Exploring Racism and Its Effects on Aboriginal Identity in Australia

This essay provides an overview of the racism faced by Aboriginal people in Australia, tracing its historical roots and contemporary manifestations. It highlights how Aboriginal Australians have experienced discrimination in various aspects of life, including living conditions, healthcare, education, employment, and cultural practices. The essay discusses the impact of racism on the health, wellbeing, and socioeconomic status of Aboriginal communities, including the detrimental effects of the Stolen Generations policy. It explores the role of institutional and interpersonal racism in perpetuating inequalities, and examines the social determinants that contribute to these disparities. The essay also reflects on the author's enhanced understanding of these issues through weekly tutorials, emphasizing the need for policies and practices that promote equality, justice, and respect for human rights within Australian society. The essay references several scholarly articles and books to support its arguments, illustrating the complexities of Aboriginal identity and the ongoing struggle against racism.

Australian Aboriginal Identity
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Racism faced by Aboriginal people
The aboriginal people are living with Australia from more than two centuries within the
harsh environment and also with less facilities to develop a better living being. They are being
experiencing racism from year in term of their living, health, education, employment, land and
culture. According to Elliott. D., 2019, Aboriginal people are continuously being undermines
over their working rights and other welfare scope. This community is suffering from higher
poverty and also having a lower life expectancy as comper to other Australian. They have to deal
with a regular violence and abuse. The racism toward the aboriginal people is ruling from
hundreds of year which is getting recreated in every new generation. Today it is due to the
interest of ruling class within taking up the labor, land and resources from aboriginal people and
driving wedge between them and is not a outcome of any stupidity or lack of education. It is
deliberately encouraged by the mainstream press, big businesses and government.
On other side the Cave, L., Shepherd, C. C., Cooper, M. N. and Zubrick, S. R. 2019,
stated that the racial discrimination is identified as the main cause behind the health and living
condition of aboriginal people as it negatively impact over their health. This racism which
aboriginal people mainly faces have a direct impact over their mental as well as psychological
health. The racism impact over health and wellbeing of people is found which get initiated
through physiological dysregulation, maladaptive psychology responses and changes within the
health behavior of people like use of substance to reduce stress or disturbance in sleeping pattern.
Other than this due to racism factor within country, the aboriginal people also get less access to
better medical facility which is also consider to be one of the major factor due to which the
community is compromising over their health and wellbeing.
In continuation to this Markwick, A., Ansari, Z., Clinch, D. and McNeil, J. 2019,
explained that today the indigenous Australian are also continuously facing yup the institutional
as well as interpersonal racism which in sustaining their low socio-economic status by keeping
them separated from the land ownership as well as economic opportunity. Other than this from
study it has been found that the men and women are expected to live 10.6 and 9.5 years less than
the white Australian men and women. Despite of this it has bene found that the social
determinants had a larger impact over the association among the racism and indigenous status
instead of the lifestyle risk factor. It has been claimed that the indigenous people are less likely to
get affected with racism then the poor lifestyle choice as they consumer more alcohol. But as per
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the study it has been found that they are less likely to consume alcohol then the white Australian.
Other than this study it has been found that the indigenous people with lower socioeconomic
status are less likely to experience racism whether it can be measured over educational
attainment, household income etc. The Racism is expected to be found more among the higher
socioeconomic status people as they have to get regular exposed with another society which keep
them criticize of being a person from indigenous community.
In continuation to this, Gilbert, S., 2019, express views over stolen generation as well as
racism as a negative social determinant which has affected the living of indigenous people to a
great extent. This is so because it has been found that the aboriginal peoples are living within the
harsh environment they inhabited and develop a way of living which is rich within spirituality,
art, music and storytelling. But after the arrival of British to Australia in year 1788 leads to
decimation of people belong to indigenous community through violence and massacres. They
also introduce with many of the diseases as well as loss of land, resources and traditional
lifestyle. This is the actual root from where a discrimination factor taken place within Australia
among indigenous community of country. After year 1911 all the state of Australia has appointed
as the chief protector with the power to control the lives of indigenous people. At this situation
the aboriginal people were also required to take permission before moving from one place to
another. After that a policy of assimilation has taken place which was represented as a method to
reduce racism and enhancing the living standard of people. Under this policy the children of
aboriginal people are forcefully removed from their community as well as families. These
children were taken within the society of white Australian society with an aim to improve their
living, providing them a better life and reducing the racism they have to face with other society.
These children were placed within the dormitories, non-indigenous foster homes or get adopted
by some of the non-indigenous people. This policy has bring up a huge shift within living of
aboriginal people where the main aim was to eradicate the aboriginal people to the distinct
cultural group. The policies not only lead to an increase within the racism practices but also
disrupt the families, culture and community.
Along with this the O’Donnell, M., Taplin, S., Marriott, R., Lima, F., and Stanley, F. J.
2019, stated that the diversity of this policy of assimilation the aboriginal children from the
different stated and territory are being removed from their family and parents as a part of stolen
generation. This around the country the legacy of stolen generation era has also devastating the
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impact over the immediate survivors and the descendants. This stolen generation bring up a huge
impact over the life of children as they were getting a harsh, inhumane ad degrading treatment.
Other than this majority of children are forcefully being separated from their culture, community
and families and also forbidden to speak up native language and many of them has been
forcefully believed that their family has relinquished as they are unloved. These children faced a
negative phase of the society where they are being criticized, child labor practiced and also being
teach with basic numeracy, literacy and life skills as a part of racism and discrimination. Due to
this many of the children get into mental trauma which was very harder to treat and rest of them
are getting very low development as a person which in turn also limited their access to
employment and a better life.
Hence it can be said that to reduce the discrimination and racism the government took
action toward a new policy of assimilation where the children are keeping away from their
parents forcefully and lead them live with the white Australian as they think that children are
much easier to convert their mindset and make them accept new culture as compare to adult. But
the practices was to force children to forget about their culture, racial and origin and accept the
culture of non-indigenous people. This in turn has widen the gap among the indigenous and non-
indigenous people as this policy not emphases toward equaling the social status which in turn
increases the racism factor more within society (Wenzel and et. al., 2018). As when the children
are not facing this racism until they get into other society with a medium of employment and
education they are experiencing that racism issue at very basic level in the beginning of their life
due to stolen generation which in turn affecting their mental health with the increasing issue of
racism.
From these weekly tutorials my knowledge and understanding toward the aboriginal
people and issues they are facing has been enhanced. As previously I was bot much aware about
the issues that are involve within the society of indigenous people and I only heard about some
of the cases where such people are being discriminated on the bases of their place within
employment and also get less access to employment opportunity. But by becoming the part of
this weekly activities I went through a range of discussion, reading of scholarly paper and
information shared among the class mates. These all support me a lot to develop my knowledge
and learning about aboriginal people and their living practices. With the help of this module I
came to know the cause root of racism and discrimination among the aboriginal people and from
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where it began. But after going through this, I become able to enhance my knowledge in this
regard and ai also become able to upgrade my knowledge in this regard. With this I came to learn
that the aboriginal people are also being criticized over their original and community relations.
Other than this they area also force to leave their community, land and resources by getting ruled
by the other people within the society. Additionally, I also learnt that even the policies
formulated toward improving the living standard of aboriginal people and providing them a
better life also indirectly increasing issues for them. A great example of it was found with the
assimilation policy formulated by the government of Australia where they instead of providing a
equality and just treatment within society to accept the aboriginal people as a part of life (El-
Assi, Mahmoud and Habib, 2017). They take yup their children separated them and left within
another community forcefully where they face more racism, discrimination and also get
assaulted. As a result of which these children and their family have face a mental trauma in trem
of depression, anxiety, stress, poor health condition and also remain at socio economic
disadvantage.
During whole this weekly session I went through the information my interest toward
further gaining information about it also get enhanced and after getting all this information and
developing deep understanding about it my view toward world has changed. As I found that the
racism is not only remains a part of false belief or lack of education rather it remains within the
mind, behavior and ruling desire of people where they just want to keep the people belong to
minority group or people it disadvantage to always remain at the bottom of the society. They do
not want them to grew and get a better lifestyle which is the main cause behind increasing
discriminatory practices (Wenzel and et. al., 2018). But this is not right and each individual have
a right to improve their living standard, treated fairly without any discrimination and also get
valued over the human rights. Additionally I believed that the government must focuses toward
creating such policies and practices where the indigenous people get ace to all tej facilities and
growth opportunity so that they become able to improve their living condition nad get a better
access to the healthy living.
From the above mentioned information it can be said that the racism is a issues which
instead of getting reduce with the changing time and education development, it is getting more
sever to the aboriginal people. As earlier the aboriginal people are being discriminated as per the
living facilities, color etc. but now found racialism as a barrier to their education, job
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opportunities, getting a better status within the society, health services, access to land, resources
etc. This issues are getting more increased after the stolen generation where children are
separated from families and force to adopt new culture which created more belief among the
non-indigenous people to consider aboriginal people as lower in term of social status and the
violence over the human right of aboriginal people also get increased. These all negative societal
factors are affecting the mental health of aboriginal people and more and more cases related with
mental health issue found within the aboriginal people.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journal
Cave, L., Shepherd, C. C., Cooper, M. N., & Zubrick, S. R. (2019). Racial discrimination and the
health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children: Does the timing
of first exposure matter?. SSM-population health. 9. 100492.
De Bono, A. (2017). Seeing Aboriginal history in black and white: the contested history of the
Stolen Generation. NEW: Emerging scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies, 1-8.
El-Assi, W., Mahmoud, M. S., & Habib, K. N. (2017). Effects of built environment and weather
on bike sharing demand: a station level analysis of commercial bike sharing in
Toronto. Transportation. 44(3). 589-613.
Gilbert, S. (2019). Living with the past: the creation of the stolen generation
positionality. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. 15(3). 226-
233.
Markwick, A., Ansari, Z., Clinch, D., & McNeil, J. (2019). Experiences of racism among
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults living in the Australian state of Victoria: a
cross-sectional population-based study. BMC Public Health. 19(1). 1-14.
O’Donnell, M., Taplin, S., Marriott, R., Lima, F., & Stanley, F. J. (2019). Infant removals: The
need to address the over-representation of Aboriginal infants and community concerns
of another ‘stolen generation’. Child abuse & neglect. 90. 88-98.
Wenzel, M. & et. al., (2018). A long time coming: Delays in collective apologies and their
effects on sincerity and forgiveness. Political Psychology. 39(3). 649-666.
Online
Elliott. D., 2019. The roots of racism against Aboriginal people. [Online] available through: <
https://thesocialist.org.au/roots-of-racism-against-aboriginal-people/ >.
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