"Anything But Aboriginal" - Growing Up Knowing, But Being Told to Deny Who I am

There are many Aboriginal people whose story doesn't begin with learning who they are.

It begins with being told who they are not.

Mine is one of those stories. As is my story about the Bundjalung family from Narrabri , known as the Colleano Family, entitled "Why One of Australia's Greatest Circus Dynasties Hid Their Aboriginal Identity"

As far back as I can remember, I knew there was something different about my family. I couldn't explain it, but I could feel it. Children are remarkably perceptive. They notice the whispered conversations, the awkward silences, and the subjects that adults seem determined to avoid.

Growing Up Knowing, But Being Told to Deny Who I am

The first person who ever confirmed what I already knew in my heart was my grandmother, Rita Newman (nee Whitfield), an Anaiwan (Nganyaywana) woman, born in Curlewis NSW in 1914 and raised on Country in Nundle and Quirindi NSW.

She was a Direct descendant of Corumba, a Ngarigo man and Milbona, a Wiradjuri woman.

My other family bloodlines include, Quinn, Duval and Bristow, all from Anaiwan Country. Although there has long been some confusion over the Bristow line and their connection to Gamileroi Country.

As a young boy, she quietly acknowledged our Aboriginal heritage. There was no ceremony or dramatic revelation. She simply spoke the truth on but a few occasions, and I am not sure why she .

That truth would stay with me for the rest of my life.

Outside of those moments, however, the message throughout much of my childhood was simple:

Deny. Deny. Deny.

Whenever anyone questioned our darker complexions, olive skin or unmistakable family features, another explanation would emerge.

"We're Māori."

"We've got Mediterranean blood."

"There must be Chinese somewhere."

Anything but Aboriginal.

Those stories weren't unique to my family. Across Australia, countless Aboriginal families concealed their identity to survive decades of discrimination and assimilation. Some changed surnames. Some stopped speaking language. Others invented family histories that felt safer than the truth.

As a child, though, those explanations never quite fitted.

One memory has remained with me throughout my life.

During arguments with my father, my mother (whom I have never enjoy any kind of meaningful relationship) would scream, "You're just a black c&%$!"

As a little boy, I found that deeply confusing.

If we weren't Aboriginal, why was "black" being used as an insult?

If we were Aboriginal, why was everyone pretending we weren't?

Those contradictions stayed with me long after childhood.

Years later, after I had begun researching my own family history, I travelled to Tweed Heads to visit my great-uncles, Ray Newman and Max Newman, my grandfather Doug Newman's brothers. They had grown up around Inverell and Moree and were in the twilight of their lives.

To my immediate impression, neither man looked anything like the stories our family had spent years telling. They carried the same strong features and dark complexion that ran through much of our family. Looking at them, I found it difficult to reconcile what I saw with the explanations I had been given throughout my childhood.

So I decided to ask the question directly.

I said that I wanted to know about the Newman family line and our Aboriginal ancestry.

Without hesitation came the reply.

"It's not black fella, boy..."

A brief pause.

"...it's Chow."

Chinese.

I couldn't help myself.

I laughed and said,

"I've never seen a six-foot-two Chinaman before, Uncle."

They laughed.

I laughed.

For a brief moment, humour replaced decades of silence.

But beneath that laughter sat something much deeper.

I left that conversation believing they knew I wasn't convinced. Equally, I sensed they were never going to abandon the explanation they had lived with for so many decades. Whether that reluctance came from fear, habit, survival or simply the weight of a lifetime of denial, I cannot say with certainty.

What I do know is what I saw.

A generation shaped by an Australia where admitting Aboriginal ancestry could carry real consequences.

Perhaps the greatest irony of my journey is this.

Some of the strongest resistance I have encountered to embracing my Aboriginal identity has not come from strangers.

It has come from members of my own extended family.

People who share the same ancestors.

The same bloodline.

The same history.

That irony has never been lost on me.

I sometimes think of those family members as the assailants, those who actively attack or ridicule our Aboriginal identity, and the assimilated ones, those who maintain the silence, repeat the old stories or stand by while others attempt to erase what generations before them worked so hard to survive.

That is simply how I have experienced my family's story.

Today, I no longer feel any need to deny who I am.

I proudly acknowledge my ancestry through the Anaiwan (Nganyaywana), Ngarigo and Wiradjuri Nations.

I do so not to diminish anyone else, nor to seek anyone's approval.

I do it because truth matters.

The generations before me often believed silence was necessary to survive.

My generation has the opportunity to ensure that silence does not become permanent.

You can rename a people.

You can bury a history.

You can spend generations pretending something isn't true.

But identity has a remarkable way of enduring.

Mine was first spoken aloud by my grandmother.

Everything since has simply been the journey home and my work for nearly three decades in Employment and Human Rights Advocacy gives me a unique perspective from exposure to all forms of discrimination, hate, humiliation and human suffering.

I will always be a champion for what is fair and just, and as surely as the land I walk on, tables will turn and justice will be served through strong advocacy, not the emotive diatribe of fools.