Wednesday, February 13, 2008
BLEACHER DOUBTED
Via Contrail and Saint in comments, a noteworthy piece by Reuters correspondent Michael Perry:
Tens of thousands of aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their parents under a government policy of assimilation from the 1880s to the 1960s. Those children are called the “Stolen Generations” or “People of the Bleaching” ...
New Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the national apology to Aborigines would “remove a great stain from the nation’s soul”.
Some bleach might help. Interestingly, that phrase only turns up in articles by Perry. He’s been using the “people of the bleaching” line - in fact, several identical lines - since 1997:
Tens of thousands of Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their parents under a government policy of assimilation from the 1880s to the 1960s. Those children are called the “Stolen Generation” or “People of the Bleaching.”
I’ve never heard of the alleged stolen generations being called “children of the bleaching”, but that doesn’t mean a lot; I haven’t been covering Aboriginal issues much. But Darwin-based Paul Toohey, currently in Dili, sure has.
I spoke to Paul a couple of hours ago. “Is this person a satirist?” he asked. “I’ve never heard that before in my life.”