The name is absent

395

that even when the Aboriginal people have shown rebellion and resistance,
such rebellion found issue in a negative identity. It was not a
rebellion that rejected the identity offered in order to forge an
alternative identity.                                              -

Socialization into negative identity may be seen as the result

of actively embracing a model of rebellion, the negative identity
offered by white society.

Drinking, for example, and going to jail may be seen as the
assertion of maleness in a society where the traditional role of
the male has been destroyed.

Jeremy Beckett noted, in a community he studied, that inebriation
for men was seen as a positive value (in Reay, 1964:41) and a sign
of adult male status (ibid:43).

Erikson (1943) similarly suggests that people would rather do
something bad to show that they exist than be nothing .

The remark was made on a number of occasions in interviews with

Aboriginal people that strength of mind could well-result -in negative
actions.

-I

For some, negative identity is willingly embraced as the alternative
to anomie.                                              .

23.8 Identity as the ^,handicapped*

Over and above the prejudice and discrimination on grounds of
race and ethnicity which Aborigines share with migrants, Aborigines
also form part of the handicapped in society (Newman,1973:34-35;
216-218; 233-234) who are made visible by their handicap (in this
case skin colour) and therefore an affront to society (Tatz, 1975:13).

ɪɛee p. 32 above.

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