Our State of Mind Page 16
The experience of decades of segregation had left its legacy. In the late 1960s a deep racial divide continued to separate most whites from Aborigines, each living in isolation from the other. This was clearly manifest in those few institutions where the two groups unavoidably came together. Schools in the late 1960s saw the entry of larger number of Aboriginal children but this was not accompanied by any breakdown in social barriers. Robert McKeich, a sociology lecturer and former state school teacher in Western Australia, studied the social interaction between Aboriginal students and staff. He found that the school environment failed to put the students at ease and that they were subject to constant teacher reprimands. This was not only a significant cause of school failure among the group, it perpetuated and reinforced their social isolation. Aboriginal students preferred their own company and tended to segregate themselves. Teachers, on the other hand, McKeich found, were ignorant of basic background information on Aboriginal students. ‘They tend to play part-Aboriginal educational problems “by ear”, develop stereotyped reasons for retardation, and, with few exceptions, eventually give up any real endeavour to help these children.’242
Prisons also formalised racial barriers to social integration. A 1969 study found that Aboriginal inmates employed ‘mechanisms of exclusion and segregation’. They placed an emphasis on their Aboriginality to strengthen group boundaries using Aboriginal ‘dialect’ to swear at prison officers and to exclude other prisoners from conversations. ‘On the sports field,’ the study found, ‘or in other spheres of recreation, Aborigines tend to participate as a group, usually against “white” prisoners.’ This ‘closing of the ranks’ frustrated prison staff who regarded the ‘Aboriginal problem’ as an insoluble one. Consequently, ‘the staff are accused of apathy and lack of interest in Aboriginal welfare.’243
Such barriers were the inevitable result of the racially inspired policies of segregation. They hid even more overtly hostile attitudes which, from time to time, surfaced in public debate. An astonishing outburst of racism was published in a 1971 edition of Western Australia’s Local Government Journal calling for full racial segregation in Australia. While the journal was a private publication, and not affiliated with the Local Government Association, it was a long-standing publication disseminating much of the news about local government throughout the State. The author of the article, Mr R Hewitt, who had been editor of the journal for thirteen years, evoked the views officially held a generation earlier. It was impossible, he argued, to:
reconcile the totally different national characteristics of the Nordic-type whites and the aboriginal blacks, you still have the danger of miscegenation, with blacks married to white bringing grey children into the nation, or, worse, a flood of illegitimates of indeterminate colour … The aborigines are being urged to adopt the white man’s ways and to live in the white man’s houses. But the white people resent it.
Hewitt went on to call for the introduction of apartheid, along South African lines.
Whether the South African system will work in this country, or will even be considered in light of the prejudice that has been fanned up against it, is hard to say, but the idea is worth studying as it represents an alternative to the present method of trying to make the black mind grasp the essentials of white man’s living.244
Interviewed by the press after the publication of the article Hewitt declared: ‘why not give the blacks a tract of country and let them rule themselves. We can select some leaders from among them to guide their development and destiny.’
It is easy to dismiss Hewitt’s comments as an isolated outburst from a racial extremist. Just how much support his call for apartheid would have received in the early 1970s is impossible to estimate. However, it should be remembered that the majority of Western Australians had grown up with segregation in the form of the Reserve system for which strong support still existed in the community, especially in country areas. There were places where this system was not all that far removed from apartheid.
The nature and extent of racism towards Aborigines became the subject of academic interest in the early 1970s. Explaining the nature of racist attitudes was the focus of Ronald Taft’s 1970 study of ‘Attitudes of Western Australians towards Aborigines.’245 This was a ground-breaking study, providing the first comprehensive picture of racism and its extent, in the State. Reviewing data from opinion polls undertaken in 1954 and 1961, Taft showed that ‘States with the largest Aboriginal population had the least favourable attitudes towards spending of more money on Aborigines.’ In his own study, Taft conducted in-depth interviews with 286 people in three different settings in Western Australia: a provincial city of 5,000 people with a bad record of racial conflict; a provincial town of 1,500 people and the city of Perth. Colour prejudice was found to play a significant part in overall attitudes towards Aborigines. While extreme racial prejudice was reported to be limited to six percent, or less, of the population, about one-quarter of the respondents would not accept a part-Aborigine as a family friend and one-fifth would not accept one as a table companion in a cafe.
At one level the results were positive, suggesting that ‘the trend is for increased feelings of tolerance for Aborigines and greater advocacy of their civil rights’. However, the underlying image held of Aborigines remained unfavourable, particularly in the provincial city and the town featured in the study. Among the examples given were the following:
Smalltown male, aged 50-59 years, brought up in Smalltown. He has had a great deal of contact with Aborigines, having played with them as a child, worked with them and employed them. He has a very unfavourable image of Aborigines and strongly favours their segregation. He reached 7th grade at school and is now a truck driver. He would admit neither part-Aborigines nor full-bloods to any single category of social distance.
Bigtown male, aged 50-59 years, brought up in a Western Australian country town, and has had ten years of education. He has had Aborigines as customers for many years in his capacity as a publican and has an extremely unfavourable image of them … he favours their segregation from Whites in several spheres of life.
Bigtown female aged 20-29 years. She has had a great deal of contact with Aborigines as customers in the shop where she works. She came from a farm where Aborigines were employed … she has an unfavourable image of Aborigines in general … It seems as if her various life experiences have left her with some very specific attitudes in general.
Taft’s conclusions were significant and clear cut. Attitudes towards Aborigines were unfavourable, the most frequently mentioned qualities attributed to them being: wasteful with money, unambitious, lazy, dirty and slovenly, drunken, unreliable, and superstitious. These attitudes were held despite widespread support in favour of granting them civil rights. Taft found the driving force behind attitudes towards Aborigines was the extent to which a person had been subject to an unfavourable socially accepted stereotype about them and whether this image was accepted or rejected.
If he lives in Bigtown he will be continually subjected to an unfavourable stereotype and this will dominate his attitudes unless his own personal experience counteracts it. If he lives in the more favourable environment of Perth or Smalltown, it is likely that his image of the Aborigines is less subject to immediate environmental pressures, and is more closely related to his experience.
Stereotypical attitudes towards blacks very frequently translated into overt discrimination which young Aborigines, coming out of the missions, faced along with all others. In 1971 Professor Leonard Broome, an American sociologist visiting the Australian National University, made a systematic study of census data which gave ‘the first true indication of the hopelessness of the Aborigines’ employment prospects in a climate of economic and educational black poverty.’ The figures showed only two percent of Aboriginal workers occupied the top seven occupation groups. In the press the study was reported as ‘nothing less than an indictment of practicing racism.’ Professor Br
oome told the media that ‘Australia has run Aboriginal “welfare” on the cheap and it has got what it paid for’.246
A unique study into discrimination towards Aborigines was undertaken in 1972. This was sponsored by the Public Interest Research Group and involved the deployment of sixty students from the University of Western Australia’s Law School to visit thirteen country towns in the South-West to interview key people in the white community as well as selected Aborigines.247 The Report documented the attitude and actions of each of the main sections of white population. It showed an interconnected web of discrimination and negative attitudes blocking acceptance and advancement of Aborigines.
Shire councils came in for harsh criticism from the Research Group. While Aborigines were permitted to use shire facilities, ‘natives were under closer scrutiny than whites’ when using them, even though ‘on the whole they did not abuse them.’ However,
With one exception, the Shire Councils in the towns that were visited, had contributed little or nothing towards helping Aborigines. The individuals on the Council interviewed mirrored this action by generally displaying either apathy or antipathy towards Aborigines.
Police in country towns came into frequent and close contact with Aborigines and exercised a controlling influence over their activities. In some of the towns visited by the law students police refused to answer all the questions asked, claiming the information was classified. In other towns cooperation was more forthcoming. This attitude was a reflection of the town’s broader relationship with the Aboriginal population. In towns which enjoyed relatively good Aboriginal living conditions and little racial discord, police were more tolerant than in towns where these conditions were not met. At much the same time as this study, the State Labor Government expressed its concern about relations between police and Aborigines. Allegations of plainclothes police ‘creating fear in Aborigines by badgering them’, were made at a public forum by Mr Arthur Tonkin, a Member of the Legislative Assembly.248
The Public Interest Research Group also showed Aborigines were grossly over-represented in the prosecution rates in country towns. These varied from as high as ninety percent of all prosecutions to as low as about one half, but in no cases were there fewer prosecutions than against whites. The proportion of successful prosecutions was even higher, ‘since there was almost 100% success rate for Aboriginal prosecutions in every town’. These shocking figures seem to indicate the magistracy itself practiced discrimination. In a few of the towns visited, magistrates were interviewed. They ‘seemed to have either a patronising or even prejudicial attitude against Aborigines.’ Problems with the relations between the magistracy and the Aboriginal community were raised in a separate forum. In 1969, Carnarvon’s stipendiary magistrate told a conference of Justices of the Peace that such was the prejudice against Aborigines among magistrates in the north of the State that those who knew themselves to be prejudiced should disqualify themselves from sitting on cases involving Aborigines.249
In their visits to schools, the Public Interest Research Group found relations between whites and Aborigines to be a complex mix of partial acceptance and underlying discrimination. On the positive side, Aboriginal children were well integrated into school life and played an active part in school activities, especially sport. However, Aborigines usually formed their own sub-groups within each school. Teachers were generally less negative about Aborigines than much of the general population, but few took any active role in helping them. Most of the Aboriginal children left school at the minimum leaving age of fifteen and most often before qualifying for their Junior Certificate. ‘Not one instance was given of an Aborigine in one of the schools that was visited being educated beyond this standard.’
Both country doctors and priests were found to vary widely in their attitudes towards Aborigines. In some cases they showed genuine interest in Aborigines while others avoided contact. Some doctors in particular, ‘seemed to have opted out of trying to alleviate the problem [of poor health] and had become almost totally apathetic towards them.’ In a few cases doctors had developed very negative attitudes, referring to Aborigines as ‘the lowest scum of the earth’:
We were told that a doctor in one town had declined to treat two native children on the grounds that they did not require it, but that when taken to another doctor, they were immediately hospitalised. Other similar allegations were also received.
Similarly, priests ‘tended to be either patronising or apathetic’ or both, in their relationships with Aborigines. In most towns where there was two priests; ‘only one of them usually had much to do with the Aborigines’. However, the practical support offered by priests could be crucial in assisting Aborigines to negotiate the welfare and legal systems.
The picture of discrimination towards Aborigines painted by the Public Interest Research Group, together with the studies carried out by academics, is indeed grim. However, one area ignored by all commentators was the prison system. In 1966 prisoners at Fremantle prison complained to the Native Welfare Department that a system of segregation was in place at the prison. ‘Why can’t Native Welfare stop this segregation in gaol’, the prisoners complained:
Because of segregation the yard is a breeding ground for trouble, and because of this also a Native seldom in a lifetime gets to have a proper sensible conversation with a white man. Assimilation could well begin in prison … as well as gleaning news from white men, Natives might also gain a clue or two on how to speak and express themselves better.
These comments show a strong desire on the part of the Aboriginal prisoners for racial harmony. It is extraordinary that they could be expressed in such a demanding environment and amid overt discrimination. Among their complaints, Aboriginal prisoners highlighted the fact that they had no supervisors in their yards, a situation which led to the outbreak of fights. They protested the overcrowding in cells for Aborigines.250 Complaints surfaced again in 1972 when five Aboriginal prisoners in Fremantle gaol signed a statutory declaration alleging racial intolerance and discrimination. ‘In the declarations the prisoners tell of fights between whites and Aborigines and say that warders have made it possible for whites to bash Aborigines.’251
It had become fashionable to explain the social degradation suffered by most Aborigines as a ‘culture of poverty’.252 This was an American-inspired concept to explain persistent and unrelieved poverty among disadvantaged groups. As Schapper argued in his influential book:
This is not the poverty of merely being without adequate income. It is way-of-life poverty. Aborigines are born into it, reared in it, and remain in it. They are psychologically attuned to it and are probably reasonably content in it. Their poverty is inherited and self-perpetuating.253
There is no evidence that these assertions are accurate ones. In fact, when people bothered to listen to Aborigines, the desire for better housing and opportunities for their children was widely heard. Some had achieved these conditions and were held up as examples of assimilation being achievable.
In 1970 Henry Schapper surveyed the current conditions of Aborigines and noted five major problem areas. Most Aborigines appeared to suffer from emotional depression; they did not understand the meaning of school experience; children were socially isolated and many adults had not developed the values of responsibility or dependability. Consequently, family failure was common.254 His concluding comment reads almost as a throwaway line: ‘Many children are institutionalised and without appropriate models for stable family formation.’255 While the difficulties Schapper identified were the result of complex processes of colonisation, the impact of removing children from their families was the common thread connecting all of them. By the 1960s two generations of families had been removed, as Trish Hill-Keddie’s family story outlined at the beginning of this book shows.
By the 1970s new thinking about the Aboriginal ‘problem’ was exercising the minds of officials. The 1974 Royal Commission highlighted the destructiveness of
assimilation. It acknowledged that the religious convictions of missionaries broke down traditional Aboriginal culture. It stated there was no satisfactory replacement for Aborigines in Christianity, and it affirmed the role missions had played in destroying the Aboriginal family. When it came to the policy of removing children from their families, one brief but pointed acknowledgement was made. The practice was, the Commission wrote, ‘the result of policies designed to weaken the race’.256 It was a legacy of almost unbelievable social tragedy but the full realisation of its impact had not yet begun.
6
Living With The Aftermath
In an outer suburb of Perth a group of Aboriginal men and women, all in their fifties and early sixties, meets occasionally to provide mutual support. They have been united in the common bond of friendship, having together experienced Roelands Mission as stolen children. Few Australians would be aware of the emotional intensity of such gatherings. Forty years after emerging from this institution their anguish remains unresolved and some are unable to recall parts of their experience without breaking into tears. When one succumbs to quiet sobbing, others are drawn in to provide close physical comfort. They have never forgotten their experiences and the despair of ‘crying for home.’ In the course of researching this book we spent some time with members of the Roelands Mission group. The years they have spent caring about each other has an inspiring quality except it is all too clear that the bonds they have forged are those of survivors of a shocking personal tragedy.