contd,

The author is right to wonder why men who have spilled blood together can't share their innermost concerns and emotions. That is a heavy load for anyone to carry yet many if not most men do it daily. No wonder men are so subject to stress related disease and for some, outbreaks of frustration and violence.

It is a very great pity that the clamour over racism, although reprehensible and a priority for change, has also managed to drown out the second serious lesson of the Tahu incident, which is that Tahu had obviously been suffering great personal stress for a long time but the stereotyping of men did not allow anyone to see, or if they did see, to reach out a hand to help him.

That is the elephant in the room isn't it, that Tahu was suffering emotionally and there was no-one to see because he is a man. Any signals of distress would have been studiously avoided by all around him, men and women, because and boys don't cry do they? It is fine to belt Johns over the head and maybe he is due for it, but I get the feeling that society is over-willing to do that rather than accept that there is something very wrong with the stereotyping of men and the way we raise boys.

Cornflower and Severin make some interesting points while coming at it from slightly different angles.

Again context is important. Calling someone a "black C..." holds no mystery as to intent and lack of respect for a fellow team member or his culture.

As Cornflower posited, it does say something about expectations on boys to 'man up' (whatever that means) when really those who are closest to you within the spirit of team or mateship, should be the very same you can go to with problems.

It really comes down to treating others as we would be treated regardless of race, gender, class etc. It is not really that complicated.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10563#173815

Benk, true, white men from British & European backgrounds know more about discrimination & disadvantage than anybody. Being "enemies of the state" as the radical, extreme, loony, left, lesbian, fauxmanista paedophiles have been, painting us that way for 5 decades now.

A friend of mine was being knocked back for legal aid funding once when he noticed that the female staff member was middle aged, south American, barely able to speak English, let alone use the computer.

I wonder many white, educated, boys were knocked back for that job?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10563#173843
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10563#173845

Cornflower, excellent work, how did you ever get involved in the Red/green/getup/labour coalition? Some of your comments are first class.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10563#173825
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10563#173835
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10563#173838
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10563#173842
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10563#173846

Tilly J, Severin twice, Pelican twice, If there was no Racism, Sexism, Ageism, etc, etc, etc, there would be no need for Loony, Left, humanities academics, would there?

Rent Seekers will always find some justification for their Grant.

Enjoy the fun while it lasts, after 2010, never again the education & public sectors will be completely different places from what they are now. Reform can sometimes be extremely popular with the proletariat.

It is a gross generalisation to think that the inappropriate actions of one simian ex-ARL footballer somehow relates to the rest of us.

Go talk to Andrew Johns. Its all about him not the rest of us. But he'll get off scot free and continue to earn megabucks while the rest of us will be wringing out hands forever about what went wrong.

Again context is important. Calling someone a "black C..." holds no mystery as to intent and lack of respect for a fellow team member or his culture.
Pelican,
Again context is important. Calling someone a "white C..." holds no mystery as to intend and lack of respect for a fellow team member or his culture.

Formersnag,

you don't have the slightest clue what you are talking about: being knocked back over something is nowhere near being treated contemptuously as if you are nothing, and are knocked back.

You don't have the slightest understanding that to humiliate someone is one of the worst things you can do to someone, especially if both you and the person humiliated have grown up in a social environment where it represents a constant, covert but ever-present threat to that person. Seriously, humiliation can kill: it can be a threat to a person's very existence. It may not affect white people, like you and me, that way - we associate ourselves existentially with 'cultures of power' but it certainly does not seem that way from the point of view of people who historically have been without much power.

As TillyJ puts it so well: 'White privilege gives a barrier which often equates to ‘normal’ or ‘not visible’. whiteness itself encourages its members to not see themselves as a race/culture/group/membership ...' People from groups which have been subordinated certainly cannot see themselves in the same way.

Up to a point, yes, let people say what they really think, Severin, but as long as they wear the consequences.

Joe Lan