The Stolen Generations

Everyone is eyeing me. There are rumours going around saying that I am going to get whipped. At Moore River Native Settlement, everyone is going to get beaten sooner or later. Today is my turn. I stand there trying to hold back my tears. Every girl who gets a beating comes back with scars on their hands. We have no loving and considerate parents to console us after going through hell due to our race. I can still hear my peers laughing at me for believing that whites and blacks can live together. Our room has only one window. Through the small window, I can see the rural, Australian outback calling me to run away and roam free. It is an uninhabited area sheeted with stretches of scorching sand. To them, we are animals locked in a cage. Through the miniature crack in the window came a rare gush of wind, I almost tasted freedom on my lips. For a few seconds, I appreciate the beauty of life. We haven’t eaten a decent meal in a week. They are going to starve us to death. They think we are monsters, but they don’t know how their actions are affecting us.
“She is coming!” a girl shouts.
I glance away from the picturesque views and towards reality, I have to face. Dusty rooms, no sanitation or freedom. In the corner of the room five girls share the bed, I am lucky to share a bed with three.
I am ostracised for my belief of whites and blacks living together in peace. Other girls take me for a joke and I’m constantly prone to bullying even though, we are in the same boat. I have no one to watch out me so when we are doing chores, I am left alone in the kitchen to clean after everyone’s mess. And when we are washing the dusty carpets, behind the matrons back, everyone leaves it for me to do. And when I try to tell the matron that I did all the work, she just says that black people are meant for cleaning up for the white people. I’m always the last one to go to bed and the one that everyone blames.
The surroundings around me are horrible but having no friends and not knowing your family is even worse.
The matron's footsteps echo throughout the whole room. Everyone goes silent.

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