Millicent (case study/Stolen Generations) and Sally Morgan : MY Place: Excerpts: The Language of Prejudice
As a 9 year old, Rose is the victim of the Australian Government’s discriminatory and bigoted policies towards First Nations people.
Her family are fearful of the Welfare. She characterises the “Welfare” as a government body that implements discriminatory policies. They take the children based on stereotypical views that Aboriginal parents are inherently bad parents who cannot care for their children. As Rose states, owing to discriminatory attitudes in the community, “black people cannot get jobs”.
They have a derogatory attitude towards black people.
They are judged according to “White man’s standards” – these attitudes are discriminatory and unfair. The black man is set up to fail because they cannot put enough food in the cupboard according to a white man’s standard because they can’t get a job.
World of the text – Rose draws upon the 1950s racially divided historical period in Australia’s colonial Settlement. She typecasts the Welfare and the Police as discriminatory; they demonise the black people and seek to disperse them through the separation of families. they send the children to a children’s home.
The Welfare sends the children to the Allambie Children’s Home where they are traumatised and demoralised. The parents resort to alcohol and the youngest child becomes “lost”. In comparison, rose’s family are close-knit and emotionally supported and the parents work tirelessly to keep the family together.
According to Rose, the Welfare’s tactics to disrupt families ends up exacerbating marginalisation and disadvantage and poverty. and trauma.
Millicent is conditioned to believe that her Aboriginal background is ‘degrading”. Her cultural background is stigmatised and she is disheartened by the strong sense of contempt she experiences by the nuns.
The white people show derisive /contemptuous attitudes towards the Aboriginal people.
Owing to prejudiced attitudes, the Aboriginal people were “rounded up and put on missions”.
Sally Morgan, My Place
Susan and Jill refer to their Aboriginal background as a defect. They believe there is a stigma attached to their Aboriginality which is why Jill points out that it is a “terrible thing to be Aboriginal”.
Sally Morgan shows that there is a stigma attached to their Aboriginal culture/heritage. For this reason, they seek to distance themselves from their Aboriginal background because of the stigma that is connected to their culture.
Nan perpetuates the stereotype of disgrace when she encourages her grandchildren to identify as Indian: “Tell them you’re Indian”. This is because there is less stigma attached to an Indian background.
Sally juxtaposes two ethnicities – the Indian background is preferable to an Aboriginal background. This reflects the racist and bigoted views of her classmates and of the British colonisers.
Sally’s classmates have a derogatory attitude towards her – they claim that an Aboriginal is a “bad influence”.
Sally’s classmates differentiate between the stigma attached to an Indian and that of an Aboriginal background. They claim that an Indian background is preferable.
Sally Morgan internalises the stereotype of an Aboriginal child who is a “bad influence”. She learns that her cultural background is taboo. She feels ashamed by her background; she recognises the stigma attached to Aboriginality.
Sally internalises the stigma attached to her cultural background – that it is a “terrible thing to be Aboriginal”.
Nan has a dispirited attitude and fears rejection. She thinks that her grandchildren will disown her because being “black” is a “terrible” thing.
Sally realises that she, too must be “black”. She realises that the family has been in denial about their cultural identity.
Stan Grant criticises the white man’s bigoted mindset. The British treated the Aboriginal people as “sub-human”, “stone age savages”.
Some story elements; Style and tone and personal flavours
Rose’s story functions as a “case study”. She reveals her heart-felt sentiments about the family’s encounter with the Welfare authorities.
The family were living in South Gippsland and camped in the bush because it was well known that the “Welfare was taking the Koori kids from school never to be seen again”.
As a result, they living in a constant state of fear, huddled together trying to keep warm in front of the fire which “would burn all night”. Their facilities are rudimentary and they try to exist without attracting any attention. But the parents are determined to try to keep the children together and take steps to avoid attention. They do not walk the “same way” through the bush and avoid making a “beaten track”.
As a nine-year-old, Rose is tasked with looking after the four younger siblings which is an enormous burden and one that she is not able to uphold.
Through a very unfortunate set of circumstances, the welfare take the children when they are left unattended because Rose goes to town to get help for a baby who is crying. Rose feels guilty that because she walked through the bush and not along the main highway, the welfare take the children rather than her.
She depicts the Welfare authorities as ogre-like ; a malicious impersonal organisation that disrupts family lifestyles. They are constantly referred to as “the welfare” which magnifies the intangible threat.
Her authentic story includes features of Aboriginal English: “if they seen a group of Koori families together… “
Some statements:
- Human connections are a vital source of hope
Rose’s “very close family” provides both parents and siblings with warmth and love, hope and pride. They derive a strong sense of purpose from family bonds.
Rose becomes a surrogate maternal figure also caring for her siblings and develops a very strong sense of responsibility towards them.
The parents invest their whole sense of self within the family unit. Once the children are taken, the family unit disintegrates and the parents despair. They are not able to deal with the traumatic separation that pierces their heart.
The family relies heavily on each other for support, warmth and survival.
The Koori woman in the town also provides help and support.
Some Grammar
Notice the list of activities taken to avoid the Welfare: each quote/item is a past participle.
Her life is dominated/overshadowed by fear because of the threat of the Welfare and the police, which manifests in her secretive/surreptitious routine – the parents “pulled me out of school”; moved constantly; did not allow them to walk the same way in the bush; lived by themselves and did not make a “beaten track”.
Use a nominal instead of the how:
Through her anecdote/her personal stories she explores how she could not even walk along the highway without the fear of being murdered.
Through her anecdote/her personal stories she explores how she could not even walk along the highway without the fear of being murdered.
- Her aversion / fear of walking / inability to walk along the highway because of the fear of being murdered
See An Australian Anthology: a snapshot of literary landscapes