Marrying outside the mob

Only time will judge whether Whoopi will survive the flood of complaints that The View executives will receive over the coming weeks. I’m sure if the remark was made by one of the white panellists they would have had their contract terminated after the show without hesitation.

The issue of race and mixed marriage has been the subject of much debate around camp fires and in lounge rooms of Indigenous households for most of the 20th century. In the ‘50s and ‘60s many Indigenous people, as a family and individually, chose to identify as being anything but Indigenous - Gypsy, Indian, Maori and so on - to avoid the blatant stigma from mainstream society that accompany those who identified as Indigenous.

I’ve spoken to many Indigenous women over the years who admitted they married outside their race as a way of escaping their impoverished lifestyle. They explained they wanted to be free of the burden of living in disadvantaged circumstances with no apparent foreseeable way out that came with living and marrying one of their own mob.

To them also it was perhaps the quickest way to achieve the ultimate Aussie dream of owning a home and raising a family on a quarter acre block in the suburbs. Once in the suburb, hundreds of kilometres away from their mob, they happily assimilated into the life of mainstream Australians and realised that dream.

Regrettably, to achieve their goal, in most cases, they chose to forgo their Aboriginality and became white, if not in appearance, then definitely in lifestyle and thinking.

What many Indigenous women also learnt, rather despondently, was the dream, although achieved with varying degrees of success, was a façade punctuated with physical and mental abuse from white partners who viewed them as a possession that they rescued from a life of despair and who therefore owed them everything.

In other cases where mixed marriages were a success the burden of palpable racism displayed, overtly and subtly, by in-laws and family associates continued to place a strain on an otherwise perfect union.

On top of all the doom and gloom that’s often highlighted by failed mixed marriages, there are infinitely more successful mixed marriages that have stood the test of time and whose offspring are influential advocates of Indigenous rights today.

But there still remains that intrinsic obsession within most Indigenous Australians to pass judgment on Indigenous personalities - whether they are involved in politics, arts, business, education, music and sport - and of their preferred partner. When photos appear on the news and in newspapers and gossip magazines of them with non-Indigenous partners attending award ceremonies and so on, aspersions are cast on their character and they become the focal point of gossip.

Questions such as “Why can’t they marry their own kind?” and “Aren’t we good enough for them?” do the rounds again and again.

Who could forget the racial controversy that spewed forth in the United States over the O.J. Simpson murder trial of his white wife?

If you think this is an overreaction on the part of cynics from within Indigenous communities about prominent Indigenous identities choosing non-Indigenous partners, try a little exercise and see what response you come up with.