'We are different hearts and minds'

Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Aboriginal writer, poet and activist:

'We are different hearts and minds
In a different body. Do not ask of us
To be deserters, to disown our mother,
To change the unchangeable.
The gum cannot be trained into an oak.
Something is gone, something surrendered, still
We will go forward and learn.
Not swamped and lost, watered away, but keeping
Our own identity, our pride of race.'

Keywords: culture, human rights, Noonuccal, Oodgeroo

'Assimilation - No!', Noonuccal, Oodgeroo, Cochrane, Kathie, University of Queensland Press, 1994, p. 74.
Author: Strelein, Lisa
Source: Noonuccal, Oodgeroo