Deconstruction Essay on Aboriginal People and Substance Abuse

Running head: DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
Deconstruction essay
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1DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
Deconstruction Essay
Topic- Why are Aboriginal people prone to alcohol and substance abuse?
Introduction
Deconstruction essay is a type of writing that helps to question the traditional
assumptions about the identity, truth and the certainty of a certain issue. In order to
understand the truth of a certain question it us necessary to break down the question in to its
constituent parts to find out the hidden meaning. In deconstruction normally the critic claims
that there is typically no meaning in the actual text but in various mutually irreconcilable
virtual truth developed by the readers. This essay would deconstruct the essay –“Why are
Aboriginal people prone to alcohol and substance abuse? In order to find out the truth behind
the statement, we will analyse the question critically supported by literary sources.
Terminologies
At first it is necessary analyse each and every terms of this statement. The most
important terms that catches the attention, is the chosen population; that is the “aboriginal
people”. Aborigines are the indigenous people of Australia that consisted of about 400000
aboriginal people. They consists of 2% of the total Australian people. The land of the first
people were invaded at the end of the 18th century having some really catastrophic effects on
them (Burridge, 2014). The history of European colonisation and unfair Australian policy
have had a devastating effect on these people that have contributed to problems like
discrimination, alcohol and substance abuse, violence , chaos and inequality (Sherwood,
2013). The second term is the alcohol or substance use. Alcohol is an umbrella term that is
used to describe a wide number of alcoholic drinks. Among the drugs, heroine and cannabis
are the ones that are mainly preferred by the Australians.

2DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
Assumptions
Whenever we hear the word “aboriginal” the first image that comes to our mind are
dark skinned people with strange names who earn their living by cultivating crops and
hunting. The light of education has not touched them yet, they are community centred and the
mainly avoids any confrontations with the white men. These are some of the common notions
regarding the aboriginal people. In order to understand the truth one needs to be acquainted
with the actual aboriginal history of the past.
The aboriginals are the first people of Australia, who were believed to have arrived at
the Australian continent around 45,000 year’s age (Burridge, 2014). Before the invasion the
aboriginal people used to live throughout the Australian continent, with the highest
population residing along the coast (Burridge, 2014). Ever since the invasion of the British,
these first Australians were ousted from their land. This land loss have had terrible social and
physical impact on the aboriginal people. The invasions have sparked huge waves of diseases
that had killed thousands of people (Paradies, 2016). One of the most brutal step taken up by
the then government is that the aboriginal children were being taken away from the aboriginal
parents and were given to white families of missionary homes in order to erase the trace of
Aboriginal culture (Burridge, 2014).
It was necessary to explore the aboriginal past in order to evaluate the credibility of
the question and to understand the mind set with which the question has been placed. While
deconstructing the question another notable term that should be considered is the term
"alcohol'. Alcohol is a term that can be used to describe any forms of alcoholic drinks
available to the aboriginals. A stereotype feeling again comes in the way, that the Australian
aboriginal are subjected to have low quality of alcohol other than the normal alcohol
consumed by the white Australians (AIATSIS, 2011).