At age 26, I learned a secret that had been held in the family for 50 years. My mother’s side was of aboriginal descent.
You are probably wondering, why was it kept a secret? It wasn’t because my family was embarrassed by it. It was because of survival.
The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as “half-caste” children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905[1] and 1967,[2][3] although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.[4][5][6]
Official government estimates are that in certain regions, between one in ten and one in three Indigenous Australian children were forcibly taken from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970.
My family is a descendant of the stolen generation. This secret was kept because they feared that our family would be separated from their loved ones, as they had seen many times before.
I had always been an outspoken woman. My first memory of being an activist was sitting in homeroom in year 10, Private catholic college. The class was “ethics”, and the topic was abortion.
I can’t remember the exact words, but it was along the lines of “what happens if someone is raped?” I proceeded to pull apart the “word of the lord” siting passages (we had Mass on the regular) and standing up for a woman’s right to make decisions for their own body.
I got detention and was “excused” from ethics for the rest of the year… that was a bonus for me as I couldn’t handle another minute of religious propaganda.
I have marched, protested, and engaged folks in discussion and change for many minorities and organizations from that day. As my home base is in West Hollywood, I am active in the LGBTQI community. I am also involved in campaigning for women’s rights, breast cancer awareness, intersectionality in feminism, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
2020 has brought everything that most of us have long known and been screaming about to the surface, and activism is the driver of change, so join us. We are waiting for you.
No good cops in a racist system
No bad protestors in a revolution