Two Worlds!

Vas invited a woman from work in yesterday and we got on to the topic of indigenous people and their ability to handle alcohol.

I said I didn’t think it was right that people who work in substance abuse would ever have a drink during work hours. Vas figured it was fine.

“We are all about responsible drinking and understanding limitations,” he argued.

“Hog wash!” I said (well, maybe I was a little more emphatic).

“Many Indigenous people react to alcohol: like an allergy. It has nothing to do with being responsible or developing self control!”

I remembered back to a dance in Vancouver when I was about 18. I had made friends with a First Nations woman and convinced her to have a beer with me. She said no at first, but I insisted. The next thing I know she was literally under the table, reaching up and stealing people’s drinks. After a three day ‘bender’ she couldn’t look me in the eye again. I had lost a friend, and learned a lesson.

I looked at Vas’s co-worker again; Alice was sipping her rum and coke.

“You’re indigenous aren’t you?!”

“Yes”, she replied politely. Sheesh.. Sometimes I am just a tad thick.

In Oman once, I described a fellow to a colleague that was going to the airport to pick him up. I mentioned height, weight, age.. everything, I thought. My friend returned, “It would have been easier if you’d have told me he was black!”

I don’t ‘see’ color, and have to think about accents too. But once I ‘look’..

“But your mixed blood, that can make a huge difference, can’t it?” Alice's skin was lighter than many of the Indigenous people I had met: her facial features finer.

She acknowledged that indeed she was mixed, hesitating almost imperceptibly.

Being a mix of Indigenous and non-indigenous has always been a bit of ‘shame job’ in Australia. It isn’t like being part English and Irish, with a little German and some other bits thrown in as I am. It is more about not fitting in. Having no 'country' that defines you.

Mixed kids were the ones targeted by the Australian government: taken from their mothers and put in residential schools. The ‘Stolen Generation.”

They were housed and provided with an education. But the cost was high: the humiliation, degregation and lonliness of being apart from the people that loved them. And with time, they didn’t fit in any more; anywhere. A lot of these kids struggled to assimilate into the non-indigenous society: they weren’t non-indigenous. Some were half Chinese, half German, half who-knows-what, and racism was rampant, not just against indigenous people, but any visible minority. To be a combination must have been tough.

But they did receive an education. And people are resilient. And times have changed... somewhat.

While governments may apologize for what happened to this lot, many of the changes in attitudes and policies are being driven by that “Stolen Generation” and their children.

It is no longer a case of finding out where they fit. Indigenous people in Australia have the key to the country, and many of the Stolen Generation are just starting to discover their power.

Not that it's easy.

We all have our ‘stuff’.

When I was a kid, it was insult to tell someone they were adopted. Jackie used that on me a couple of times when I was particularly annoying.

“You’re just acting that way because you’re adopted: you can tell by your hair. You’re different. Real ‘Crabb’s’ are nothing like you.”

“I’m not different!”

“Yes you are!”

That was before I got looking through the family albums and found my own picture: only it wasn't me but my grandmother. "Told ya so Jackie!"

We all need to know who our 'peeps' are.

Paula’s family and mine have always made it a priority that my grandson, Adam, knows he is loved and belongs, even though his daddy Monte doesn't live with him. He may be different than his brother Nicholas, but that is Ok.

So I was rather surprised when six-year old Nicholas, who’s father Chris is married to Paula, creating a proper family, drooped his shoulders in despair and pathetically exclaimed: “It’s not fair!! Adam has two dads!”

And I actually felt sort of bad for the little guy!

I too would have liked to have “two dads!” like Adam. He got to go fishing and hunting with his daddy Monte and was able to travel abroad and study music with daddy Chris. His life is bigger, richer, because of, rather than inspite of the two different perspectives on which his reality is born.

And I compare that to the opportunities that “two cultures” can offer.

Indigenous culture doesn’t worry about the world too far outside their immediate environment: they know what it means to be grounded and still. They are able to live ‘in the moment’.

Non-indigenous culture has travelled into space and developed the IPad!

The downside? Well, while Alice was able to practice self-control and responsible drinking, she had brothers and sisters who couldn’t.

I have mom’s fat thighs... not the same, but we all have our 'stuff.'

Aboriginal people have a foot in two worlds: I can relate to that.

When I went back to Canada in June the imigration guy smiled and said "welcome home!" And that is how I felt.

And when I arrived back in Australia, the imigration guy smiled and said "welcome home!" And that is how I felt.

Two worlds. How lucky am I?!