Blog: Statehouse Observer

The Exotic Image

Anglo-built Aboriginality is a colonial infestation that has dispossessed and colonised us just as much as the theft of our lands. It drives us to adopt "cultural" practices that actually have nothing to do with our heritage, and to construct our own identities according to dominant culture stereotypes. After a couple of generations of living these lies, many of us actually start to believe them.

An embarrassing realisation based on self-examination reveals that this is why I play and make didgeridoos, even though I'm not descended from the Arnhem Land language groups who traditionally played the instrument. If I ever start posing on one leg and gazing mystically at the horizon, that'll be the end of me.

Teaching The Stereotypes

One day my neice came home from school with a poem that she claimed she had written in class. I was immediately suspicious, as the girl at that stage was still fairly illiterate, and spoke English with difficulty as it was her second language. I was horrified at the poem that had been written for/with her by the language support teacher. It was supposedly about my neice's identity, and I could see straight away that she had not had very much input at all, because the poem used language that was out of her realm of experience.

I also noticed the word "dreamtime" was included, which is a concept that is not part of my neice's worldview at all - it's a poor English translation of a concept from central Australia. I asked her what the word "dreamtime" meant, and she had said it meant going to bed early at night to be up and ready for school in the morning.

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