Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are an integral part of Australia, both our history and culture, yet as a Non-Indigenous Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples often feel very foreign to me. My family is not of indigenous decent and I have little interaction with those who are, as such my views on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are shaped entirely from what I have learned at school, or have heard from people around me. This in the past has led to very narrow views and a complete lack of understanding about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
My local area does not contain much ethnic variation, so racism (although often subtle) is prevalent, growing up I never thought much about the …show more content…
I knew making these comments was wrong, but I never really understood why until I started school and Indigenous culture was part of the curriculum in most of my classes. Surprisingly, the things that I learned in school did not improve my opinion on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, not to say that I thought badly of them, I really had no opinion as a result of not knowing anyone of Indigenous decent. Topics in my classes always seemed to focus on the differences between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians, health classes focused on health disparities, higher rates of illness, shorter life expectancy and high incidences of diabetes, English and Humanities focused on the history and traditional culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, while these topics were interesting they held no real relevance to me at the time. This ultimately led to my idea of Indigenous people being an unflattering one, of people living in the outback with high rates of illness, alcoholism and rampant drug use, this idea was not helped by the media, as it often lacks any positive representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to counteract these negative views. Interestingly only 24 percent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander