Whitefella Dreaming

WHITEFELLA DREAMING: ESSAYS IN SEARCH OF BLACKFELLA TRUTHS is Dr Brian Roberts’ second collection of essays challenging Australia’s Indigenous policies. He sets the record straight on the evolution of intelligent species, Indian and Mungo ancestors, and the serious divide between Indigenous traditionalists and modernists, exemplifying Philip Roberts, a Northern Territory ambulance driver and Elder as an individual successfully integrating two worlds. Noel Pearson and Marcus Waters are compared as torchbearers for opposing worldviews on Aboriginal traditionalism. An in-depth study of Sovereignty, explores two very different scenarios of an ‘Aboriginalia’ nation north of latitude 16.

Dr Roberts’ long experience of academia shines through in the chapters on Indigenous Studies and the pitfalls of what Professor Marcia Langton sees as potential refuges from reality within Indigenous Centres. He acknowledges the dire need for health, education, housing and justice in Aboriginal communities, but recognises the far-reaching effects of fundamentalism on three neglected modern policy areas: Separatism, Tribal Identity and Elder Governance.

Raised alongside tribal people, and a refugee from apartheid, Dr Roberts’ writing might be considered offensive by some but is offered in the spirit of contributing a factual basis to the Australian racial non-debate.