Assignment on Indigenous People 2022

Running head: ASSIGNMENT ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
ASSIGNMENT ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
ASSIGNMENT ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Introduction:
Tobacco smoking is widespread among the Aboriginal and Torres
Islander people in the nation. It has been found that about 39% of the native
population smokes daily in the year 2014-2015. The prevalence smokers
were found to be quite higher for about 42% when compared to females who
accounted for about 36% of the smokers in the native communities (Tremain
et al., 2016). Smokers were higher in the remote areas and accounted for
about 47% in comparison to native smokers in the non-remote areas
accosting for about 37%. While discussing about the health concerns like
smoking, many of the healthcare researchers and authors have used
different types of opinions to justify their points and opinions. It has been
found that negative behaviors, cultural biasness and prejudices are harbored
by many of such authors that affect the self-respect of the native people and
make them feel humiliated (Sitas et al., 2018). On the other hand, positive
opinions and motivations of such authors contribute to better morale and
health development of the native people. This assignment would depict three
media articles which would help in understanding how authors show
negative, neural or positive behaviors through their writings and comments
that affect the dignity of the native people.
Article number 1:
One of the articles that have been chosen for analysis is the article
published under Voa News on 2nd December in the year 2018. This article
had talked about the high prevalence of smoking in the nation and even tried
to discuss about the various factors that had contributed to the increased
smoking rate in the nation among the Indigenous communities. He has been
of the opinion that many programs had indeed been established that had
helped in reduction of the number of smoking among them but still the
present number of smokers among the Indigenous communities are quite
high. This can be supported as it has been seen that although Close the Gap

2
ASSIGNMENT ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
and Closing the Gap campaigns had been established, it had not been able
to bring out successful impacts on the communities (Lindberg et al., 2016).
Many governmental and non-governmental agencies had come up with many
programs but it had resulted in very slow decrease in the number of
smokers. Between the years of 2004-2005 to that of 2014-2015, the
prevalence of daily smoking had reduced only by 8.6% from that of 50% to
41.4% that indeed shows a slow progress. Hence, the opinions made are true
as that can be backed by evidence. This had followed a
neutral tone of
discussion showing neither
negative attitude nor
positive appreciation for
the native people. The author had been also
neutral in approach when he
reported about the historical event that had is considered to be one of the
factors that contribute to smoking issues in native communities. He is of the
opinion that tobacco was exchanged with labor from Indigenous people.
Tobacco also formed a part of ration in the missions where native people
were kept before converting them into Christianity. Discussion of the
sensitive issues by the author had been done in a
neutral approach
enabling the readers to derive information and knowledge from the
discussions (Gould et al., 2016). However, one important aspect had been
noted that exhibits cultural biasness and hidden prejudices within the author.
He tried to discuss about the present high level of smoking among the
Indigenous people and in order to do so he wanted to talk about Indigenous
leader Simone Jordan and his commitment in developing centers to
encourage giving up of smoking among the inhabitants. However, in order to
express this
positive news, he had written “About a third of aboriginal
adults smoke, including Simone Jordan, an aboriginal leader involved in
setting up a center in Sydney”. This automatically shows the biasness he has
when he included the name of the leader within the native people which was
not at all necessary to be expressed. This kind of culturally-insensitive
approach can affect the morale and dignity of the native communities when
they feel that their leaders are targeted for discrimination and prejudices.
This would make the readers upset and disappointed about the approach.