Hullo Aboriginal Youth

I'm worn out talking about the politics of indigenous affairs even though that is important.  I want to spend time talking to indigenous youth.

During my years as a professional educator I had a lot of happy contact with young Aboriginal persons. I now despair when I read of the numbers of young Aboriginal youth who are in prison and of those who have taken the extreme measure of suicide.

Listen you guys out there  I've wondered over the years from my contacts with you as students in schools that I had responsibility for, whether you carried a sense of having to keep up some sort of a fight against the non indigenous peoples of our great land.  It would be understandable that your parents, uncles and aunties had told you of the discriminatory experiences that their forebears and they themselves had suffered.  They may even have expressed anger and frustration that it seemed to be around even in this 21st century.  Be that as it may I am sure that these your loving guardians as you grow up would not want you to be acting up at the pointy end of criminal activity.  Rather they would want you to work for your Aboriginal brothers and sisters to find a respected place within the various communities of Australia.

There is so much to be done to ensure that the indigenous peoples of this land, the First Peoples, can walk with heads held high proud of who they are and respected by all Australians.  You young guys and girls are the future of indigenous Australia in sport, in business, in the arts and in politics.  There is no time to waste.  It is you who will educate non indigenous Australians to understand how your people are of the land and how much this means in your culture.  You need to preserve your history inclusive of language(s).  Only you can do it.  Only you can convince your peers to live lawful lives and to contribute to the advancement of indigenous Australia.

A very important job is that you look after your elders who have experienced the worst of cultural disruption.  You need to do everything in your power to help these elders to have optimism that at last  non indigenous Australia is beginning to get it in respect of their indigenous brothers and sisters.  Your old ones deserve to have some degree of reassurance in their final years that all is not lost.

Remember that there are now many Australians who have migrated here from many lands and these people may have only a minimal understanding of the story of indigenous Australians from 1788 when a bunch of convicts arrived from England on the shores of NSW.  These new Australians if you like need education from you guys, need help to understand indigenous history and culture(s).

Go for it young Aboriginal people.  Rejoice in what each of you can do positively as individuals and collectively.  Respect for who you are is growing, make no mistake, but more remains to be done.

Enough already!

GD