Strong and Smart - Towards a Pedagogy for Emancipation by Chris Sarra

Author:Chris Sarra [Sarra, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415615600
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2011-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

A sense of pride

While those who commented on that sense of ‘feeling’ Aboriginal had difficulty in clearly articulating what that phrase meant, it was extremely clear that one of the feelings about being Aboriginal is a very definite sense of pride in who we are as Aboriginal people. Indeed, on every occasion, when asked about what it is that today’s young Aboriginal people should know about being Aboriginal, the need to be proud about being Aboriginal was expressed:

They need to be proud to be Aboriginal and not feel ashamed or inferior or like they are not as good as someone else because of their colour. That strength that they have is worth being proud of and it’s not about having strength to fight in the streets. It’s about getting strength and pride from knowing that we been here for thousands of years.

(Extract 3)

I would say not to try and be somebody else because you are always going to be Aboriginal so respect yourself and be proud.

(Extract 4)

To me Aboriginal … you’re sort of born with … that’s a gift for me. Really you got to be proud of who you are.

(Extract 5)

I’m really proud of who I am and where I come from … that’s something that mum and dad really pushed into us. It’s being proud of who you are and finding out where you fit.

(Extract 6)

I think kids have got to be proud of who they are and you don’t have to squawk about it and you don’t have to get up on a soapbox. You got to be strong. I think we are a hell of a lot smarter than white fullas … we can live in a white man’s world and we can still communicate with them … whereas they can’t understand what we are talking about. It’s like we can mix it in your world but you can’t really come into ours.

(Extract 7)

It is worth reflecting, here, on what those interviewed imply we must take pride in as Aboriginal people. In some cases it seems the assertion of pride is to be presented in spite of the negative perceptions being generated around us. As one person notes ‘… be proud to be Aboriginal and not feel ashamed or inferior’, and another reinforces the need to ‘… respect yourself and be proud’: these views appear to be presented as a means to attend to forces or perceptions designed to assert that being Aboriginal is not something to be proud of. It is perhaps worth reflecting, then, on whether or not this sense of pride has evolved defiantly as a result of living alongside a white society determined to suppress it, or whether it existed prior to the arrival of white men in Australia.

At another level, the final comments presented for analysis deliberately refer to Aboriginal existence alongside white society, but provide a slightly different insight into why one should feel proud to be Aboriginal. Here we are described as ‘… a lot smarter than white fullas’ and that ‘we can mix it in [their] world but [they] can’t really come into ours’.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.