My younger sister is part Indigenous and quite dark, adopted by my parents when she was very young.
(I must say she was NOT what some refer to as the stolen generation)
Growing up, she was continually harassed, abused and called all sorts of names.
Derogatory comments were not only directed at her, but also to our family.
She is now in her 50s and a number of years back she took steps to find her family
and managed to locate a half sister.
They arranged to meet at my sisters place, the day arrives and gets the knock on the door,
sister opens the door and they say hi to each other. Her sister then comes out with “your black”.
That was the end of them having any relationship, my sister told her to leave.
The sister never even made it through the front door.
My sister has never denied her heritage, yet she has never applied for any assistance
nor has she ever ticked the box “are you Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander”
She always refers to herself as being an Aussie.
Has been plenty of times when someone has accused her of getting a hand out.
If you want my sister to get angry, this is a sure way of getting her fired up,
and believes that handouts should be for the people in need, not be based on heritage.
Irrespective of her heritage, she has been, and will always be our sister and family member.
I have been called a racist on plenty of occasions, which I find laughable,
considering my sisters heritage, and my wife being Italian.
We have 4 sons, both the eldest and 3rd eldest
have dark skin and dark hair, the 2nd eldest and the youngest are light skinned and blond hair,
put the 4 of them together and no way would you pick 2 of them to be brothers of the other two.
In their school years the dark ones copped a bit of racial harassment
yet the other two were left alone.
