Sovereign Union - AudioBoom collection

Ronald D Chrisjohn BSc (Central Michigan), MA, PhD (Western Ontario) Since at least 1977 there has been unquestionable proof that, depending on age, region, and other demographic factors, indigenous peoples in Canada have suicide rates anywhere between three and ten times the rates for non-indigenous Canadians. As a consequence, there has been since that time at least a moderate interest in mainstream Canada, both bureaucratically and academically, not only to explain this difference but to supply interventions into Native centers that will ameliorate this disparity. It is our contention that the existing work ostensibly aimed at resolving the "problem of Native suicide" has been less than useless, in that, not only does it promote a factually and scientifically specious understanding of the issues, it is a continuation and extension of the assault responsible in the first place. Our charge is grounded in the principles and origins of modern suicidology itself, while the traction that oppressive, victim-blaming explanations and interventions have received in even supposed radical-liberal literature is traced to the forces currently destroying everyone's... not just Indian's... worlds. Audio Source; http://fromthemargins.h-a-z.org/podcast/?p=episode&name=2014-06-27_dying_to_please_you_full.mp3 Roland Chrisjohn & Shaunessy McKay are the co-authors of a forthcoming book of the same title as this presentation: Dying to Please You: Indigenous Suicide in Contemporary Canada

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Bronwyn Carlson's parents frequently accused each other of being "touched by the tar brush", which underpinned her struggle with her Aboriginal identity as a child. Her experience growing up with the understanding that she and her siblings "weren't white, but not Aboriginal either" inspired her recently published PhD, in which she explores the complexities of being an Aboriginal Australian. "I see people from uni who say, 'I'm Aboriginal but I know I don't look it'," Ms Carlson, Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Wollongong, said. "I still hear comments like, 'I'm one-eighth, I'm one-quarter, half caste', and all these colonial terms, so those kind of things haven't gone away. "Aboriginal people have a lot to face from non-Aboriginal Australia, let alone from our own communities." Ms Carlson said Aboriginality was still a contested and complicated issue that had been fiercely politicised, with Aboriginal people still facing issues about "who gets to count" as Aboriginal. More: ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-23/indigenous-academic-explores-the-politics-of-being-aboriginal/7192318

In 1990, Sixteen-year-old Colleen Walker-Craig kissed her mother goodbye before heading off to a friends party. That was the last time Aunty Murial Walker-Craig saw her daughter. For 24 years, Aunty Murial Walker has been waiting for her daughter to come home. Colleen is one of three children from the Bowraville Aboriginal Community who suddenly disappeared, never to be seen again. The other two children, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux were found murdered. Colleen Walker disappeared on 13 September, 1990 and her weighted down clothing was later found in the Nambucca River. Although her body has never been found, she is presumed dead..

'Why should we go and apply for a permit when fisheries know that we've got a right to go out and get a feed,' Wally Stewart says. 'That's what we are saying—we don’t need to go and get a permit. As far as I'm concerned they are still trying to put a regulation on us, and that is what has destroyed our culture, all these regulations. If they pull me up I’m just going to say I’m exempt from the Fisheries Act and the Marine Park Act as a traditional owner.' Read More: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/aboriginal-fishers-report-harrassment-fishing-traditional-food/7180326

Glen Yearwood (Storyteller) is a former London based communication expert who is traveling the globe to listen to the voice of the First Nations Peoples. Currently living in Alice Springs, Storyteller says has never seen or sensed the seething that he has experienced since arriving in Australia last year.. and that he believes there is a massive cavity in the relationship between white and black Australians. He told CAAMA that as a nation, Australia has a fundamental responsibility to teach children in schools the real history of their country.

These chirps are gravitational waves converted to audible sounds. The faint thump matches the gravitational waves’ frequencies. The louder chirp is a higher frequency better suited to human ears. LIGO

Doubling of female imprisonment rate in Australia almost entirely due to Aboriginal women being locked up More here http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4066806.htm

There has never been any recognition for the role that Aboriginal women played during war times. Many First Nations women joined the army, but those women who were left behind, had to take on traditionally male work. Gunggari woman, Dr Ruth Hegarty, Aboriginal author, is a recipient of the Queensland Great award for her contribution to building Queensland, grew up in the dormitory in Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement, also known as Barambah. Aunty Ruth is 86 years old, and she remembers the role women from Cherbourg played during the second World War, and the role her mother, Ruby Duncan took on during war. Aunty Ruth talks with her granddaughter, Living Black producer, Minelle Creed about those times during war, and roles women played, and how the returned men were treated when the war ended.

In the early 1970s, the Australian Government introduced a bilingual literacy program - known as two-way learning - for schools in the Northern Territory. The program aimed to help Indigenous students learn oral English, while learning the basics of literacy and numeracy through their own languages. The bilingual program continued for several decades, though as national standardised testing was rolled out in the 1990s, less focus and funding fell on the two-way learning approach. As the bilingual programs were phased out, the text-based resources from the initiative were in danger of degradation and loss. Read More: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/awaye/the-living-archive-of-aboriginal-languages/7120900

Bruce Pascoe's most recent work presents a radically different picture of Australia's original inhabitants, and how they maintained their culture over millennia. From the journals and records of early explorers and surveyors, Bruce has accumulated astonishing descriptions of a pre-colonial Aboriginal life. Mitchell, Sturt and others describe scenes all around the country of Aboriginal people engineering sophisticated dwellings and irrigation systems. They also describe the cultivation of vast areas of land for yam fields; and the harvesting, storage and milling of grain crops. Bruce is of Tasmanian, Bunurong and Yuin heritage and he lives on country, deep in the Victorian bush. Source and more info: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2016/02/01/4397892.htm#.Vq9BWE6zUbU.facebook

On the 27th January 2016 the Premiere Screening of 'Star Stories of the Dreaming' was held at the Chauvel Cinema One at Paddington Sydney.

This is a Phillip Adams interview with an expert on First Nations history, Dr Ray Kerkhove, who has undertaken new research on the warfare between First Nations people and the British advancement in Queensland during the 19th century - he has some interesting findings on Nations rallying together across Eastern states to fight the invaders ... and more. 'Latnight Live' ABC RN Wednesday 11 March 2015 10:20PM

An excerpt from Marjorie Thorpe's speech at an Invasion Day Rally Marjorie Thorpe is a descendant of the Gunnai and Maar people of Victoria Thanks to 3CR's 'Earth Matters' program for the audio

Cabbage Tree Island is a large, flat, teardrop of sugar cane land on a reach of the Richmond River on the New South Wales far north coast. - It is also home to the Njangbal clan of the Bundjalung people, and it is 'country' for former Jali Local Aboriginal Land Council chairwoman Sandra Bolt. - In the 1950s and 60s, Mrs Bolt's mother was assiduous in making sure the house was spick and span, and all 13 of her children were spotless ahead of the monthly inspection by the mission manager's wife — one of the few things her mother could do to stop her children being targeted by 'the welfare'. "We were all as a family kept together because my mother protected us from being taken away by the welfare, and then my little brother was drowned on Cabbage Tree Island," Mrs Bolt recalled sadly. - "That was when my family moved to Sydney, and my sister and I worked as domestics at Vaucluse." AUDIO 12:55 Bundjalung woman Sandra Bolt speaks about her family ABC NEWS The sisters met men and settled down. Mrs Bolt's sister Irene and her partner found a silver lining in a dark cloud after a workplace accident left them with enough compensation to buy a house in Balmain and a new car. - Then one day in the early 1970s, Government officers swooped and removed the youngest five of her six children, to be fostered in separate homes in different parts of the state. - The eldest child removed was just six years old.

A member of the newly-formed Referendum Council has questioned whether a referendum recognising Indigenous Australians in the constitution should be held at all.

TRANSCRIPT The Squatters' Thesaurus By Geoff Page The frontier runs are cleared by language. Myall niggers are dispersed. The Bible and Charles Darwin both declare the sons of Cain are cursed. Two squatters on a front verandah put their feet up to relax and talk of last month's dressing down or proper thumping of the blacks. That lad of mine, one squatter smiles, is much too keen on rushing gins. We had a parson by last month pronouncing on the seven sins. Vigorous measures must be taken. Outrages are up again. Time, it seems, to be doing the needful. They need a dusting now and then. Bodies strewn about like saplings are dragged into a pile and burnt. The future talks of settlement … and murder is a language learnt. From book: The great forgetting http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/the-great-forgetting-0440000 - 'The great forgetting' by Geoff Page is based in Canberra and has published 21 collections of poetry and five verse novels. An abiding theme in one book was Aboriginal dispossession on the Australian Frontier Wars, More: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/the-great-forgetting-0440000 - Audio: ABC RN 'Earshot'

Transcript will be available shortly.

Jack Charles who was awarded Victorian Senior Australian of the Year in October 2015 but was asked to pay up front for his taxi ride because he was Aboriginal. (pic courtesy of abc.net.au)

In Western Australia the number of Aboriginal children being removed from their parents has almost doubled in the last five years. - Now Indigenous leaders are proposing that children could be looked after by elders on former missions as an alternative to foster care. - Lucy Martin reports for ABC RN 'The World Today' 22 October 2015 TRANSCRIPT: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4336740.htm