Shai Gar
12 Jan 2011, 07:54 AM
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/aboriginal_man_helped
It is wonderful to see a rare and wonderful opportunity like this being offered to someone from a race that faces so much discrimination and poverty just because of the color of their skin:
Mark McMillan has received the 2009 Fulbright Indigenous Scholarship sponsored by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Mark, who is a senior researcher at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology, Sydney, will go to the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law to undertake to the newly established Doctor of Juridical Science in the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program
A 40-year-old Wiradjuri man, Mark hails from Trangie, NSW. A law graduate from the ANU in Canberra, Mark also has a Masters of Law from the University of Arizona and will finish his doctorate - also at the University of Arizona - in 2010. Mark is Senior Researcher at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning Research Unit at the University of Technology and is a Board member of the Trangie Local Aboriginal Land Council, Metro Screen and the NSW Mental Health Association. He is a proud father of an 11-year-old son, a proud gay man, rugby player, partner and active member of his community.
A gay white man with a law degree? Just the kind of Aboriginal who needs a special handout.
(Hmm. I wonder which Aborigines missed out on this scholarship, thanks to McMillan’s entry. Maybe the judges could explain.)
UPDATE
It’s some feat when Fulbright’s affirmative action - an indigenous scholarship - ends up leaving this year’s intake of Fellows looking just as white as ever.
McMillan describes the agony of not being discriminated against for being Aboriginal:
I am a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned Aboriginal Australian. Every time I look in the mirror, that’s what I see… As a child, I grew up expecting everyone to be like me, to look like me - with the blonde hair and blue eyes.
Clearly, my naive ideas about how Aboriginal people were ‘supposed’ to look were wrong. But being Aboriginal and fair and blonde was normal to me and I grew up in a world where I was treated ‘normally’. Along the way however, I noticed that not everyone was receiving the same brand of treatment and that made me angry. It has taken a while to let go of that anger…
Impeding my growth from that young person into the adult I wanted to become was the profound issue of identity. I was a ‘white’ black man… I was becoming a victim.
Racism sure has come a long way in this country if the problem now is that some people aren’t black enough.
http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/MarkMcMillan2_thumb.jpg
I wonder if this is a case of taking the piss?
It is wonderful to see a rare and wonderful opportunity like this being offered to someone from a race that faces so much discrimination and poverty just because of the color of their skin:
Mark McMillan has received the 2009 Fulbright Indigenous Scholarship sponsored by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Mark, who is a senior researcher at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology, Sydney, will go to the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law to undertake to the newly established Doctor of Juridical Science in the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program
A 40-year-old Wiradjuri man, Mark hails from Trangie, NSW. A law graduate from the ANU in Canberra, Mark also has a Masters of Law from the University of Arizona and will finish his doctorate - also at the University of Arizona - in 2010. Mark is Senior Researcher at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning Research Unit at the University of Technology and is a Board member of the Trangie Local Aboriginal Land Council, Metro Screen and the NSW Mental Health Association. He is a proud father of an 11-year-old son, a proud gay man, rugby player, partner and active member of his community.
A gay white man with a law degree? Just the kind of Aboriginal who needs a special handout.
(Hmm. I wonder which Aborigines missed out on this scholarship, thanks to McMillan’s entry. Maybe the judges could explain.)
UPDATE
It’s some feat when Fulbright’s affirmative action - an indigenous scholarship - ends up leaving this year’s intake of Fellows looking just as white as ever.
McMillan describes the agony of not being discriminated against for being Aboriginal:
I am a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned Aboriginal Australian. Every time I look in the mirror, that’s what I see… As a child, I grew up expecting everyone to be like me, to look like me - with the blonde hair and blue eyes.
Clearly, my naive ideas about how Aboriginal people were ‘supposed’ to look were wrong. But being Aboriginal and fair and blonde was normal to me and I grew up in a world where I was treated ‘normally’. Along the way however, I noticed that not everyone was receiving the same brand of treatment and that made me angry. It has taken a while to let go of that anger…
Impeding my growth from that young person into the adult I wanted to become was the profound issue of identity. I was a ‘white’ black man… I was becoming a victim.
Racism sure has come a long way in this country if the problem now is that some people aren’t black enough.
http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/MarkMcMillan2_thumb.jpg
I wonder if this is a case of taking the piss?