So called Australia Day - 26th of January marks that the day that Europeans settled at Sydney Cove and begun the process of wiping out the Aboriginal population. This was done through murder, massacres, rapes, disease, poisonings, hangings, paying people to kill Aboriginal adults and children etc. These are all crimes that many of you spend the majority of your day whining about on HotCopper - claiming that "African Youth" and "Muslims" should be deported if they commit any such crimes. Only this is downplayed by the same people because it is inconvenient to acknowledge that this is the truth in regards to the treatment of Aboriginal people. The same people who were first living here - despite the British not recognising them as people. Despite our government having a "white Australia policy" even though the first people weren't white. Despite not giving Aboriginal people the right to vote until relatively recently. Despite segregation. Despite the thousands of children stolen from their families. Despite Aboriginals not having any rights to the land (imagine how wealthy they'd be if they were given 50/50 rights to all land in Australia back when Australia was "settled/invaded/stolen". Despite Aboriginal people being the focus of racist jokes and remarks for generations. The day was chosen without any consideration for Aboriginal people (just like pretty well every other decision in this country). Yes, Aboriginal people are in the minority... but they are the minority or a very small minority because of the genocide. January 26th isn't even when Australia was formed... it was initially called "foundation day"... a logical day would be January 1st with the public holiday being on the "first Monday or first Friday" of the month. This is when Australia was actually formed as a nation in 1901. How many public holidays are based on Aboriginal people? How many cities are named after Aboriginal people or words? How many streets are named after Aboriginal people? The reality is our country is about as white washed as possible. Travel overseas and very quickly people will remind you of how racist Australia is and it's poor treatment of its Aboriginal people is appalling.
