With racial equality being a major issue in 2020, do you care to share your thoughts on aboriginal Australians? I don’t know much about Australian history, but we treat our natives like shit here in America so I’m curious is Australia has a more compassionate approach
I received this message about a week ago and I wanted to make sure I had the time to address this properly. Indigenous Australians are treated terribly.
Indigenous Australians are the second most discriminated group in Australia - after people who don’t speak English.
Recent studies have found that they are the oldest known civilisation on Earth - with ancestries dating back 75,000 years.
Despite this, they are still treated poorly by the majority of Australians.
A VERY brief history:
Australia was ‘discovered’ by Captain James Cook in 1770 and in 1778 the first fleet of British convicts arrived on the shores - around about the time that colonisation of Australia began. 10 years later it was estimated that the indigenous population of Australia was reduced by 90%.
These colonisers had devastating affects on Indigenous people, they brought diseases, stole land and were extremely violent with the indigenous, including raping women and stealing children from their families. The impacts of European settlement are prevalent today; systemic racism is evident in the modern Australian society.
Indigenous Australians make up 3.3% of Australia’s total population.
Aboriginal people compromise almost 30% of Australian inmates.
Unemployment rate is almost 3 times the rate in the indigenous community than that of the non-indigenous community.
The average life expectancy for indigenous peoples is lower than non-indigenous peoples.
In 1981, 15% of children in substitute care were Aboriginal Australians.
1981 consensus indicated 12.5% of Indigenous peoples 15 and over had never attended school.
Aboriginal deaths in custody records are not easily accessible.
In 1987, the Committee to Defend Black Rights found that one indigenous person was dying in custody every 11 days. It spurred a royal commission, completed in 1991, which investigated the incarceration of Aboriginal people and the circumstances of 99 deaths.
The inquiry made more than 300 recommendations, but most were not implemented, and recent reviews have been criticised as inadequate or misleading.
Analysis by The Guardian found that at least 432 indigenous Australians have died in custody since the inquiry.
No police officer has ever been held criminally responsibly for an Aboriginal death in custody in Australia.
The following are just a few of the recent deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody:
Kumanjayi Walker: 19, Shot November 2019 by police officers after being arrested.
Tanya Day: 55, suffered a fatal injury in police custody after being arrested for falling asleep on a train due to being drunk.
David Dungay: 25, died after being restrained by 5 police officers in a Sydney cell in 2015, despite crying out “I can’t breathe”.
Ms Dhu: 22, died in police custody of pneumonia, the coroner ruled her treatment by the officers as inhumane.
In a 10 year study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (from 2001 to 2010), suicide rates of Indigenous & Torres Straight Islander peoples were 2.6 times higher than that of non indigenous peoples.
Government laws are in place that require indigenous peoples to continuously prove their connection to the land, under the Native Title Act. There is a strong prejudice against the indigenous way of life, demonstrated by the Australian government and reaffirmed by many Australians. Despite the communities gaining land rights, current policies have not improved their living conditions or welfare.
As a whole, Indigenous Australians are under-represented, under-appreciated and discriminated against by the Australian government & the majority of Australians.
This is something I feel strongly about and something I am always looking to learn about. So if any of my followers want to know more, or want to discuss it, please do! :)
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