i was born in Australia so I am also indigenous to this country so why should I be discriminated against in entering this free style artistic competition.
Smokey, while maybe you are technically and dictionary defined as indigenous to this country, I think the term 'Indigenous Australians' is a term that is common parlance instead of Aborigines, Aboriginals or Aboriginal Australians and from what I understand is more acceptable to them to be described as such. For the purposes of describing the early inhabitants of this country as a collective, without having any racist connotations, the term 'Indigenous Australians' has been working well for about 20 years now. I can't understand why white people would want to try and lay claim to the phrase.
I'm OK with indigenous only entries to this. There is an alarming need to preserve the culture, so much has been lost, and let's face it, look what white people have done to didgeridoos and boomerangs, made in china and sold at the grampians, it's rubbish, maybe we should keep our hands off sometimes. And some things never change in Australia do they- a panel of white men made the decision to run this contest, and a panel of white men will judge it. All shortlisted work is the club's property and the winner will receive no royalties from the sales of the artwork. In the meantime the club can pay six figures for a cartoon channel club logo.
Good points DC and I agree with some of what you say, especially of the need to preserve the Aboriginal culture and of how white man has 'damaged the brand' so to speak. I just don't think that applying strict cultural rules apply in this sense as we are talking about a design on a jumper used in a sport that has no Aboriginal roots. To me we are further damaging their brand by doing what we are doing - commercialising a hybrid design that has no connection to, or story from Aboriginal culture. If we want to be serious about it then we should leave the jumper as it is and find more appropriate ways to honour their culture but things being what they are, I just don't agree with keeping the design within the realm of Aboriginal artists, this competition does nothing to me to show Aboriginal art. To be honest, I would rather the club run a competition for Aboriginal art each year with the entries being displayed in our Korin Gamadji Institute for a period around the Dreamtime game and the winning entries being put on permanent display.
And I hear what you are saying about use of the term "Indigenous" but use of the term solely to describe people of Aboriginal heritage to me only serves to divide. All of us born and raised in this country are indigenous to it, some with Anglo-Saxon roots, some with various European roots, some with various Asian roots, some with Aboriginal roots and if we all want to co-exist in harmony then we should all be embracing each other as indigenous Australians. Just my opinion.
