Taking sides over Dark Emu

[Chief]

Up front I will say I haven't yet read the book - I had to get it ordered in as it was sold out at bookshops I visited (yes, we have those in Brisbane).

But it is interesting that the book didn't get a ton of vitriol until about 6 years after it was published.

Taking sides over ‘Dark Emu’

How the history wars avoid debate and reason

www.themonthly.com.au

Dark Emu appeared in bookshops in March 2014 much as most books do: with a brief publicity campaign arranged by its publisher. Bruce Pascoe was already something of a public figure – as well as publishing a short fiction journal during the 1980s, he’d written a number of novels and a well-received history of Australia’s frontier wars, Convincing Ground (2007) – and he is a wonderful storyteller, so he appeared on radio and at literary festivals more often than the average author of the average new release. And Dark Emu’s thesis is more than merely fascinating. It drops into the deepest faultline in the national conversation and strikes one more blow at the foundational myth of the colonial settler state: that it was built peacefully, lawfully and not on genocidal brutality.​

​

...​

​

Dark Emu isn’t an “academic” history, because its author isn’t a trained historian (he has an education degree and taught in regional Victorian schools). Dark Emu’s cultural role, much like Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers (2005) and Henry Reynolds’ Why Weren’t We Told? (1999), is to “translate” knowledge hitherto trapped inside the academy and broadcast it to the world.​

...​

​

It wasn’t until the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards’ judges voted Dark Emu its book of the year in May 2016 that it began to attract major attention. The book was adapted by the Bangarra Dance Theatre in mid 2018, by Pascoe himself for children (as Young Dark Emu) in June 2019, and as an ABC documentary by Rachel Perkins’ Blackfella Films (planned to be screened this year). These last two adaptations in particular brought Dark Emu to the attention of Australia’s reactionary right, which has now built a sizeable echo chamber inside such institutions as Quadrant, Spectator Australia and the Fox News–styled Murdoch stable, including Sky News Australia and, of course, The Australian.​

...​

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For all its problems, Dark Emu is not merely weathering the attacks. It charged back up the nonfiction bestsellers’ list and has occupied the number 3 spot for the past fortnight.​

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Pascoe himself has lately stayed away from the limelight; wisely, given the rancour. Most of his energies over the summer have been concentrated on defending his home from bushfires. As with most public debates in the age of Twitter and Fox News, there seems little possibility of kindness or compassion or shared understanding here. Since it reorganised to protect settler Australia’s colonial legacy, the right has been on a permanent seek-and-destroy mission, setting its coterie of mainstay attack-dog columnists and narrowcasters on what they see as objectionable individuals with relatively brief and middling influence.​

This discussion is happening in a few threads, but it's probably a good idea to give it its own thread given the recent reactions.

 

[Sainteric]

Up front I will say I haven't yet read the book - I had to get it ordered in as it was sold out at bookshops I visited (yes, we have those in Brisbane).

But it is interesting that the book didn't get a ton of vitriol until about 6 years after it was published.

Taking sides over ‘Dark Emu’

How the history wars avoid debate and reason

www.themonthly.com.au

Dark Emu appeared in bookshops in March 2014 much as most books do: with a brief publicity campaign arranged by its publisher. Bruce Pascoe was already something of a public figure – as well as publishing a short fiction journal during the 1980s, he’d written a number of novels and a well-received history of Australia’s frontier wars, Convincing Ground (2007) – and he is a wonderful storyteller, so he appeared on radio and at literary festivals more often than the average author of the average new release. And Dark Emu’s thesis is more than merely fascinating. It drops into the deepest faultline in the national conversation and strikes one more blow at the foundational myth of the colonial settler state: that it was built peacefully, lawfully and not on genocidal brutality.​

​

...​

​

Dark Emu isn’t an “academic” history, because its author isn’t a trained historian (he has an education degree and taught in regional Victorian schools). Dark Emu’s cultural role, much like Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers (2005) and Henry Reynolds’ Why Weren’t We Told? (1999), is to “translate” knowledge hitherto trapped inside the academy and broadcast it to the world.​

...​

​

It wasn’t until the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards’ judges voted Dark Emu its book of the year in May 2016 that it began to attract major attention. The book was adapted by the Bangarra Dance Theatre in mid 2018, by Pascoe himself for children (as Young Dark Emu) in June 2019, and as an ABC documentary by Rachel Perkins’ Blackfella Films (planned to be screened this year). These last two adaptations in particular brought Dark Emu to the attention of Australia’s reactionary right, which has now built a sizeable echo chamber inside such institutions as Quadrant, Spectator Australia and the Fox News–styled Murdoch stable, including Sky News Australia and, of course, The Australian.​

...​

​

For all its problems, Dark Emu is not merely weathering the attacks. It charged back up the nonfiction bestsellers’ list and has occupied the number 3 spot for the past fortnight.​

​

Pascoe himself has lately stayed away from the limelight; wisely, given the rancour. Most of his energies over the summer have been concentrated on defending his home from bushfires. As with most public debates in the age of Twitter and Fox News, there seems little possibility of kindness or compassion or shared understanding here. Since it reorganised to protect settler Australia’s colonial legacy, the right has been on a permanent seek-and-destroy mission, setting its coterie of mainstay attack-dog columnists and narrowcasters on what they see as objectionable individuals with relatively brief and middling influence.​

This discussion is happening in a few threads, but it's probably a good idea to give it its own thread given the recent reactions.

Correct me if I am wrong but most of the vitriol is over him supposedly being white, cultural appropriation and lastly his version of aboriginsl society being more advanced than academics and blackfellas acknowledge. Most of the notoriety about him and being involved in Bolts article because of input from I believe other blackfellas.

Having lived in Brisbane for ten years I will call you out about the outrageous lie that you have a bookshop, you don't even have a newspaper.

 

[Chief]

Correct me if I am wrong but most of the vitriol is over him supposedly being white, cultural appropriation and lastly his version of aboriginsl society being more advanced than academics and blackfellas acknowledge. Most of the notoriety about him and being involved in Bolts article because of input from I believe other blackfellas.

Having lived in Brisbane for ten years I will call you out about the outrageous lie that you have a bookshop, you don't even have a newspaper.

Take that back!

The Brisbane Shopper is a fine newspaper!

 

[ferball]

Correct me if I am wrong but most of the vitriol is over him supposedly being white, cultural appropriation and lastly his version of aboriginsl society being more advanced than academics and blackfellas acknowledge. Most of the notoriety about him and being involved in Bolts article because of input from I believe other blackfellas.

Having lived in Brisbane for ten years I will call you out about the outrageous lie that you have a bookshop, you don't even have a newspaper.

Your last should be first and your first should be last.

 

[Chief]

Correct me if I am wrong but most of the vitriol is over him supposedly being white, cultural appropriation and lastly his version of aboriginsl society being more advanced than academics and blackfellas acknowledge. Most of the notoriety about him and being involved in Bolts article because of input from I believe other blackfellas.

Having lived in Brisbane for ten years I will call you out about the outrageous lie that you have a bookshop, you don't even have a newspaper.

Have a listen to this podcast. Discusses Bolt’s attacks. Bolt goes after him mainly on the basis of a few errors or omissions made during live talks, not the book. The interviewer - Rick Morton - couldn’t even get Bolt to say he’d actually read the book!

Morton read the book and checked it against the source documents and he could not find any errors.

Bolt seems to have been sucked in by some dishonest people from Quadrant and their “Dark Emu Exposed” blog.

Only 15 mins long:

7am: Andrew Bolt vs Dark Emu on Apple Podcasts

Show 7am, Ep Andrew Bolt vs Dark Emu - 2 Dec 2019

podcasts.apple.com

 

[sdfc]

I haven't read the book. Sounds like I should though. Despite my concerns about predominantly white people getting awards meant for Aboriginals.

Why is it so controversial that hunter gatherers are more than just grunts that chase game and gather nuts?

 

[Chief]

I had a look at the awards:


WINNER – 2016 Indigenous Writer's Prize in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards

WINNER – 2016 Book of the Year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards

SHORTLISTED – 2014 History Book Award in the Queensland Literary Awards

SHORTLISTED – 2014 Victorian Premier's Award for Indigenous Writing

So Bolt et al take issue with the one at the top. But it seems Pascoe was perfectly eligible for that prize.

Indigenous Writers' Prize

Content from the State Library of New South Wales.

www.sl.nsw.gov.au

The Indigenous Writers' Prize ($30,000) is offered biennially. The Prize was first awarded in 2016. The prize is intended to acknowledge the contribution made to Australian literary culture by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers.​

The prize is open to those who are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, and who are accepted as such by the communities in which they live.​

So it seems the book is faithful to its sources.

The author has been eligible for the prizes he has received.

 

[sdfc]

I had a look at the awards:


WINNER – 2016 Indigenous Writer's Prize in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards

WINNER – 2016 Book of the Year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards

SHORTLISTED – 2014 History Book Award in the Queensland Literary Awards

SHORTLISTED – 2014 Victorian Premier's Award for Indigenous Writing

So Bolt et al take issue with the one at the top. But it seems Pascoe was perfectly eligible for that prize.

Indigenous Writers' Prize

Content from the State Library of New South Wales.

www.sl.nsw.gov.au

The Indigenous Writers' Prize ($30,000) is offered biennially. The Prize was first awarded in 2016. The prize is intended to acknowledge the contribution made to Australian literary culture by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers.​

The prize is open to those who are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, and who are accepted as such by the communities in which they live.​

So it seems the book is faithful to its sources.

The author has been eligible for the prizes he has received.

The bolded doesn't alleviate my concern.

 

[Chief]

The bolded doesn't alleviate my concern.

What is your concern?

 

[sdfc]

I'm keen on awards for Aboriginals going to Aboriginals. Not white guys who recently found out they had some Aboriginal DNA.

 

[Chief]

I'm keen on awards for Aboriginals going to Aboriginals. Not white guys who recently found out they had some Aboriginal DNA.

What do you think an Aboriginal is?

That award was for the purpose as stated.

It is meant to promote indigenous voices. It achieved that aim.

Don’t forget Pascoe shared the prize with another Indigenous writer.

 

[sdfc]

What do you think an Aboriginal is?

That award was for the purpose as stated.

It is meant to promote indigenous voices.

You're question is irrelevant.

He's a white guy who recently found he had some Aboriginal DNA.

 

[Crankyhawk]

Don’t give a toss myself re aboriginal awards going to First Nation people exclusively. More interested what came of his theories re the growing of yams and other bush crops

 

[Chief]

You're question is irrelevant.

He's a white guy who recently found he had some Aboriginal DNA.

I’m just trying to find out what you think the criteria should be. It is relevant.

 

[sdfc]

I’m just trying to find out what you think the criteria should be. It is relevant.

The subject is a writer who was brought up with the privileges of being white winning an award meant for Aboriginals.

 

[Admiral Byng]

Honestly never heard of him nor his book until a few weeks ago when it was reported that some shrill had made a complaint to the minister's office, who had then forwarded it on to the AFP for investigation.

Still haven't read the book, nor do I intend to.

 

[Chief]

Honestly never heard of him nor his book until a few weeks ago when it was reported that some shrill had made a complaint to the minister's office, who had then forwarded it on to the AFP for investigation.

Still haven't read the book, nor do I intend to.

Thank you for your contribution.

 

[Chief]

The subject is a writer who was brought up with the privileges of being white winning an award meant for Aboriginals.

Do you think the aim might be to encourage and indigenous voices and stories?

We still have the fundamental issue that your argument seems to be with the criteria for one award. Pascoe was a valid candidate.

 

[Brunswick Trap King]

Honestly never heard of him nor his book until a few weeks ago when it was reported that some shrill had made a complaint to the minister's office, who had then forwarded it on to the AFP for investigation.

Still haven't read the book, nor do I intend to.

Same

 

[Admiral Byng]

Same

Thank you for your support.

 

[E Shed]

I'll never understand why people make a virtue of ignorance, coming into threads to make the point that they don't know anything about the person or subject being discussed and have no intention of finding out.
How is having a closed mind and no curiosity something to tell others about as if you're proud of it?

For those who enjoy educating themselves, Bruce Pascoe is an exquisite writer whose wisdom and humanity puts into stark relief what a small, mean person Bolt is, and what a bad writer he is by comparison.

Andrew Bolt’s disappointment

MY FRIENDS TAKE a breath, lean across the table and assume the tone of Richard Dawkins explaining dinosaurs to intelligently designed Christians. They believe that in my promotion of Aboriginal achievement I’m simply being loyal to family or wanting to take a belligerent stance on our country’s...

www.griffithreview.com

 

[HairyO]

What do you think an Aboriginal is?

That award was for the purpose as stated.

It is meant to promote indigenous voices. It achieved that aim.

Don’t forget Pascoe shared the prize with another Indigenous writer.

Do you think blonde haired and blue eyed Aborigines encounter the same issues as dark skinned Aborigines and therefore need the same protections and assiatance programmes ?

Where would you draw the line?

 

[HairyO]

Do you think the aim might be to encourage and indigenous voices and stories?

We still have the fundamental issue that your argument seems to be with the criteria for one award. Pascoe was a valid candidate.

But should he be a valid candidate?

 

[CM86]

Do you think blonde haired and blue eyed Aborigines encounter the same issues as dark skinned Aborigines and therefore need the same protections and assiatance programmes ?

Where would you draw the line?

Hey HairyO, can you give some more detail about what issues you think dark skinned Aborigines encounter?
A collection of posters on here believe there is no racism in Australia anymore.

They don't listen to me, so maybe they will listen to you?

 

[Chief]

But should he be a valid candidate?

Should he be a valid candidate?