Beware a White Person Bearing "Connections"
In this post we discuss an observation that we have made during our research at Dark Emu Exposed into the Aboriginality claims of a large number of self-identifying Aboriginal academics and politicians.
Our observation is that so many who ultimately turn out to be ‘fakes’, start their self-identifying journey to Aboriginality by claiming their own personal “connections” to a particular Aboriginal tribe, clan or Country.
During our work here at Dark Emu Exposed we have spoken to, and met with, many “real” Aboriginal people. These people know who they are and, if it even comes up in conversation, they say to non-Aboriginal people like us that, “I’m Wiradjuri, Walpiri, Aṉangu, etc.,” or sometimes, “I’m Pitjantjatjara language.”
Conversely whenever a “proud Aboriginal” person starts rattling off that they have “connections” to a whole range of tribes, or that their family hails from one Country, but they were born on another, grew up on another Country still, but they now live and work on still another [usually inner city Melbourne or Sydney] Country - [insert a Welcome to Country here where we are meeting, while they put on their Always Was, Always Will be Unceded Aboriginal Land T-shirt] the alarm bells start going off in our head.
Invariably, we discover that they are either a ‘fake’, or a newly identifying box-ticker who at best is an ‘Aborigine of Distant Descent’ only, with fractional Aboriginality, culture and family connections.
So beware of white people bearing “connections” - if they want to believe their own delusions that’s fine, but don’t expect the rest of us to have to validate those delusions with our time, respect and tax-dollars.
Adj. Professor Margo Neale is Head of the new Centre for Indigenous Knowledges, Senior Indigenous Curator & Principal Advisor to the Director at the National Museum of Australia. Source: Moriarty Foundation
“Margo is of Aboriginal and Irish descent, from Kulin nation with Gumbayngirr clan connections.
No she is not - it appears that she is mistaken.
Professor Bruce Pascoe
Professor Bruce Pascoe claims to be an Aboriginal man with extensive “connections”.
Politically, it is hard for many of us to agree with Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Chairman Michael Mansell, but when it comes to 'fakes' he has seen it all before and we trust his judgement on this point.
As he implied in a January 2020 article, the warning bells should start ringing when you a hear a white person claiming "connections" - these “connections” easily morph into actual claims of Aboriginality as Mansell describes in his assessment of “Tasmanian Aboriginal man”, author Professor Bruce Pascoe.
As Mansell wrote,
He [Pascoe] became interested in Aborigines and began writing about the topic. He said he felt a ‘connection’ with Aborigines.
How many white people have we heard that from?
That connection led Pascoe to originally claim he was an Aboriginal from Tasmania.
On what basis did Pascoe claim this? In Griffith Review #66, Pascoe wrote “both my mother’s and father’s families had an Aboriginal connection. I was amazed to find that the families knew each other in Tasmania years before my father met my mother at a Melbourne Baptist church.
But was it an accident? The two families lived close to each other in Melbourne, in the same street in Tassie, and had Aboriginal neighbours in both places. Aborigines signed as witnesses to their weddings, and various members of the families went back and forth across Bass Strait to marry back into the other family, including some first cousins.”
No mention there of his parents being Aboriginal, nor does Pascoe name who these Aboriginal friends were. This begins the pattern of Pascoe’s elusiveness on challenges to his identity claims- no names, no direct statement about from whom he gets Aboriginal heritage, all general and vague- but powerfully suggestive, leaving the reader to conclude there must be something there.
Not only does Pascoe not name the Aborigines so his version could be checked out, he does not explain how he knew about this (presumably he was not at the wedding).
Anyway, having Aboriginal friends does not make a white man an Aboriginal."
- Michael Mansell in the Tasmanian Times Posted on January 23, 2020
"I am a Yorta Yorta woman. Like many Aboriginal Australians my heritage was unknown to me until I was a teenager, and unconfirmed until I was in my early 20s," Ms O'Dwyer said.
"Since then, I have spent many years recapturing what was lost and building connection to community," Ms O'Dwyer said.
But as regular readers of Dark Emu Exposed will know, Labor candidate Lauren O’Dwyer was roundly exposed as a complete ‘fake’, despite her claims of building new “connections.”
Professor Jakelin (Jaky) Troy of University of Sydney - “I am Aboriginal Australian and my community is Ngarigu of the Snowy Mountains in south eastern Australia” (Source)
Professor Jaky Troy, Ngarigu woman and Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at Sydney University, spoke about the limits of applying our language of ‘love’ to First Nations cultures.
Saying that she wasn’t quite sure how she would say ‘I love you’ in Ngarigu, she explained that for her, using Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in itself was an act of love.
“In using Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, we’re showing love of Country. They embed you on Country. They give you a sense of place and of people on Country.”
She also pointed out that her language is “based on deep, complicated ways of talking about human relationships that make a place for everybody.”
“We don’t strongly gender things, we don’t force people into one kind of sexuality or binaries that the English language insists on,” she explained. “In our languages it is still embodied that we had a connection to everything around us.”
- ‘Fake’ Aboriginal woman Professor Jaky Troy
In an interview with Xinhua [on-line Chinese news source], we also learn that,
‘Jaky Troy, [is] a Ngarigu woman and professor at the University of Sydney specialising in documenting, describing and reviving Indigenous languages, talked about the importance of using Aboriginal languages in the media.
"The use of Aboriginal languages to name places in the 21st century, after nearly 200 years of these languages being ignored, is a statement about the new understanding by Australians of the importance of Aboriginal people," Troy said.
"The use of names of capital cities is a statement of the authority and the status of Aboriginal people as the First People, reinstating Aboriginal naming, using their languages is in many ways the ultimate recognition of reconciliation."
"Use of language is a performance of connection to country, every use of Aboriginal language is honouring their Australian roots," said Troy.
But as regular readers of Dark Emu Exposed will know, Dr Jaky Troy is a ‘fake.’
‘Mr. Maher has been consistently open about his Aboriginal heritage through his maternal side. He said this connection “has not played an active role in...[his]... life”, but he is proud to be linked to “the oldest living culture in the world”.’
As readers of Dark Emu Exposed will know, Mr Maher’s 2015 “connections” had by 2022 bloomed into his full blown identity as an “initiated Aboriginal man” and South Australia’s first Aboriginal Attorney-general.
But then maybe not (here and here) given that the genealogical records fail to support his mother’s claim that she, and hence her son Kyam, have any Aboriginal descent at all. They both appear to be mistaken in the belief that they are of Aboriginal descent (see here).
Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver’s LinkIn profile and her claim of “connections.” (Source)
Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver AM is another very high profile ‘Aborigine’ [sic] that relies on “connections” as she tells us in her LinkedIn profile, [Spoiler alert: she is a large scale University of Sydney ‘fake’]
I am ‘[A] proud Aboriginal woman with connections to communities in South Western New South Wales, South Australia and beyond. I am the Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of Sydney. …Lisa played a key role in the development of a designated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Unit within the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW and held the Inaugural Chair of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Director of the Muru Marri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Unit and Professor of Public Health UNSW.
She is a Group Captain in the RAAF Specialist Reserve and specialist advisor to the Chief of Air Force … She is a member of the Department of Defence and Department of Veterans Affairs and Scientific Advisory Committee … Lisa is a member of a number of strategic groups, including the Australian Statistical Advisory Council, the South Australian Health Performance Council and is a Board member of the Australian Medical Council and of Praxis Australia. …’
It just shows how far a self-identifying claim to “connections” to Aboriginality can take you - even if you have no demonstrable Aboriginal descent.
