Widening the gap: White ignorance, race relations and the consequences for Aboriginal people in Australia

Abstract

White ignorance has a critical impact on race relations and is implicated in the maintenance of Aboriginal disadvantage. Addressing this ignorance is a largely overlooked capacity‐building opportunity within Australia's non‐Aboriginal population. It warrants consideration as a key component of strategies targeting Aboriginal disadvantage. Despite the established links between race relations and Aboriginal well‐being, Aboriginal perspectives on non‐Aboriginal people rarely feature in public discourse on “Aboriginal problems.” This paper draws on data from 180 in‐depth interviews with 44 Aboriginal people in Darwin on the topic of White Australian people, culture and race relations. It reports Aboriginal perceptions of White Australian ignorance across areas of great symbolic and practical significance to Aboriginal people's lives. Their experience is that most White Australians are ignorant of the history of colonisation and the complexities of its aftermath. They are ignorant of Aboriginal law, cultures and languages, and of the extent of their own ignorance. The call to address White ignorance subverts assumptions about whose ignorance and capacity must be dealt with in order to progress national goals of reconciliation, address Aboriginal disadvantage and achieve justice and equality for Aboriginal people.

Racial microaggressions and interculturality in remote Central Australian Aboriginal healthcare

“…Together with cultural safety, cultural humility requires a foregrounding of power imbalances inherent in the therapeutic relationship and a questioning of the assumptions of one's own sociocultural identity. Assumptions held about Aboriginal people, and how these beliefs and behaviours are implicated in continuing Aboriginal disadvantage, can be exposed [63]. Importantly nurturing these attitudes and insights is a lifelong process not a discrete endpoint of cultural expertise [64].…”

“…Ignorance cannot exist regarding the: colonising history and its intergenerational legacy of poverty and trauma; basic cultural mores and protocols; the impact of racism and misconceptions regarding affirmative action policies. Indeed, ignorance about one's own ignorance [63]. Capacity-building measures directed at non-Aboriginal HCWs are needed to address these basic knowledge gaps and to invert the dominant discourse of White people as the experts and builders of Aboriginal capacity [63].…”

“…Indeed, ignorance about one's own ignorance [63]. Capacity-building measures directed at non-Aboriginal HCWs are needed to address these basic knowledge gaps and to invert the dominant discourse of White people as the experts and builders of Aboriginal capacity [63].…”