Australian National Identity and the Perils of Oppression in Redfern Now

The TV series Redfern Now explores the challenges of Aboriginal people in Australia, particularly the perils of oppression in big cities. The episode 'Stand Up' tells the inspiring story of Joel Shields, who takes a courageous stand against the national identity debate. The article discusses the frustration and controversy surrounding the issue.

Running head: NATIONAL IDENTITY
National Identity
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Australian National Identity
There are not many television drama series that have been scripted to portray the
Aboriginal people in Australia other than the Poor Man’s Orange and The Harp in the South.
Both series featured an Aboriginal man. However, for Redfern now, the viewership is able to
see an Aboriginal drama series whose main actors are mainly aboriginal and it is amazing to
see that the TV series is written by Aboriginal people (Malinowski,2015 p. 66). . The series,
is currently in its second season and it explores the perils of walking between the mainstream
society and Aboriginal in a big city. The series show how aboriginal people are facing
oppression in the cities.
In the episode ‘stand up” there is an inspiring story of a young aboriginal lad by the
name Joel Shields making a courageous stand against oppression. This is one of the
challenges that aboriginal people go through daily in their lives. When Joel is granted a
scholarship in one of the prestigious private school, his whole family is excited. But one day,
while singing the national anthem, the headmistress notices that Joel mumbles along for a
few bars of the national anthem and falls silent (Judd, 2018 p.102).. Joel is called in the
assembly hall and a sympathetic English teacher asks him to learn the words of the National
Anthem assuming that he doesn’t know them. When he goes home, He tells his Dad Eddie of
what happened in schools and Eddie encourages him to stand his ground. For Eddie, it
doesn’t feel right to sing the national anthem noting that he, himself has never sung or stood
for the national anthem.
The next day an indigenous liason officer in the school advices Joel to just mouth the
words. His mother also advices him to conform but his encouraged by his dad not to drop his
principles (Bodkin-Andrews & Carlson,2016 p. 32). The next day, Joel takes it to a whole
new level by refusing to sing and sitting down when asked to sing the national anthem. This

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earns him an expulsion from the school. The other aboriginal students refuse to go out in
sympathy and also decide to sing or stand for the national anthem.
There has been general sense of frustration among Australians because the traditional
aboriginal people are falling further and further behind despite a lot of money being spent on
them. On the other hand, Other Australians are appalled by the sense of victimhood and
grievance on the part of the aborigines, even as they enjoy access of funds, opportunities and
growing prosperity by their right of who their grandparents were (Jansen, 2017 p. 78). Some
people believe that the Stand Up episode was an upright disgrace and an upright middle
finger in the face of the Australians who have stood by the aborigines. Colonization of
Australian has caused problems to the Aborigines and has caused them to lose their land,
destroyed family ties and drastically reduced their population.

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Bibliography
Bodkin-Andrews, G., & Carlson, B. (2016). The legacy of racism and Indigenous Australian
identity within education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 19(4), 784-807.
Jansen, T. (2017). Monsters: Australian mythology, national identity and the design of
Australian material culture.
Judd, B. (2018). Colonialism and Race Relations in Remote Inland Australia: Observations
from the Field of Australian Indigenous Studies. ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous
Studies and First Nations and First Peoples' Cultures, 1(2), 214-242.
Malinowski, B. (2015). The family among the Australian Aborigines: a sociological
study (Vol. 1). Library of Alexandria.
Links
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13613324.2014.969224
https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1/172/
www.cdu.edu.au/.../our-teams/barry-judd
mtpinnacle.com/htm/htm/book/Global-Politics:-A-New...

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