Professor Bronwyn Carlson Heads Macquarie University's New Ministry of Truth
“On my mother’s side, we are Aboriginal from South Australia.”
- Professor Bronwyn Carlson, Distinguished [sic] Professor and Head of Department of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University [Listen to ABC radio excerpts here].
Until yesterday?
Professor Carlson’s academic profile on the Macquarie University website on 14 July 2024 clearly indicated that she was “an Aboriginal woman” (Figure 1).
However, somewhat mysteriously and with no explanation, by 2 August 2024 it appears that the Professor has subsequently renounced her Aboriginality - she no longer claims to be “an Aboriginal woman.” She has also dropped her association with her seminal textbook, The Politics of Identity: Who counts as Aboriginal?, based on a manuscript for which she won the 2013 AIATSIS Stanner Prize (Figure 2).
Could the changes to Macquarie’s website be due to some journalistic probing in recent days (late July 2024) by Andrew Bolt?
Figure 1 - Professor Bronwyn Carlson’s Macquarie University Profile on 14 July 2024, ‘proudly’ proclaiming her Aboriginal descent as “an Aboriginal woman who was born on and lives on D'harawal Country in NSW Australia.” Her authorship of the book, The Politics of Identity: Who counts as Aboriginal? is openly acknowledged. Source: Archived here 14-July-2-24
Figure 2 - Professor Bronwyn Carlson’s Macquarie University Profile on 2 August 2024, sans any reference to her Aboriginality. Nor is there a reference to her book, The Politics of Identity: Who counts as Aboriginal? Source: Archived here 2-Aug-2024
So why does this all matter?
It matters very much because Macquarie University and Professor Carlson are sending a message that Truth doesn’t matter anymore if it stands in the way of one’s reputation, an ideological cause or career advancement.
It appears that no one at the HR department of Macquarie University checked Professor Carlson’s application for the position of Head of Indigenous Studies to confirm her claims that she was indeed “an Aboriginal woman”.
It appears that Macquarie University are running a “charade” and “ticking all the right boxes” when they advertise for “Indigenous” scholars, even being very specific in their advertisements:
“This is an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander identified position. To perform this role, it is essential that the person who holds the role be an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person. It is a genuine occupational requirement under section 25 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 that applicants are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.”
as they did in this recent job ad for a full-time, Academic Director, Indigenous Education and Research on A$146.3K/yr - A$193.3K/yr + 17% super [here - Nice work if you can get it].
Anthropologist Peter Sutton has bluntly observed that there is a growing, but erroneous, belief, “that knowledge comes with your blood from birth” (watch here). Sutton was speaking of Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe, but many might think that he could have just as easily been describing Professor Carlson, or any one of a number of the other academic fakes that have been exposed.
Is this why the administrators at Macquarie and the Professor perpetuated their apparent charade for so long? Does the University need ‘Aboriginal’ academics to fill ‘identified' roles? Do applicants like Bronwyn Carlson need to ‘identify’ as Aboriginal so as to get employed in these roles? Is this the real ‘systemic racism’ that people speak of, where ‘white’ people hire other ‘white’ people to run courses to tell Aboriginal students how they are meant to learn, think and act if they want to be Indigenous?
Now that the charade has been exposed, it looks like the administrators at Macquarie University have decided to cover their tracks and employ a modern day ‘Winston Smith’ to quietly go back into the records and erase out any details of the Professor’s Aboriginality claims.
Macquarie’s Winston did his job and the Professor, who was an Aboriginal woman on July 14th, wasn’t by August 2nd.
So now that the record is ‘straight’, Macquarie can relax:
“You say Professor Carlson was claiming to be “an Aboriginal woman”? No she didn’t, look at her university profile - nothing to see here. The Professor has a fine academic record in upholding the truth.”
Figure 3 - Screenshot of a Macquarie University Abstract by Professor Carlson on Truth-Telling. Source: here The authors would like to acknowledge the Macquarie University Research Acceleration Scheme, which provided seed funding… Note Macquarie University was established and operates under NSW state legislation, The Macquarie University Act 1989
Our society is heading into a very dangerous place, as this small example illustrates. When academics and universities sacrifice Truth for Expediency they are taking us all on an ideological road that will end badly.
The most frightening thing about all of this is what is it doing to the mental state our children, the most precious of things that our society has, as we pack them off to a humanities course at Macquarie University.
The ‘activism’ taught to our children at Macquarie, staffed by apparent ‘Aboriginal fakes’ such as Bronwyn Carlson will most certainly lead to ‘brain-washing’ and a disconnect from truth, critical thinking, beauty, goodwill to all other people and a positive creativity - the important things in life [see Further reading below for Prof Carlson’s course content].
George Orwell again foresaw this danger. How is the following film clip from the film 1984 all that different to what we have seen on our university campuses over the past few months?
It is time again to reflect on the greatness of George Orwell’s book, 1984 [and remove your kids from Macquarie University]
“Who controls the past controls the future.
Who controls the present controls the past.”
Further Reading
The following course slides, said to be used by Professor Carlson in her ABST1000 course at Macquarie University, were obtained from a student doing the course.
Clearly “Indigenous Studies” is not about the social, philosophical, cultural and economic issues of Indigenous Australians. Rather it all just looks like un-Australian, anti-colonial history and political activism with a very slanted version of Truth-telling.
ps: I am not making this up. These slides are all Carlson Newspeak - “un-learn” for indoctrination; “Truth-Telling” for lying; gobbledy-gook quotes from Foucault [Big Brother] and the foment of hatred at ‘white’ colonial Australia and the descendants of the British and settlers.
We have also come into possession of a number of essay assignments written by students of this ABST1000 course in Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University.
Below are some snippets from half-a-dozen student’s essays (anonymous but names supplied) to give our readers a feel for what they are learning and what is required to pass the course.
Excerpt from Essay 1
Excerpt from Essay 2
Excerpt from Essay 3
Excerpt from Essay 4
Excerpt from Essay 5