Brief Essay On Cathy Freeman's Values

Australia’s first indigenous track and field athlete to compete in the Olympics, Cathy Freeman most defiantly fits into many of Wilderness’s core values. Cathy grew up in a time where racism against indigenous citizens was a common normality. Her grandma was part of the stolen generations and through her career, Cathy has been a victim of racial harassment and abuse. How she acted during these periods of time in her life truly defined her as, nothing other than a responsible citizen. She was able to put the racism and discrimination behind her and compete at an Olympic level for the country she loved. In addition, she was an advocate of Aboriginal rights and like many aborigines at the time, she strongly supported the idea of the Australian government apologising for the abuses

Freeman also started up a foundation (Cathy Freeman Foundation) to aid unprivileged aboriginal children and help close the gap between Indigenous and Non Indigenous children. Cathy Freeman also outlines the value of being a true and courageous self. Through her schooling she has experienced a lot of racial discrimination from the ‘white people’. Once, when she was in primary school, she was even denied of a medal after coming first place at a school sports day. A ‘white girl’ who came in second received the medal. She didn’t fall because of the discrimination she received, but aimed to succeed to prove everyone wrong; “Goodness gracious I didn’t really need a gold medal or a trophy because to me, all that mattered was that I crossed the line first… what did upset me was my parent’s reaction”. Even through her schooling, Cathy had the ability to get past the racism and discrimination she received. In 1994 she won several events at the Commonwealth games. To acknowledge her win she waved the Australian and Aboriginal flag next to each other, as she did her victory lap, which was an action that caused much controversy. She was criticised by many, including the Australian team’s