Lest we forget. It’s three words every Australian comes to know early in life, recited at Anzac and Remembrance Days, or funerals for the most recently deceased soldier. I honour…
As a prelude to this post I would like to congratulate former Solomon Islands’ Attorney-General Julian Moti on his win in the High Court. On Friday 8th April 2011 the…
Michael Anderson, the last survivor of the four 1972 founders of the Aboriginal embassy in Canberra and leader of the 3,000 Euahlayi, says in a media release that the New…
At the request of one of the people mentioned in this post it has been taken down. We will review this situation and keep you informed of any progress as…
The Australian Federal Police (AFP), established in 1979, enforces Commonwealth criminal law and protects Australia's interests at a national and international level. The AFP also contracts out a general policing…
For today’s post I’m borrowing a theme from Turgenev, specifically from The Diary of a Superfluous Man. As readers of Turgenev will know, much of his fiction is associated with…
Following is the second installment of David Harrison’s story from member of the ‘new’ stolen generation to disaffected adult to fully fledged social activist. Over to David breaking the connection…
Mr David Harrison is a member of the ‘new’ stolen generation and a former colleague from Canberra. I asked David a while ago if he would write a piece about…
As part of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Additional estimates for 2006–2007, held in February 2007, Senator Evans put the following question on notice to…
Mr Paulo Flores is today’s guest poster on Blak and Black. Paulo is a European trained and qualified Psychologist, Lawyer, Mediator and Human Rights Activist. He is currently working in…
Some observations on the realities of being and Aborigine in 21stcentury Australia by an observer who isn’t. One of my piano teachers was the sole child of Polish Holocaust survivors.…
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by…
While strolling along the foreshore of Botany Bay today I spotted a Kingfisher. In Classical Greek mythology "Halcyon" is associated with the Kingfisher. There was an ancient belief that the…
Kevin Spratt, an Aboriginal man from Western Australia, was tasered up to 41 times in a week and went to hospital with fractures, a collapsed lung and a dislocated shoulder…
As society becomes more narcissistic, as we push ourselves harder and harder in the name of status at the expense of everything else, society starts heading towards the unknown. It…
After plumbing the depths of human depravity in my last few posts, I thought it’s time for a little soul food, or at least soul hors d'oeuvres. Ah that’s the…
My approach to life owes much to Lao Tzu’s maximum: “Live life in all possible ways; don't choose one thing against the other, and don't try to be in the…
Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin were at best clumsy amateurs when it came to genocide. If a political group wants to rid itself of a troublesome ethnic minority,…
While traditional and authentic Aboriginal culture in South-Eastern Australia went into terminal decline with the arrival of European settlers in 1788, the Aboriginal tribes of Arnhem Land in the north-eastern…