f' ^∙
131
lived in a state of confusion about the particular identity being
bestowed upon them at any one time. Vi Stanton remembered:
Once you were exempted, you were classified as Europeans.
A lot of people were confused about this. When
you had forms to fill in you had to put E because
you were not an Aboriginal. You didn’t know where
you were. You wouldn’t say, ’well, I’m not a European
and I’m not an Aboriginal’, because the only two
classifications were European and Aboriginal. Not
so long ago some Aboriginals asked me what I was
classified as now. I said I didn’t know. Then
some other Aborigines said, ,Do you .know how you’re
classified by the Health Department?’ I said, ’No’
and they said, ’They still have ’E’ and ,A'. But
you're an ,M*, that is that
in Gilbert, 1977:15).
you are mixed’
(Stanton,
Vi Stanton went on to relate how her (white) husband was
informed that, as she had never been ’exempted’ fro;
being an
Aborigine, their marriage was against the law,(that is, the special
V
provisions under the Aborigines Act), and the couple technically
liable to prosecution, information that was profoundly disturbing
and a source of anger for its recipient.
Changing legislation and changing policy created confusion
and division; such changes were, and often still are, a source of tension among
Aboriginal people and an obstacle to the formation of identity.
ClearlyjAboriginal people had no power to name themselves.
They were named, identified, located in society by the dominant
group, in a process of location that denied the self-sameness
of individuals, denied the possibility of functional constancy.
Rather, the identification process structured a situation
providing the elements for identity-diffusion for Aboriginal people.
10.23 Identity-diffusion
Some of those Aboriginal people who despaired of achieving
a sense of self-sameness in the face of nihilation of their world
of meaning,may be seen as succumbing to identity-diffusion in
its extreme form, choosing death as an escape.