The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > How paternalistic, how racist, how demeaning > Comments

How paternalistic, how racist, how demeaning : Comments

By JDB Williams, published 23/6/2010

The cost to retain Indigenous Australians within the former boundaries of their nations should be borne by the dominant beneficiaries of their plight.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. All
What did this article contribute, apart from anger? And what makes Noel Pearson 'amateurish' and JDB Williams any better?
Posted by Otokonoko, Thursday, 24 June 2010 1:25:10 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I am SO sick of the Aboriginal industry! Look, somebody needs to say it....you were LUCKY, yes, LUCKY, that it was Anglos that came here rather than the Spanish!

And if one of your bretheren (I think Aboriginies are originally from Sri Lanka from the look of them) came here, you would be simply them now, as they don't have things like ATSIC, or cultural grants to do dancing, or money for not working.

I just think that if we got rid of the identity nonsense and called you all Australians, you would be fixed overnight. Why? Because we could take your neglected kids without racist leftist scum who want to keep your folk down - it helps THEIR cause (which for some reason is to fight the evil of the right wing...bizarre given those on the right are behind wanting to actually do things in reality that WILL help! I.e. everybody thinks the Ron Casey old school types hate blacks..nonsense. They offer jobs to them all the time, THAT is how they think we should help and they are right.

Infant mortality is worse now than it was in the 1920's. Why? Families weren't breaking up back then because Aboriginal men provided for their families, they worked on farms and so on. Yeah, it wasn't the best pay and they weren't treated to well, but they earnt their money and got respect.

An old publican once told me the ONLY reason they were banned from drinking in pubs is because the publicans got sick of the missus coming down the next day with black eyes saying Johnny spent his whole weeks pay and the kids can't eat.

So, they did things to HELP, not hinder.

Leftists like Robert Manne and David Marr (isn't he going to hell!) thrive off the identity politics. Both are paternalistic racists.
Posted by Benjam1n, Thursday, 24 June 2010 2:50:12 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yeah well, the anger is real.

Trouble is, Pearson exporting kids to the other end of Australia for short-term seasonal work, without providing any other answer, was never going to work. Pearson will not say what needs doing, because he knows people who are the major part of the problem. Quite frankly, without radical change in how Communities are organised and administered (and criminal charges for those who have ripped the guts out of them for so long), things aren't going to change.

The church groups who are incapable of even contemplating reaching a compromise with regard to allowing mid-strength beer (instead holding that ALL alcohol should be banned) maintain the hold of the "hot-grog runners" and the bent publicans over communities. People will drink, that was discovered in America for gods sake, banning alcohol means people will only drink once in a while and they'll binge when they can. So banning alcohol completely is not the answer (the meanest communities I've ever seen are ostensibly "dry").

As to the "Aboriginal Industry", the only people gaining anything from it are the "corrupt administrators" (Black or white) and the equally bent "Contractors" who undertake to build sub-standard housing at 20 times the price they'd be able to charge anywhere else. Those who approve such scams are not blameless and should also be bought to account, exactly what link do they have to these "contractors" and why aren't they declaring them?

The average person on the communities is not to blame here, they are merely stuck with a reality that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. It is past-time to change that reality, before more kids are bought into these places with their only "role-model" being violent, child-abusing drunks.
Posted by Custard, Thursday, 24 June 2010 4:40:02 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
FOLKS...*DANGER ALERT*....

In order to unpack where the author is coming from... feel free to find out...

HERE:>>>>> http://www.acrawsa.org.au/

Now we 'whites' are an object of academic enquiry..wooooo....

Notice the 'ethnicity' of many of the academics in that association.
Notice the political ideology of those same academics.

Notice though the similarity in the thinking on that site with that expressed in the first line of THIS essay.

http://racetraitor.org/abolish.html

Hmmm..how coincidental.
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Thursday, 24 June 2010 7:08:00 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Boaz, you can be very exasperating at times.

Your "research" is the internet equivalent of rummaging through garbage bins, and then displaying your findings as if they are somehow significant.

(I was going to say like a child in potty-training, saying "look what I've done, mum". But fortunately I thought better of it)

ACRAWSA is an undergraduate hobby farm. It has no relevance outside the various campuses, and possibly even within those hallowed walls either. Just because they have a web site that publishes such self-indulgent gems as "Re-imagining Citizenship in Suburban Australia", doesn't make them a "danger".

To anyone except themselves, that is...

"Using a theoretical and methodological approach that focuses on poststructural and feminist ideas, I argue that the ways in which place is produced through reiterative everyday practices, makes place a site of transformative social change where white privilege can be questioned and difference welcomed."

I particularly enjoyed the research process:

"I draw on 54 in-depth semi-structured interviews with people who live and/or work in the City of Greater Dandenong, suburban Melbourne, Australia to makes visible these everyday reiterative practices, and illustrate how they can be conceptualised as acts of responsibility, rather than just repetitive acts of hostility and suspicion."

You have a very parochial - and suburban - view of "danger", Boaz.

And that "essay" was published nearly twenty years ago.

How much damage has it done to our social fabric in that time, do you think?
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 24 June 2010 9:51:43 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
How many posters here have actually chatted to an Aboriginal person, visited an Aboriginal home, or worked with an Aborigine? Where to start with all the diatribes I've just read? Here's one I can refute from personal experience:

Amicus wrote: even if we were to house everyone in 5 star hotels ... it still would not be good enough, it still would be basis for their hatred and racism towards all and sundry.

In 30 years of working with Aboriginal people, I am certain about one thing - the lack of hatred and racism I've encountered from them. The reverse: I've been humbled by the kindness, generosity and friendship I've received, often from people who have experienced appalling things - I'm not talking 1788, I mean the last few decades. In contrast, I've personally met with racism from whites just because I talk to Aborigines: followed by police, insulted, accused of being Aboriginal (good one!). I can walk away from it, back to safety of the dominant culture; my Aboriginal friends and colleagues can't.

I could talk about the positive CDEP programs I've seen, the personal and community successes, often against great difficulties, the depth and complexity reasons for continuing problems, often aggravated by government initiatives that are counterproductive. I could talk about some of the things that have made inroads into the petty racism and aggravation I've witnessed towards Aborigines, the positive changes in attitude. I could give fine detail of the history of Aboriginal - European interaction in the area I work in, and explain why this makes it so hard for Aboriginal people today to get out from under.

But that wouldn't change the mindset of Amicus and others at all, would it?

For all the talk of Aboriginal people getting special deals, often they don't even get things we non-Aborigines take for granted. Government actions have the tag 'if you don't sign this, then you won't get the school, medical centre etc.' And there's a tinge of envy in anti-Aboriginal raves: 'it's not fair, they're getting special deals'. Be very careful what you wish for!
Posted by Cossomby, Thursday, 24 June 2010 11:53:07 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy