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Comment by fit2rule | Hacker News Reader

Australia, 1967. Aborigines are finally recognized as persons and granted rights under the Constitution. Up until then, they were to be treated as 'native fauna' - i.e. animals.

http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/ab...

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It seems clear cut now when we grow up being told "everyone is equal", but that's because we have the luxury of seeing all moderns humans as a single species with no close living relatives. How would we classify Neanderthals if we found them alive today? How far removed from "our own race" do you have to go before something isn't a human? How about someone with a different number of chromosomes such as a Down's syndrome patient?

I think the real problem isn't classifying animals - aborigines really do have a different genetic history from every other race. It's that we somehow equate "not properly human" with "deserves to be abused". Until we can escape from that mentality, we're really no better than these zoo keepers. We've just moved the threshold a bit.

I've heard of the forced removal of children from their families but this timeline paints a really dark picture for me of Australia's history. Makes early 20th century Australia seems comparable if not worse than apartheid South Africa.

Its a dirty little secret, but Australia is still a very racist and intolerant place. Basically, Australia got away with its own "slow and steady" apartheid - a true travesty, to this day, and which still causes untold pain and suffering to a portion of its population. Alas, this is the price paid by generations for the luxury most Australians enjoy today. As an ex-pat, I hope to see things change, but I'm very much afraid that the more things get swept under the rug the more they stay the same.

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