Taking sides over Dark Emu
- Thread starter Chief
- Start date
- Tagged users None
- Sep 21, 2009
- 16,736
- 14,930
- AFL Club
- St Kilda
I think the only time it was ever mentioned, pre-Bolt, was by Pie eyed.
Now there's a legion of experts explaining why Bruce doesn't know as much as them, and that Bruce is too white to be an Aboriginal...
Just repeating Bolt's talking points.
- Jun 22, 2008
- 24,580
- 21,275
- AFL Club
- Geelong
Pretty much, mostly. I certainly think what you're saying has happened too. People digging into their ancestry that they wouldn't have done before, finding they have a small diluted amount in their far past and ticking the box.
I remember at the time when there was the huge jump in numbers thinking the same as I do now plus some of what you think. I certainly wouldn't think the higher birth rates notion holds any water, certainly not to account for the size of the increase.
I actually know a person who has done it. I'm lifelong friends of the family, the mother does some digging after all the kids have left home, finds some Aboriginal DNA on her side of the family and one of the sons who up until that point had just drifted through life, couldn't tick that box fast enough in everything he was eligible to, he rode that pony for all it's been worth. It didn't start until he was in his 30s. It opened all sorts of doors for him and he has now been in stable employment for that past 15 or so year at a big university and even advocates on their behalf. He's about as sincere as a politician.
I haven't read the book I was just putting into context why there's controversy in the first place. My position is I don't think its appropriate to have this version of history taught in schools until the theories presented in the book are proved. Those disputing him have gone to Pascoes sources and there appears to be a wide disconnect, even deliberate distortion. Yet there are far too many people willing to hitch to these theories due to their ideological beliefs and that is not how history works.
I know it's hard for anyone on the left to understand but I will call out my known unknownsSack your researcher. And your joke writer
Yup as I said a seperate class of citizens, it's the way the law has been going. A little concerning.
Yes that's why I haven't mentioned anything about the book.
They weren't primative savages or they wouldn't have been able to live on this continent for 50-70,000 years. They are a remarkably successful hunter gatherer society with a knowledge of the land bordering on the supernatural. Sadly that culture is disappearing when it should be celebrated. Misinformation and reinvention of history will drive that cultural loss.
Anyone that managed to invent something as cool and ingenuous as the boomerang isn't that primitive.
I asked the question is it fiction or nonfiction I haven't read it jeebus.
Chief
~ Shmalpha ~
- Thread starter
- Admin
- #93
Not sure how this is a left-right thing.
But you can read about it here:
Dark Emu
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 Dark Emu...
www.magabala.com
Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required.
Kalahari Bushman are cool too, but I wouldn't call them supernatural or super advanced and they have been around much longer and possibly the longest.
Not advanced as we would compare modern developed societies. But I'm convinced that some of the traditional owners I've worked with have knowledge of the land that is up there with PHD level botatists or ecologists - just not necessarily in an academic sense. Its hard to explain. Being 300km inland and having this bloke tell me the tide had just changed and sure enough when I checked it had. Perhaps easy to dismiss as bullshit until you line it up against dozens of examples like that. How the * do they know where to wait for game to pass when your in the middle of seemingly dead landscape? I'd cark out there in a day I reckon.
Last edited:
- Aug 16, 2006
- 5,094
- 6,695
- AFL Club
- Geelong
It seems some confusion exists because Pascoe has written works of fiction; however, Dark Emu is non-fiction.
The book is well researched. It draws on primary sources to evidence claims (the diaries of multiple colonial explorers, and early settlers), and it also builds on the work of historians who have researched the agricultural practices of aboriginal people. Pascoe's style of writing is somewhat literary--he is a writer by trade--but this doesn't weaken historical accuracy. There is no controversy that I am aware of among historians about the book’s research methodologies.
The only controversy has come from the usual subjects--cultural warriors on the Right who are threatened by the implications of the book; namely, that it erodes the conception of terra nullias. Apparently, it's triggering to know that Aboriginals had agricultural practices, houses, food and environment management, sewing, etc. As Bolt and Company can't attack the books scholarship, they have had to resort to ad hominem and attack Pasoce personally. Whether Pascoe is or is not aboriginal is, of course, entirely beside the point and in no way changes the claims made. But bullshit sticks, and I am sure that they will be successful in turning some people off. In fact, reading over this thread it is clear their wager with right-wing style identity-politics has already been a hit. That is a shame, as the book is an accessible account of a fascinating period of our history.
Last edited:
Social History is by nature not an exact science especially in this day and age where the outcome or conclusion is written first. Going further back Bean, Manning Clark Windshuttle are hardly much better.
Id agree that Pascoe writing about Vikings or Aboriginals shouldn't matter but there is a large part of the leftist academic gaggle that would yell white privilege and cultural appropriation if they didn't agree with the output, which sort of makes it hypocritical.
As I said I haven't read it so I won't comment on the actual work.
Last edited:
I have seen some ridiculous things done by aboriginal trackers but that doesn't make them more advanced pre european than there society suggests. Just a different skillset.
It's all a matter of degree Gough, more developed than what?
Were they more developed than the Maori or First people's of North America, probably not.
Did the live in 'houses' in what is now Victoria, have fish traps and limited agriculture practices? Absolutely, but most were fundamentally hunter gatherers, there is nothing wrong with that.
- Jun 22, 2008
- 24,580
- 21,275
- AFL Club
- Geelong
Last edited:
