Denial

Kitty Wallaby's life was linked with the Dreamtime, and her people, the Gunditjmara in Western Victoria, built sprawling villages of stone houses and an aquaculture system that pre-dated Egypt's pyramids and Stonehenge. When Kitty told the invading pastoralists that is was her country, they were not interested in listening or understanding. [node:read-more:link]

Going without food, or going without nutritious food, has heavy consequences for Indigenous people, as we learnt on a recent research trip to the West Kimberley. Indigenous Australians are already twice as likely to have a disability or chronic illness as non-Indigenous Australians; poor nutrition compounds these problems, leading to further illness and secondary impairments.Aboriginal people consistently reported alleviating food insecurity by going crabbing or fishing on traditional lands. Though this accounted for a small portion of total dietary intake. [node:read-more:link]

Rosie Batty was right to criticise the federal government's allocation of a mere $16 million over three years to family violence in last week's budget. By comparison, more than a billion dollars was set aside for national security measures, an issue that is arguably costing fewer Australian lives at the present time. But when it comes to introducing oppressive legislation on the basis of race, state and federal governments suddenly seem to become incredibly concerned about violence against women - Celeste Liddle writes [node:read-more:link]

A domestic violence shelter servicing 50 Aboriginal communities in the remote north of Western Australia has emerged as the latest project to miss out on funding under the Federal Government's overhaul of Indigenous funding. The women who run the Djarindjin safe house say they will have to shut their doors on June 30, if the decision is not reversed. - There is not a skerrick of evidence that abused women would be better off in larger towns and cities than in Ho,eland communities. Domestic violence is accelerated where alcohol is accessible. [node:read-more:link]

Suicides in First Nations communities are linked to extreme poverty and disadvantage from the beginning of life, intergenerational trauma, cultural identity, racialisation and racism. Often alcohol and substance abuse are considered by many as underlying causes but these are not underlying causes and rather they are at best contributing factors borne symptomatically of the conditions above.

This article and links to all many other articles by First Nation suicide expert Gerry Georgatos. [node:read-more:link]

A South African writer has claimed Australia is more racist than her homeland, where segregation by skin colour used to be law. She said the treatment of Aboriginals is worse than apartheid South Africa and that Australians are denying there are no differences between races. 'Last week I opened the newspaper and read a story about a white woman who called a family of neighbors who are originally from Sierra Leone "jungle bunnies" and "monkeys." In the story her racist rant had been filmed on their phone. I was chagrined, but others I spoke to weren't: They argued that the paper was "just trying to be neutral." [node:read-more:link]