“Why Don’t Aboriginal People Just Make Better Choices?”
“I mean, it’s pretty simple, right? we all have a choice. Just make the right one!”
Let me tell you something shocking.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up less than 4% of Australia’s population.
Yet, compared to non-Indigenous Australians:
Aboriginal adults are around 16 times more likely to be imprisoned.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up around 37% of the adult prison population.
Aboriginal children are about 11 times more likely to be placed in out-of-home care.
On an average night, around 56% of young people in youth detention are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, despite First Nations young people making up only about 6.6% of the youth population.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people die by suicide at more than twice the rate of non-Indigenous Australians.
These are not opinions.
They are nationally reported outcomes.
So naturally, many people ask the question.
Usually in their own head.
Sometimes whispered, after scanning the room to see if it feels safe to say.
“Why don’t Aboriginal people just make better choices?”
Seriously. How hard is it to make better choices? We’ve all had bad things happen to us.
For those who think like this, I want to explain something they never taught you in school about choice and the illusion that it is equal for everyone.
Now Use Your Imagination
Imagine 1,000 people sitting shoulder to shoulder in a straight line.
They are all given the same instruction:
“Everyone, stand up and step forward.”
Many people stand up and step forward easily.
As they would. It is a simple instruction.
But some barely move.
And others do not move at all.
Those who step forward turn around, confused.
“It’s a simple request,” they say.
“Hurry up. Stand up and step forward.”
The people who have not moved reply,
“I can’t.”
Or, “I am trying.”
Confusion quickly turns into frustration.
“What are you talking about?” the crowd says.
“You’ve got legs. Make the choice to use them. Follow the instructions. It’s not that hard.”
The people who cannot move respond,
“I know I have legs. I just can’t use them.”
Those who moved forward are baffled.
How can someone have legs and still not walk?
The problem is that the crowd can see the legs.
They are right there.
What they cannot understand is that the ability to move them is not equal amongst everyone who started or is still on that line.
What the crowd cannot see…
Is that some people struggle with mobility.
Some are injured.
Some cannot walk at all because they are paralysed.
Yes, they may have legs…
But they do not have access to movement.
No matter how badly they want their body to move, it will only do what it is capable of.
And no amount of yelling “make the right choice” will suddenly give them the ability to walk.
This Is How We Talk About Responsibility and Choice
This is no different to how many conversations about Aboriginal disadvantage break down.
When we see someone who cannot walk, we understand there is a prior or current cause within their body. Something happened in the past, affecting them in the present.
Something that changed their capacity.
But when people look at Aboriginal people, that same insight often disappears.
Because it is easier to judge than to truly understand.
They see another human being who looks different to them and assume the problem is 100 per cent a choice, not capacity…
We mistakenly talk about choice as if everyone has the same access to it.
As if having a theoretical option means having the ability to take it.
It does not.
Yes, everyone technically “has choices” in life.
But it is an illusion that everyone has the same choices, or the same access to those choices.
Some people are lucky enough to grow up with safety, stable housing, consistent, healthy adults, and a belief that the future is worth planning for.
Others grow up in survival mode, where the nervous system is wired for constant threat detection and surviving the present moment, not safe and stable long-term thinking.
Some people are taught how to manage anger, stress, shame, and consequences.
Some aren’t.
Some grow up in environments where constantly reacting with violence paradoxically keeps them safe.
When someone says, “just make better decisions,” they are often judging from a position where access to a wide range of choices was granted and never questioned.
This Is Not About Excuses
This is not about removing responsibility.
This is not saying all Aboriginal people are traumatised, or lack any capacity.
And it is not about saying people cannot change.
It is about understanding capacity through the illusion of ‘choice equality’.
Because the truth is:
Trauma changes how the brain processes risk, impulse, and consequences.
That’s not a myth, that’s neuroscience.
Dispossession changes where communities start from in life.
Especially when wages were stolen, hence, how many Indigenous people do you know have inherited assets from their parents? (This is rhetorical.)
Systems that punish without building support do not create responsibility. They erode it.
Finally… If incarceration, child removal, and suicide were solved by “just making better choices,”
We would have fixed this generations ago.
The real question is not why people don’t make better choices.
It is whether they were, and still are, given access to the conditions that make certain choices even possible.
Because telling someone to “just walk forward” means nothing
if they were never given access to movement in the first place.
JHK
Your Online Brother
