Trigger warning: This article contains discussions of different types of violence, racism, abuse and trauma.

The violence of colonisation has included massacres, segregation, racism, forced removal from our homelands and the forced removal of members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities from our families (see ‘Stolen Generations’ in this glossary). It is hard to be a good parent when you were a member or survivor of the Stolen Generations and were removed from your parents at a young age and put on a government or church-run mission where you may have been physically abused. It is hard to teach your children their culture and provide them with a sense of self when you were prohibited from learning your culture and who you really are.

If this article is bringing up issues for you, reach out to your family, community, teacher or free counselling services like headspace or the Kids Helpline for help.

Additionally, the disempowerment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples caused by racism continues transgenerational trauma due to its generational economic consequences. For example, because of the racism our older generations faced, they were not allowed to work in high paying jobs and were excluded from schools and universities, which meant they could not build wealth through activities like buying a house or building savings. (This would have been impossible in some places because colonisers would refuse to sell Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people land.) This has an accumulative effect as those who could buy houses, go to university and build savings could pass those benefits on to their younger generation, thus helping them to get ahead in life. Colonisation has prevented many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families from being able to do this for their future generations. It should also be noted that many colonisers have built their wealth from the resources like land, trees, fishing waters and minerals that were stolen from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and have never been properly compensated for.

In addition to not being able to accumulate wealth, the financial issues caused by racism mean that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members cannot afford the help they need to heal from the physical and psychological trauma they have experienced.

This trauma is made worse as it is often denied. This can be seen when people say things like ‘massacres didn’t happen’, ‘Australia wasn’t stolen, it was settled peacefully’, ‘Australia was discovered’, ‘the Stolen Generations were done to protect those children’ or ‘we didn’t have slavery or segregation in Australia’. When this trauma isn’t denied it is often minimised or dismissed. This can be seen when people say things like, ‘it was so long ago, get over it’, ‘everyone had it tough back then’ or ‘if we didn’t colonise Australia, someone else would’. Comments and thoughts like this make it harder to heal from the different traumas caused by colonisation.

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