SS 1010:03 Study Guide - Final Guide: Sarah Maddison, Aboriginal History, Nationstates
SS1010 STUDY NOTES
WEEK 2 – SOCIAL FACTS: RACE, SOCIETY, CULTURE AND INDIVIDUALS
Sarah Maddison – Beyond White Guilt: The Real Challenge for Black-White Relations in Australia
The book challenges non-Indigenous Australians to confront what Maddison calls our collective guilt over our
colonial past and consider our moral obligations in the present.
Having visited Indigenous communities in North America, she draws on what has worked in the most successful of
these communities, where the Indigenous people have responsibility for managing their own legal, education and
health systems. She discusses the governments past approach to self-determination and explains that the term in
this instance was a misnomer. The 2013 referendum on Indigenous policy is also highlighted as an opportunity but
also a risk as there has been insufficient discussion and media coverage to enable most Australians to make an
informed decision.
The book encourages all non-Indigenous Australians to educate ourselves about Indigenous issues and to take
action, ultimately calling for Indigenous sovereignty.
Quotes:
But like many white 'do-gooders' before me, my response to this growing awareness was a paralysing guilt. The
more I learned about Australia's colonial history the worse I felt.
The Politics of Suffering - Sutton's own interpretation of this phenomenon is slightly different, arguing that those
concerned with justice rather than care allow their 'political feelings and political values' to dominate their' emotional
feelings and moral values'-as though the former were not driven by the latter.
While we maintain our bonds of solidarity with past perpetrators, as 'carriers of internal colonisation' we also
develop the 'habit' of perpetuating silences about suffering and resistance whenever they rub up against the 'official
mythologies' that normalise contemporary circumstances.
Early Australian anthropologists tended to speak for Aboriginal people rather than enabling Aboriginal people to
speak for themselves.
James Tully also suggests that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people share a basic value regarding the right of
peoples to govern themselves in ways that conform with their own laws and ways, that are also able to coexist with
the laws and cultural ways of others
In many ways this construction of 'others' seems inescapable, but it can be ameliorated by efforts to know and
understand each other as well as possible. By keeping a distance-that is, by remaining ignorant of Indigenous lives-
non-Indigenous people are able to ignore the hardship that many Indigenous people face. In ignoring this suffering
non-Indigenous people are also able to deny their obligations to people damaged by colonisation
The theory has certainly been that race relations are as much a feature of attitudes and behaviour as they are of
public policy, and in a democracy, one would indeed hope that public policy reflects some measure of public belief
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Week 2 social facts: race, society, culture and individuals. Sarah maddison beyond white guilt: the real challenge for black-white relations in australia. The book challenges non-indigenous australians to confront what maddison calls our collective guilt over our colonial past and consider our moral obligations in the present. Having visited indigenous communities in north america, she draws on what has worked in the most successful of these communities, where the indigenous people have responsibility for managing their own legal, education and health systems. She discusses the governments past approach to self-determination and explains that the term in this instance was a misnomer. The 2013 referendum on indigenous policy is also highlighted as an opportunity but also a risk as there has been insufficient discussion and media coverage to enable most australians to make an informed decision. The book encourages all non-indigenous australians to educate ourselves about indigenous issues and to take action, ultimately calling for indigenous sovereignty.
