To borrow the opening lines from your correspondent, “there are times when we draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough”. I write in response to Brian McCoy’s article, 'Why change Aborigines into images of ourselves?'
As a journalist, to be accused of not understanding Aboriginal culture is one thing, but to be accused of joining in some ill-defined conspiracy to control and dominate Aboriginal people is quite another.
It’s a pity the author couldn’t master a more coherent argument because he does make a valid point that in Australia—we often seem more interested in the plight of Australians outside the country than in that of our own indigenous population. Not so at the Sunday program, which has a rich history of covering indigenous affairs—most recently in our cover story, 'The Gangs of Wadeye, A Lost Generation'. Wadeye is an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory that attracted national attention earlier this year when gang warfare paralysed the town.
My principal argument with your correspondent is that of laziness. He tries to include our program in a broad amalgam of white bigotry with no evidence to support his theory. My suspicion is that he did not actually watch the program. The only lines he quotes come from the publicity blurb from our web site, and not from the program itself. If he did see it, he must have been particularly sleepy that Sunday morning as he missed one of the essential questions of the program, posed by the locals themselves: what should be done to give the next generation in Wadeye the opportunity to take part more fully in Australian society? He accuses us of superficial and negative representations but ignores one of the most commonly expressed concerns in Wadeye.
For those actually watching the story, the opening lines were these: “The young people of Wadeye are caught between two worlds… the bush lives of their ancestors and modern youth culture…” The notion of being caught between two worlds was expressed by every person we interviewed in Wadeye; elders, young people, men and women. Where is the lack of respect in making this one of the central themes of the story?
And then there is the accusation of our 'fear of difference'; that is, racism by any other name. Your correspondent suggests that along with the Federal Government we are guilty of dredging up ancient stereotypes. He even