Rabbit Proof Fence Analysis

Great Essays
Register to read the introduction… Aboriginal people became economically marginalized and were exposed to new diseases. The consequence was massive depopulation and extinction for some aboriginal tribes. Land and property rights fueled an important civil rights movement in the 1970s. Aborigines spoke out for equal rights, and specifically for land rights for property that had been forcibly taken by British settlers. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act, passed in 1976, became instrumental in territories with tribal associations. The 1990s witnessed further rights milestones, including government legislation that returned a great degree of autonomy, and increased wages and welfare benefits to aboriginal …show more content…
The Nazi’s were putting Jews into camps and had their own eugenics programs. During World War II, Asian Americans were put into camps in the United States; however, what did surprise me was how long the Aboriginals were being held and administered into camps. The movie said this took place up until the seventies and that Molly’s own children suffered as she had. It makes me wonder if there were any resistance movements by the aboriginals and how much the British played a role in their mistreatment. Globalization brought the British to colonize Australia and it was their culture that they tried to forcefully assimilate the Aborigines into. The disregard for another’s culture and the implementation of your culture over another’s is called cultural imperialism. In the movie the half-castes face socio-linguistic discrimination as they are forbidden from speaking their own language and are required to speak English. They are given a different diet then they had as foragers. Furthermore, they are taught to pray and go to the white settler’s church. Mr. Neville explains that the half-castes have the “benefit of everything our culture has to offer” by being in the settlements. The whites believe that the “natives must be helped” and that what they are doing is right and …show more content…
In the movie, on the train ride to the camp, the girls are kept in cages like animals. I believe this excerpt from the Australian Psychological Society describes accurately how humans react to their environment. The physical landscape, or natural environment, plays a key role in the suffering of the young girls as they traveled miles striving for life. It is ironic that their lives are put to the test in their journey while their only objective was a chance at life. Figure 5: This picture depicts the rabbit-proof fence, the area the girls traveled for nine weeks on a 1500 mile

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The US Civil Rights movement has greatly influenced the Aboriginal activism in Australia through many ways that intrigued the world. The US Civil Rights involved many critical events and people that aimed to end racial segregation towards the black community amongst many parts of the US. Various individuals of the black community within the United States and Australia have been oppressed by the lack of rules/laws to protect them from racial discrimination. There are many events in the US that influenced Aboriginal Activism, such as the Martin Luther King ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech in 1963 and the US Freedom Rides in 1961, which both promoted the end of racism and inequality. A Freedom Ride is a ride in which activists try to bring light to certain subjects by traveling around parts of the world.…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    From the 1800s to the 1970s Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their parents as the government thought they would…

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This builds tension in the scene and notifies the audience that something bad is about to happen. Furthermore, when the Abductor runs over the wire on the ground, the Aboriginal people were alerted and curious about what was happening. The facial expressions used by the parents of the girls shows that they were distressed and…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The exclusion of Indigenous people from the nations constitution took place in the early nineteenth century. Henry Parkes the premier of the colony of New South Wales called for all six Australian colonies to unite and create a great national government for ALL of Australia. Parkes initiated a constitution based on common racial and British custom on which this nation was supposedly founded. Throughout her speech “Indigenous Exceptionalism and the Constitutional ‘Race Power’ Marcia Langton argues that any idea of race and the ability of the parliament to use race in law making should be removed from the Australian constitution. The detailed history of legislation applied to Indigenous peoples demonstrates this is many ways; Indigenous people…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, land rights for Indigenous people would mean autonomy, wherein adequate housing and a solid economic foundation would be accessible without a dependence on the government. Indigenous economic, health, and social status will continue to suffer until access, ownership and control of land are granted – an issue that has been addressed by various Australian native title acts, land rights movements, and commissions in the past two decades but that have yet to be…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The policies of Assimilation and Protectionism had detrimental impacts upon the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) communities throughout Australia prior to 1965. While Protectionism aimed to be a ‘smooth pillow to die on’, the policy of Assimilation culturally mixed the races. Assimilation was a policy implemented by the Australian Government which integrated ATSI into the Australian Society, this policy aimed to make Aboriginals ‘similar’ to white Australians and culturally mixed. As a result, this policy would extend the language, culture, beliefs, clothing and manner of living of the ATSI race but would genetically ‘die out’ through natural elimination. The most tragic aspect of the policy of Assimilation was legalised kidnapping which contributed to the ‘Stolen Generation’, this event makes clear that the ATSI faced a loss of identity, beliefs/spiritual, connection, bonds/ties, culture, taken from family such as biological parents, and a disconnection to the Indigenous heritage and traditional knowledge.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the turbulent years of WWI many Australians were left feeling discriminated against and that they weren’t treated fairly because of the effects of wartime pressures. However, although WWI had many divisive effects on Australians and their communities it nevertheless made us grow and mature into a more developed country with women rights eventually legalised in the 1980’s and freedom of religion and belief included in the Racial Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Commission…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Darwinism And Racism

    • 1353 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The notion of breeding out was embarked in Australia in 1931, with a government policy where half-caste children were to be taken from their Aboriginal families, known as the ‘stolen generation’ (Read, 1981). Discrimination was culturally, individually and institutionally embedded, as the government employed trackers to capture the half-caste children, place them in care homes to be trained to become servants, and ultimately be located with white people (Bell, 2010; Read, 1981). Thus, Australia tried to eliminate its indigenous people by breeding out the inferior Aboriginal race. Through this process of breeding out in eliminating the black and advancing the white, there was ongoing ethnocentrism, justification and self-righteousness of helping, not only the white Australians but for the Aboriginal people (Read, 1981). The system of cheap labour with aborigines, results in internalised…

    • 1353 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Only 15% of Australian land have a Native Title which shows that not a lot of land has been given back to the Indigenous Australians. The Native Title Act a fair process as it is lengthy, bias and that rights of other people can overturn the Native…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Social Darwinist Theory

    • 2020 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The 1997 Bringing Them Home National Inquiry discusses how the Australian Government has used regulations and policies to force Indigenous children away from their families. This essay will discuss how racism in Australia has impacted the Indigenous Community. It will discuss how the Indigenous Community have been subjected to the Social Darwinist theory, the ‘constructions of race’, Assimilation policies, the Child Removal policies and ‘institutional racism’. The 1997 Bringing Them Home National Inquiry the Indigenous Community has been alienated by the regulations, policies and practices used to remove Indigenous children (Australian Human Rights Commission 1997).…

    • 2020 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Without recognising the sovereign rights of the indigenous society, the land was divided and structures were established arbitrarily. It took until one of the most significant cases throughout the history of the Australian nation called the High Court’s Mabo v Old decision took place in 1992 before the renouncement of the long-held legal notion of terra nullius where any pre-existing land rights must be recognised. To have finally been accorded the land ownership claims, the Aboriginal people seek access, ownership, use, possession and enjoyment to resources in the control of white Australia. In the face of continuing resistance, land rights movements began to emerge for Australia has long refused to give a genuine native title to its traditional…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I Am Legend Quotes

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Chief Protector A.O. Neville, was not just a “man of his times”. He was much brighter than many other people of his era. He had big ideas for “improvement” as he was calling it. His circle of obligations was overwhelming, and he genuinely cared for all of the people of Australia. However, the way that he executed his ideas for improvement was not of the better of the people he supposedly cared about.…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    "Given the history of the European colonisation of Australia, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are wary of white institutions and social welfare’ (Chenoweth & McAuliffe 2015, p.268). Identify and discuss one or two policies or pieces of legislation that have impacted on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and how the effects can be seen today. During the European colonisation of Australia, oppressive laws functioned to subjugate and control the indigenous population. The Aborigines Protection Act, 1909 (APA) (Cth) and the child removal policy were particularly devastating, stripping Indigenous people of basic human rights and freedoms, and robbing generations of their connection to their families and culture. Although the Act was abolished in 1969, the trauma…

    • 1586 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    The evolutionary perspective is best used to describe the family bonds the children have for their mother, and the sociocultural perspective is best used to describe the motivations behind the social and cultural factors behind the Aborigines Act of 1905. To further develop the interaction between the white Australians and the Aborigines I offer three concepts: social dominance orientation, institutional discrimination, and social…

    • 2240 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Though others can't fathom the idea of putting borders between nations, I for one think that building a security fence would be the safest and most ideal form of protection. We need to protect and preserve America and build a future that our children will proud to call home. My belief is that we should give Americans a fighting chance, we should do background checks, and we should have a visible borders. Americans need a fighting chance to make something of themselves. I believe that if there is a job opportunity the americans should get the first shot at it.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays