Stolen Generation

Description

A life taken…a life preserved. Who decides the outcome of a child born to poverty, slavery, or simply the wrong skin tone or ethnic descent? At our core beats a heart, bestowing the gift of life, but who has the right to determine how that life should be lived? Come with writer, Shari McGriff, on a powerful journey from modern day, back in time, to turn-of-the century Australia. A small child is chased down a dust-filled street and ripped from his mother’s arms. “Dust-to-dust”, they say, “when we pass from one life to the next.” Vignettes explored, take the reader on ‘The Trail of Tears’, to the farms of wealthy landowners and the gas chambers of Nazi Germany. Families, decimated by greed and lust for power, stare at one another through tear-soaked eyes and a veil of forgetfulness. These are generations robbed of everything: their heritage, past and future, their family ties, and even their names. Surely, today things are different, more humane and civil. There is no longer a ‘kill the Indian, save the child’ mentality…or is there? The poor, the uneducated, and the inconvenient are victimized, as in days past. We are all human. Are we perpetrating our own ‘stolen generation’? Deeply moving and forcefully conveyed, this is a short story that will impact the way you look at love, life, and the need to embrace the human family. Free your mind from all earthly cares and spend a few precious minutes in the soul of a child, desperate to share the joys…and sorrows…that are our existence.

Subjects

Series Statement

• Culture Shaper Shorts Series