Campaign tackles anti-Indigenous prejudice

Reconciliation Australia has launched a confronting advertising campaign to challenge people's prejudices about Indigenous Australians.

Research says many people see Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as substance abusers, welfare dependents and criminals, and the campaign sets out to tackle those biases.

A series of ads running from today on posters, television and in newspapers show the faces of two Australians side by side - One Indigenous and one non-Indigenous.

An excerpt from one of the ads poses these questions: 'Which one of these men had a drug and alcohol addiction?', 'Who would you trust to look after your kids?', and 'Who would you want to work with?'.

Reconciliation Australia's co-chairman Mick Dodson is hoping the questions cannot be answered.

"They're essentially posters that challenge people to re-evaluate their gut reaction to the questions that are posed in the advertising," he said.

The ads confront the negative and often misinformed views that many Australians hold about Indigenous people.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/12/2514092.htm