CHILD'S PLEA FOR EQUALITY
23.11.1996
IT was obvious to the conference that the brave little
girl standing before them was going to cry.
She was outlining how hurtful racist taunts were to a 14-year-old at her school _ Centenary Heights State High in Toowoomba.
The cross borne by Denise Maloney is that she has Aboriginal
parentage, but is white-skinned.
Her Aboriginality is something of which she is proud, and does not attempt to hide.
She is a participant in the State Education Department's Aboriginal and Tertiary Aspirations Programme which encourages children like Denise to "discover our identity, speak out and show who we are, and not hide in the shadows of white people''.
But when she got to the taunts of some of her school colleagues _ boys and girls _ she had the undivided attention of the 200 or so people at the Pathways Indigenous Education Conference, held at Toowoomba's University of Southern Queensland this week.
"They come up and ask how it feels to be a "white coon', and make racist jokes,'' Denise said.
"It hurts, but I think they are just ignorant. I usually walk away, but sometimes my friends stick up for me too when it happens.''
She told also how teachers at the school had directed her to remove the necklace she made and wears. It is in the red, black and gold colours of the Aboriginal flag.
"They said for a necklace to be worn, it had to be a religious one only. I say this is my religion. This is my spirituality, so I refused to take it off,'' she said.
"I would just like to say that all people should hold hands, walk together, understand each other. Together, we cannot lose.
"I would like people to be colour-blind. They have to stop this racial war that has gone on within our nation _ to be as one. To be equal.''
As poignantly as Denise spelt out the pain of discrimination today, so too did many older Aboriginals when relating what had happened for generations.
The session set aside to tell of "the stolen generation'' when part-Aboriginal children were separated from their parents and sent to missions or orphanages, was unbelievably traumatic for many.
For several speakers it was the first time they had publicly
revealed the trauma. Their pain was obvious.
They included Cecilia Barber, mother of Olympian Cathy Freeman, who told of her own mother being forcibly removed from Cooktown and sent to Palm Island near Townsville.
Theresa Illin was another who was born on Palm Island. At age five she was taken from her mother and put into the island's dormitory.
Until she was 15, she could see her mother across a fence, but was never allowed to touch her _ never even a cuddle.
