It is a sobering irony to hear Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda claim that 'if you have a drop of Aboriginal blood, you're Aboriginal'. As a person of African ancestry and a descendant of the slave population in the 'new world', I found this comment a little troubling.
This and other comments on Aboriginality last week hark back to an earlier and ugly period of classification based on ideas about race, culture and identity. Gooda's remarks are part of a new battle of words about Aboriginality, with a number of prominent persons voicing notions of what constitutes 'authenticity'.
Tony Abbott started this latest debate by making some ill-conceived remarks about Ken Wyatt, a member of the Liberal Party, the only Aboriginal person currently serving in the Australian Parliament, and the first to be elected to the House of Representatives.
Abbott described Wyatt as 'not a man of culture' and compounded his error by describing NT government minister Alison Anderson as 'an authentic representative of the ancient cultures of central Australia' and 'a highly traditional Australian Aboriginal, who is nevertheless charismatic and inspirational in modern Australia'.
He welcomed the prospect of Anderson running for Federal Parliament and appeared to contrast her with Wyatt, 'an urban Aboriginal' (there has been no comment on the rather patronising tone in his praise of Anderson).
It is fair to assume that Abbott would not wish to offend one of his own MPs, who won a seat formerly held by Labor, but his words demonstrate lingering prejudice and ignorance about identity.
An implication of these remarks is that Aboriginality can be authentic only when certain criteria, readily discerned by observers like Abbott, are met. This suggests the invocation of stereotypes like remote, dark-skinned, non-EFL, 'traditional' etc. While Mr Abbott's remarks are retrograde, they are not all that surprising as he seems to have a penchant for clumsy mis-speaking. Some responses to his remarks, however, are also discomfiting.
Gooda is reported to have said 'Aboriginality is not defined by the colour of your skin, or whether you live in a remote or urban community', which is an incontrovertible observation and where he should probably have left it. Reference to blood, however, conjures up the absurd measurements that were used to classify and separate Aboriginal people in the past, including providing justification for removing children from their parents.
The 'one drop of blood' notion was often invoked in the USA where, regardless of colour, any known 'Negro' ancestry could be used to exclude people from full citizenship and ruin a person's life if it were disclosed when the person had been 'passing' as 'white'. There were parallels in Australia, but less consistency. White 'blood' often seen as having redemptive qualities and as a justification for separation from 'full bloods'.
Colour classification as a shorthand way of identifying cultural difference is inevitably flawed and inaccurate. So is the lumping of people under labels that are presumed to convey reliable information about them. These tendencies seem contradictory but both are used for a variety of political ends.
In dignified and measured words, Wyatt rejected Abbott's characterisation, stating that 'It is unfortunate that we have got this whole debate going around authentic Aboriginals because all Aboriginal people, no matter where they live, are authentic ... All of us are proud of our heritage.'
Demonstrating the diversity and complexity within the category 'Aboriginal', Wyatt's nephew, Ben Wyatt, a Labor politician in the Western Australian legislature, made a more robust response in defence of his uncle, and offered demographic and cultural instruction:
Tony Abbott ... seems to have absolutely no understanding about Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal history. To suggest that Ken is not a sufficient Aboriginal for Tony Abbott because he's not a man of culture, I think not only Ken will find offensive but every Western Australian should find offensive ... Particularly those Aboriginal people, the vast majority of Aboriginal people, who do live in our nation's cities and towns.
In her forthcoming Boyer lectures, Professor Marcia Langton will address 'the emergence of an Aboriginal middle class in Australia in the last two to three decades' that has 'gone largely unnoticed'. This development is not new and will doubtless strengthen. Class, and other differences, including multiple ethnic affiliations, will continue and multiply and have a variety of consequences.
I recall debates in the 1970s and '80s about whether black Americans' inequality was more about class or race; there were similar discussions about gender vs class, and indeed about the intersection of gender, race and class. People's sense of identity is multi-faceted.
Identity and interests will differ among Aboriginal people as they do in other groups, and there will be increasing awareness among the wider Australian population that there is no homogenous, monolithic Aboriginal community, nor is there a single measure, biological or cultural, of Aboriginality.
Dr Myrna Tonkinson is a retired anthropologist who has done research among Aboriginal people in the Western Desert of WA since 1974.