My following book review appeared in last Sunday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper:
The Protectors
Stephen Gray
(Allen & Unwin, $29.99)“Mainstream Australia is equivocal about the apology [to the stolen generations] at best.” It’s a provocative start to a work that aims to understand the motives of the farmers, politicians and public figures who took Aboriginal children away from their parents. What did former prime minister Kevin Rudd apologise for and did ordinary Australians accept his reasons? This makes for uncomfortable reading and wonders if the once ubiquitous eugenics view towards indigenous people has gone away. Gray argues that many in white Australia still resent Aborigines being alive at all.