasp of the harm that it is doing to them?

*Nicole Watson is a Murri lawyer and researcher with the Jumbunna Indigenous Housing of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney.