Forgetting Aborigines

Forgetting Aborigines explores a central paradox in Australian history: Aborigines are often remembered as absent in the face of a continuing and actual indigenous historical presence. Chris Healy argues that in the ways we remember our history, Aborigines keep disappearing. They are present and central at certain moments but then fade from memory. Aboriginal issues can be on the front page for weeks prompting white Australians to ask questions like ‘why weren’t we told?’ and then recede again. The book examines ways in which we can stop this dishonest and destructive cycle.

'Locked in a cycle of forgetting, then remembering, Aborigines, the whitefella mind is playing tricks. Is there a way off this trail of destruction? Chris Healy offers a new way of history writing that looks beyond the paper archive to other places where the historical sensibility is formed: the TV screen, the embodied situation, or the heritage trail. You emerge in the end all the wiser, for to forget ‘Aborigines’ is to remember real people, in real situations. Brilliant.' -Stephen Muecke