Marrying outside the mob

Flick through any edition of the Koori Mail and ask yourself the question as to who that high profile Indigenous person, prominently featured within, is associated with or married to.

Another exercise is to construct a list of all the Indigenous leaders in your local community, especially in larger regional and urban areas, who are prominent in the news or head up responsible positions in the public or private sector and query who they are married to.

If you come up with a figure of about 80 per cent of prominent Indigenous Australians, male and female, in mixed race marriages then you can appreciate why these questions is often raised by the Indigenous community.

The question that I’ve heard on many occasions is “why are our smartest and gifted drawn outside their mob” to find a soul mate? Is it because of a perception that more is gained - prestige, influence and powerful connections - by choosing a non-Indigenous partner?

In 1918 the Federal Government revised its “Ordinance on Aborigines in the Northern Territory”:

Unmarried European men and "persons of Asiatic or Negro race" were not permitted to employ Aboriginal women;
Aboriginal women not allowed to work on boats;
Marriage with non-Aboriginal men required permission;
It is an offence to keep an Aboriginal woman as a mistress, have carnal knowledge with, procure an Aboriginal woman for prostitution (penalty of £100 or 3 months prison);
It is an offence for an Aboriginal woman to solicit for prostitution.

Thank goodness that draconian policy, and those of similar intent in other states, has long gone. Australia today appears to have developed a more mature approach to the issue of mixed marriages.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics data revealed that in 1991, 57 per cent of all couples involving an Indigenous person were mixed (that is, only one partner was Indigenous). However, the extent of mixed marriages for Indigenous people appears to be increasing. By 1996, this proportion had increased to 64 per cent. In over half (55 per cent) of all Indigenous couples in 1996, in which only one partner was Indigenous, that partner was the woman.

I’m not sure where Whoopi Goldberg was coming from in her offensive remark to Michelle Obama.

Maybe Whoopi, and might I suggest many Indigenous Australians, have become so engrossed in the mixed race debate and so accustomed to seeing black leaders from mixed marriages gain national prominence that when the rare occasions occur where successful black couples make it on centre stage together - as was the case with the Obamas - she was lost for words.

Maybe we all need to look inwardly at our own prejudices on the issue of race and be more accepting of people’s choices in life. And when success is bestowed on their achievements - let’s acknowledge their feats without condition.

I believe that colour alone will not be the main cause today for the break up of a marriage between mixed race couples or Indigenous couples.

And I also believe Friedrich Nietzche got it right when he said: “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”