That was pretty commonplace right across Australia and leaves attitudes that persist for decades, not to mention the rounding up and confining by law to reservations, denial of access to employment, treatment as "welfare leeches" despite being denied access to trad. land, employment, and preyed upon by grog dealers that see aboriginal welfare checks the way a meth dealer sees marks.
This is how we arrive at Brigg's Bad Apples [3] .. and then we have the locals going out and running aboriginal kids over (2016) [1] or beating them to death (2022) [2] on suspicion of theft.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elijah_Doughty
[2] https://nit.com.au/25-10-2022/4163/shocking-attack-on-indige...
My experience with crime and indigenous folk was unfortunately much more personal. When I was ~13 a group of Aboriginal teenagers stole our car, proceeded to use it in a robbery and then left it burn out on the side of the highway. Thankfully we don't leave anything of value in our car. Those kids weren't much older than me, the eldest was 15 I think. They were caught but not charged or anything.. which I also think is a bit unfair given they already had prior history. Had I been caught doing the same thing I can almost guarantee I would have been punished severely if not for the fact I have no previous record at all.
If that was the only incident I could probably write it off as just a few bad apples but I had to go to school with them.
They were rude, disruptive and physically beat the shit out of people just for amusement assuming they actually went to school, much more likely would be to find them at the skate park drinking, smoking weed and vandalizing random public property.
If anything when I was growing up I couldn't understand why the oldies seemed to put up with them when if I was to even be caught having a beer with some mates underage I was treated like I had disrespected the entire community.
Growing older I begun to understand a bit, obviously at that age I didn't fully comprehend the extensive damage that had been done to their culture and I think that is a contributing factor why the older people in our community was more lenient on them than us.
S.A. then ? :-)
It's an ongoing battle with real grievances behind it all for sure - and people that hunt and kill to survive, even today, don't pull back on the violence when it arises.
It's rare to scratch an old town Australia and not find covered over 'genocide' like past events, and the rights given in 60s and 70s were very much a double edge sword for many, "now you can vote and we see you as people and not 'native animals' anymore - now fuck off and don't get in our eyeline".
The cure, although not simple, is respect and understanding and recognition of that, from both sides - albeit how hard such positions can be to reach.
My first move in country when I'm staying for any time is to see who the families are and to talk to some and to watch and see people.
That tends to minimise any trouble down the road, but there are few easy answers as yet.
Also I'm acutely aware of what their people have endured. I personally don't feel like it justifies the behavior that I encountered in my schooling years.