The Stolen Generation
Stories
LECTIONARY TALES FOR THE PULPIT
Series III, Cycle A
In an October 2, 2000, Time magazine article written by Terry McCarthy, Archie Roach recounts a personal event that changed his private and public world. In fact, the event changed the Aboriginal world forever. A native of Australia, Roach shares the painful moment when welfare officers came to take him to an orphanage because he was not white. Archie is an Aborigine whose grandfather was white.
They came to the house on the premise that they were taking three--year--old Archie to a picnic, but his family knew better. Archie tells of his aunt trying to scare off the welfare officers, but the gun was not loaded and they called her bluff. Thus, Archie was taken from his tin--lined house in Framlingham in southeastern Australia to Melbourne, where the goal was to "assimilate him" at a mission school. They tried to make him more white by forcing his naturally curly hair straight with combs, all to no avail. Archie's hair was curly, and Archie's skin was black. His captors, in a sense, had failed. They told him his family died in a fire. Archie's identity, heritage, and culture were stolen from him.
The Australian government during the early 1900s was trying to bring the mixed--blood Aborigines into the white world in hopes the blackness would be "bred out" in a few generations. The fully black population, on the other hand, was expected to die out. An estimated 100,000 children were stolen in this manner until the practice stopped in 1971.
Now, many years later, the Aboriginal, black, and white sectors of Australia want healing, if that is possible. They have marched across Sydney in numbers swelling to 200,000. They have demonstrated, begged, and debated for an apology.
So far, no apology has been issued. But there is hope. Many thousands have embraced Aborigine athletes. Their plight is being brought to the forefront and whites are willing to admit, apologize, and go on with their lives. They want to live in harmony, but they want to set the record straight and make amends.
There is hope for Australia.
They came to the house on the premise that they were taking three--year--old Archie to a picnic, but his family knew better. Archie tells of his aunt trying to scare off the welfare officers, but the gun was not loaded and they called her bluff. Thus, Archie was taken from his tin--lined house in Framlingham in southeastern Australia to Melbourne, where the goal was to "assimilate him" at a mission school. They tried to make him more white by forcing his naturally curly hair straight with combs, all to no avail. Archie's hair was curly, and Archie's skin was black. His captors, in a sense, had failed. They told him his family died in a fire. Archie's identity, heritage, and culture were stolen from him.
The Australian government during the early 1900s was trying to bring the mixed--blood Aborigines into the white world in hopes the blackness would be "bred out" in a few generations. The fully black population, on the other hand, was expected to die out. An estimated 100,000 children were stolen in this manner until the practice stopped in 1971.
Now, many years later, the Aboriginal, black, and white sectors of Australia want healing, if that is possible. They have marched across Sydney in numbers swelling to 200,000. They have demonstrated, begged, and debated for an apology.
So far, no apology has been issued. But there is hope. Many thousands have embraced Aborigine athletes. Their plight is being brought to the forefront and whites are willing to admit, apologize, and go on with their lives. They want to live in harmony, but they want to set the record straight and make amends.
There is hope for Australia.
