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My Thoughts on Lecture B

 After watching Lecture part B, I realized that I had very little previous knowledge about the camps the Aboriginals were placed into. I learned that there were many boarding schools set up for Aboriginal children in order to assimilate them into Western society. The Aboriginal children sent to these camps often endured poor conditions and treatment. Many of them developed infections or common diseases from the living spaces they were put in. 

I was also surprised to learn about the controversy around Grenville publishing The Secret River in 2005. As I mentioned in class, it's difficult to keep up with and pay attention to history that doesn't affect me. In my bubble, I learn a lot about US History but not the history of Australia. Many people were upset and claimed the Aboriginal perspective was nonexistent in the book and only showed the perspective of colonial settlers. I understand this frustration because I recognize that the Aboriginal perspective is largely misrepresented. I discovered while researching that it's hard to find anything about the Aboriginal perspective. I believe that the perspective of Aboriginals is misrepresented because many scholars focus their attention on other perspectives.

Comments

  1. Noah English 11H BlogJanuary 29, 2023 at 10:54 PM

    To your point of scholars failing to look at different perspectives, do you think Grenville is doing the same thing? Some aspects of the book make it seem like she's trying to shed light on who the colonists were and what they did. By doing that, it is easy to leave the Aboriginals out. And even if that was done intentionally to show how the colonists undervalued the Aboriginals, in doing so the book seems to also undervalue them.

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  2. Catalina DegnanJanuary 30, 2023 at 12:09 AM

    Hi James! I think the controversy surrounding Grenville and the book is highly interesting, especially upon seeing how Grenville steadfastly believes that she is somewhat paying respect and "honoring" the aboriginal legacy in Australia. I certainly can see where she is coming from, but I think her execution in trying to shed more light onto the aboriginal perspective was very poor since the whole story is told from the point of view of the colonizer.

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