Redfern, ever hear of it?

Question

Redfern, Iv'e been there. Derelect houses for the Aborigine. Burned out rooms. junk in the back gardens. Tight lipped, blank eyes when a white passes, but you will not find a closer knit people.

The Lucky Country

Redfern, that place for you black fella.

Council givum you plenty good condemned

house to live in with wife, and piccaninnies.

Good house still plenty shelter, meby no window,

better you live here than in humpy in Outback.

City Council good to black fella, give money

every month to live like white fella.

Redfern, good place for black fella, no white fella

live there, all for black fella to live.

No bog? White fella fix bog, use outside dunny

for now, maybe three month get new bog. Council

short of money, you pay little bit rent for house, then

get bog.

This your country? You got no more country black fella,

‘cept what white fella give you back. Uluru, Big Rock

up the Territory, bring in tourist for black fella. You

lease to Government pay you back little bit dollar, good

for all black fella’s.

Black fella die in gaol? Sorry fella. you steal, get drunk,

sniff glue, beat up on wife and piccaninni, white fella

got to keep law, black aborigini got to go to gaol.

You got vote now, you got say in white mans

government.

Meby one day black fella politician get in.

Live like white fella, all good friends in Lucky Country.

You want a job? Clear off, you black fella.

This is white fella country now.

Redfern.- Distict in Sydney.

Humpy - Temporary aboriginal shelter.

Bog – Toilet.

Dunny - Outside bucket toilet.

Aborigine- First Australians

Uluru- Great Monolith in Northern Territory.

Said to be largest single standing rock in the world.

Given back to the Aborigine in 1984 then leased back to government.

Answer 1

Lord, Robert...you do know how to stir the imagination.

Sad commentary.

Answer 2

What's your question?  Just so you know, a friend of mine used to live in Redfern (she's white), it's extremely close to the city centre so she found it good for getting to work etc.      

Answer 3

this is as devastating as America's sad history of slavery and cruelty and murder, not only of Blacks, but the wholesale slaughter of those who were here long before Columbus.  We need to be reminded of history, not to be consumed by guilt, but to inspire those who come after us, to fight racism, religious wars, anti-Semitism, all the deadly sins we inflict on each other.

Answer 4

Any type of cruelty whether it be woman man child or animal is wrong and color doesn't matter!!   People that live in less than respective places is not necessary there is plenty of resources to go around, only greed does stop this from happening and it is a sad thing indeed!

It is good these people are closely knit it is probably there stronghold that keeps them going!! Cheers!!  

Answer 5

White Myth Causes Black Deaths

Article from Herald Sun

April 18, 2007 12:00am

SEEMING good isn't the same as doing good. And Paul Keating's famous Redfern speech is the tragic proof.

Delivered in 1992, when Keating was prime minister, the speech was voted by ABC listeners this month as one of history's most inspirational - behind only Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" and Christ's Sermon on the Mount. True.

So worshipped is this melodramatic listing of white crimes against Aborigines that autographed copies fetch more than $1000 at Labor fund-raisers.

Its tone is best summed up by its most famous and - as black children have found - most dangerous line: "We took the children from their mothers."

How the faithful cheered that. Not only had our prime minister vilified the nation as racist, even genocidal - "We committed the murders" - but he'd accepted the stolen generations myth as true, before many had even heard of it.

Never mind that not even leading "stolen generation" propagandist Prof Robert Manne can identify today even 10 children truly stolen by officials in the past century for racist reasons.

What counted was not the truth, but the vibe - Keating's salivating picture of whites failing "to bring more than devastation and demoralisation to Aboriginal Australia". Of whites as racist child-stealers.

Yes, yes! cried so many, desperate to believe the worst of their own, and thus the best of themselves. This child stealing had to stop.

And, tragically, it did.

Not completely, of course. No, so many Aboriginal children were still so neglected and abused that welfare officials still had to "steal" them at rates higher than they did other children.

But as the "stolen generations" myth grew, many other black children, who once might have been saved, were now left in dangers from which we'd save children of any other race.

Social workers and police had got the message. To save a black child was somehow wicked. To expose such a child to the vile "white" culture was to demean it.

I've argued for years that this "stolen generations" myth would hurt black children. I doubt I did much good, so I won't repeat my useless arguments and examples of the past.

I won't tell you again of that coroner's report in Perth, the knifed girl in Sydney, the appeals by Halls Creek elders to rescue children, or the shocking cases of rape and death revealed last year by Alice Springs crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers.

I'll just show you some of the most recent news items, and hope that as this evidence mounts, you also will figure the price black children must pay for myth-making of the Keating sort:

From The Australian: March 24:

AN Aboriginal baby who died lying on a filthy mattress between her passed-out mother and father could be alive today if Western Australia's Department of Community Development had intervened to take her away from her alcoholic parents . . .

Western Australia's chief pathologist, Karin Margolius, said the baby had the worst case of nappy rash she had seen. The condition was so severe her skin was peeling off and she had ulcers on her bottom and a rash extending to her waist . . .

The Coroner criticised the DCD for ignoring several attempts by baby Sturt's extended family to have her removed from her mother . . .

He said it was particularly alarming that there was a reluctance by DCD to intervene to save Aboriginal children at risk.

From the Herald Sun, February 20:

A VIOLENT man who inflicted horrific injuries on his toddler nephew was given custody despite fears expressed by childcare workers that he posed a danger . . .

The boy's mother was murdered by an abusive partner and Department of Human Services workers rejected the uncle -- who previously had little contact with the child -- as a suitable carer . . .

But court documents claim the magistrate ruled cultural identity a priority.

From the Sydney Morning Herald, November 22:

NORTHERN Territory health workers and police ignored the plight of an 11-year-old indigenous girl who a man raped in public and then took as his so-called promised wife for nine years under the guise of traditional Aboriginal law.

The treatment of the girl, who a judge described as easy meat for the man with a long criminal history, is the latest in a series of crimes where authorities have failed to protect Aboriginal women and children in remote areas.

These include the bashing to death of a 27-year-old pregnant woman after 11 years of abuse and a succession of alleged rapes of an 11-year-old boy by 10 males.

And read particularly this plea in March from Perth magistrate Paul Heaney, who spent six years at the Aboriginal Legal Service:

We are all familiar with the tragedy known as the stolen generation.

That generation now, whilst imbued with a deep sadness of having been taken from their families, are generally educated and educable, employed and employable and possess the social skills to survive and thrive in society. They are also now generally impeccable parents.

The present situation is a reaction to the stolen generation. The hands-on approach of the stolen generation has been replaced with a hands-off response.

We are now seeing before the courts the consequences of this neglect. We are seeing a generation of Aboriginals who could be described as the neglected generation.

"Neglected" doesn't fully describe the plight of some of these children we now smugly refuse to help.

Keating's Redfern speech, applauded by rich whites, was actually a death warrant to some poor blacks.

The consequences are clear: the white myth he peddled is killing black children.

Sad, but true, this is hate, bigotry and definitely immoral.

Answer 6

I pray things get better for us all, universally, globally.

Thanks for sharing; this is the 1st time I ever heard of this place and these events. I had no idea this existed. It`s so sad. I'll just end my talk right here.

"Teachers need be patient with their students,

and students need time to trust their teachers.

I`ll be your trusting student if you promise

To be patient with me." (by me)

Thanks again for being patient with me.