The Stolen Generation Persuasive Speech

After the recent anniversary of the apology to AFL legend, Nicky Winmar, this inspirational moment in Indigenous sporting history continues to be forgotten. The choice to stand and take action in showing the honour to be Aboriginal is scary and brave. They should not feel like this ever, feel scared for showing others their identity, yet they are and being criticised for the colour of their skin. We need to make this a normality for them, so they do not have to be crying out for a place to belong.

Our nation will all experience a loss of identity and belonging at some point in our lives, however we fail to acknowledge this to be a daily routine for many Indigenous Australians. Yet we continue to suppress the value of their washed away culture

The notion of “forced to feed” indicates doing something against your will which draws our compassion for such harsh forcefulness and cruelty accumulated onto Indigenous people in past and present times. The use of repetition with “my feet” provides the implication of slavery and the loss of autonomy. The idea that we can inflict violence on another and strip their children from the mother’s arms is so barbaric and dehumanising. Not only were children taken from their families, but they were also deprived of the knowledge of their culture, heritage, language, land, traditions and forced to follow white culture. With this, we can try to understand the pain those children must carry now from not knowing their identity or where they once belonged.

We are later told through the use of stage directions that “the Woman retrieve[d] her dress” (p.34), showing her in the final stage of grief, acceptance. As the listeners, we can interpret that as her way of regaining control and retrieving her armour to cover the pain of losing her children. The Woman collects herself, however we can assume the value of the pain she feels with the loss of belonging to her

For Indigenous people, this moment symbolises the encompassing pain and cruelty of forcibly removed beliefs replaced with new ones. During the scene, Goodes’ mother uses the dialogue of “I know I’m Indigenous, but I don’t know nothing about my ancestors.” Following this is an extended break in the background music throughout this scene which makes us sympathise with her in this scene as no children should have to witness growing up with little recollection of their own