Deconstruction Essay on Indigenous Australians' Health

Running head: DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
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DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
Question that needs to be deconstructed “Why don’t Aboriginal people take an interest in their
own health?”
The health gap that prevails between the Indigenous Australians and that of the non
Indigenous Australians is reported in different articles (World Health Organization, 2018). Over
the years, various campaigns had been developed in the nation with an urge to meet the health
status gap between the two populations but hardly few had been able to meet their objectives and
goals. (Raman et al. 2017). The Indigenous people tend to experience poor health outcomes due
to various social determinants of health. These include the poor socioeconomic status, low
income, unemployment, lack of education and many others. In addition, they also face
discrimination, stigmatization and racism from the non-Indigenous Australians (Weetra et al.
2016). They often tend to make insensitive comments about the Indigenous Australians. This
assignment will mainly be based on one such insensitive question that is often asked by non-
Indigenous people who are not aware about the different aspects of the Aboriginal lives. The
assignment will try to shed light on the viewpoint of the people asking the question. It will also
show the real scenario of the Aboriginal population and the main reasons that contributed in their
poor health.
Present data shows that the life expectancy of the male Indigenous Australians is 69.1
years while that of the non-native males are the 79.7 years thereby showing a wide gap of 10.6
years. In case of the females, Indigenous Australians are seen to have a life expectancy of about
73.7 years with that of the non-native females who have the life expectancy of about 83.1 years
that shows a gap of about 9.5 years. Statistical analysis had shown that chronic disorders affect
the Indigenous Australians more in number than the non Indigenous Australians (Miley and
Read 2018).

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DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
On deconstructing the words in the question, one can ponder on three important phrases
that are “Australians”, “nor interested”, “health”. From analyzing the tone of the sentence, it
might seem like the speaker is trying to understand the reason for the poor health of the
Indigenous Australians but the sense of the question lies much deeper. This question reflects the
query of an insensitive speaker who had already accepted the fact that Indigenous Australians are
not all interested in the health and thereby have poorer health habits. Such a mentality of the
speaker shows the cultural biasness that the speaker possesses against the Indigenous Australians
(Gwyene et al. 2016). Lack of cultural awareness, cultural knowledge and cultural sensitivity
might make a person speak like this resulting in disrespecting other cultures. The tone of using of
the word “Aboriginals” is not positive and exhibits that they do not accept Indigenous
Australians as a part of their own nation (Sabbioni et al. 2018).
Discrimination, stigmatization as well as racism are still practiced by the non- Indigenous
Australians in the nation against the Indigenous Australians. This had been one of the other
reasons about the poor mental health condition of the patient as well as negative health
outcomes. A research conducted by Beyondblue had shown that non Indigenous Australians
have accepted that they have witnessed acts of discrimination towards the Indigenous Australians
by their fellow non Indigenous Australians (Beyondblue, 2014). The research conducted also
showed that one in five accounting for about 21% of the non Indigenous Australians have
accepted that they would move away if an Indigenous Australian sat beside them. Similar
percentage of people had also stated that they tend to notice the actions of the Indigenous
Australians in the retails stores as they feel that Indigenous Australians might steal or conduct
any criminal offences as they require money and are poor. About 1 in every 10 non Indigenous
Australians (accounting for about 12 %) accepted of cracking jokes about the Indigenous

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DECONSTRUCTION ESSAY
Australians and one in 10 people accounting for about 9% of the people stated that they would
avoid taking an Indigenous Australians as employees in his or her firms (Boyle 2017). About
one third of the non Indigenous Australians states that 37% of the Indigenous Australians are
lazy (Durey et al. 2016). Such a kind of thought procedure forces individual make insensitive
comments like that of the question that is asked. The survey conducted by Beyondblue also
shows that one in five or about 20% of the non-Indigenous Australians are of the opinion that
using various terms for calling the Indigenous Australians that are considered racists are
acceptable. They believe that calling the Indigenous Australians with names like “black people”,
“nomads” and others are acceptable. About one in five percent accounting for about 21 % of the
non-Indigenous Australians have accepted the fact that treating the Indigenous Australians as a
part of their communities are difficult for them (Brown et al. 2015). Therefore, one can easily
conclude that when such high levels of negative feelings are harbored by the non Indigenous
Australians, it automatically becomes difficult for them to try to find out the main cause of the
poor health of the native people. They consider it as the lack of own interests of the Indigenous
Australians in trying to mitigate their own health issues. It also reflects the casual attitude and
behavior of the non Indigenous Australians to take individual initiative for understanding the
rationale of the health issues of native people and acceptingly help them overcome their issues
(Moreton et al. 2015).
On deconstruction of the question and analyzing the knowledge of the speaker who have
asked the question, an interesting fact can be found. It seems that a complete lack of idea about
the history of the Indigenous Australians might have contributed in making such comments. The
present day citizens need to know about the exploitation that the ancestors of the Indigenous
Australians in the present generation had faced (Bird et al. 2016). These would help them to