STOLEN. Cruel. Calculating. Continuing.
Late 1800s. Granny Jinny. Kidnapped as a young girl from Lama Lama Country to be a slave & more for a white family in Cooktown
#SorryDay
Early 1900s. Granny Jinny has a son, pop Silas. He was stolen & taken to Yarrabah. Granny Jinny followed. But they couldn’t be together. He lived in the cold + cruel dormitories. Kept apart from his Mum Jinny who lived just metres away in the community.
Early 1900s Granny Rosie went to Port Douglas Hospital to have her baby. She didn’t return. Police came for Nana Georgina 5 & aunt Harriet 8, Gugu Yalanji Country. Police said their mum was dead & stole them from their family. little girls grieving their mum removed to Yarrabah
Stolen dignity. 1930s. Pop Silas & nana Georgina meet in Yarrabah. They have a family. But, every part of their lives is controlled. Anthropologist Tindale recording nana’s menstrual cycle, while taking mugshots for his records.
Stolen innocence. 1940s. Mum, Aunty Carol, aunty Josie, Aunty Paula. You can wear white clothing. Speak our English language. But. You are not, and never will be like us, never be ‘civilised’
Stolen excellence. 1950s mum gets a western education. The only blak in the school. She can read before grade 1, play piano by ear. She is smarter than the whites. Impossible. (You stand on the edge for the school photo, so our lovely white parents can cut you out)
Stolen identity. 1970s. I am a foreigner in my own land. No one on tv looks like me, the dolls I love are white, thin, straight blonde hair. I watch Elvis Presley movies, shot in Hawaii, to see brown women on tv.
Stolen agency. I am a sovereign blak woman. But I am powerless under the white supremist systems, structures that contain me, constrain me, oppress me. Stolen. Generations.
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