If you have seen the movie "Australia", you know that one of the back stories is about an aborigines boy who the authorities is trying to remove from his Mother to an orphanage.
I learned today what this story was about in reading my book "In a Sunburn Country".
Until the 20th Century it was not against the law to kill Aboriginal people! From about 1916 until the 1960s, the government could (and did) take any child away from Aboriginal parents "for any reason." They did not have to explain anything to the parents. The powers that be had decided that the parents would forget about them in a short time and it was better to separate the children so that the "Breed" would dissolve. At 18 the government simply released the children out on the street!
How's that for humanity?
I learned today what this story was about in reading my book "In a Sunburn Country".
Until the 20th Century it was not against the law to kill Aboriginal people! From about 1916 until the 1960s, the government could (and did) take any child away from Aboriginal parents "for any reason." They did not have to explain anything to the parents. The powers that be had decided that the parents would forget about them in a short time and it was better to separate the children so that the "Breed" would dissolve. At 18 the government simply released the children out on the street!
How's that for humanity?
1 comment:
Ask some Native Americans in Oklahoma who got moved by federal programs to California for some of the same reasons in the 50s, or taken from their homes in the 30s and before by the feds and sent to boarding schools (at a young age, away from their family) and beaten for speaking their native language.
The situation is not unique to Australia.... some similar things happened right here in Oklahoma.
Post a Comment