so aka, education is bad, whites are bad, assimilation is bad, reconciliation is bad ..

so is it any wonder nothing ever changes with attitudes like this, if it ever did change, some people would have nothing to whinge and whine about .. is it all just fodder for the aboriginal victim industry?

seems that way doesn't it ..

what you go on about is a fantasy, and most of us live in the reality that is life in Australia, however unfair it is that we have to make our own way and accept and be accountable for our own shortcomings and that life is not easy or that we don't all get infinite handouts.

jeez, aka, you need to move on and stop hating white people .. nothing will change until people who want to be victims forever, all die out

the world is not going to give aboriginal Australians a free pass to life, you either join the world as equals, or continue to demand that little bit extra and just hold out till you get it .. and you're still waiting eh aka?

Hi Aka,

You amply demonstrate my claim that " .... people make the easy assumption that 'white culture' includes all the conveniences of modern life, as if it was some sort of monopoly that other people have to get bloody permission to use."

I WAS thinking of white people having those attitudes, but you force me to broaden my thinking. And you have to ask yourself, what use am I to Indigenous people with that exclusionary attitude ?

No, Indigenous people are as entitled as anybody else to go to uni, it doesn't belong to whites. They can study whatever they like. I don't agree with your accusation that they are thereby restricted: it is really up to you to demonstrate otherwise. Don't feed the assimilationist boogeyman, Aka, it does you no credit. Give people a break, let them do as they wish, like anybody else.

rpg does have a point, you know :)

Joe

rpg I will respond to your trolling because you provide a perfect example of what I have been talking about. You demand that everyone thinks like you (god forbid) as your view is obviously perfect (shudder). Get a grip on yourself, it is not all about you and your views.

Contrary to your assertion, I do not hate white people or think they are all bad - gee I am married to a white person, am related to white people and I have even got good friends who are white.

I am not anti education, but it is not the panacea that it is sometimes assumed to be. Becoming educated does not create the equality you bleat about. If only it did.

I am pleased you feel that you are able to extend the offer for me to join the world as your equal, you must be powerful and egalitarian, however if Indigenous people in Australia were equal to mainstream citzens there would be an uproar about the NT intervention.

Alernatively, equality could entail mainstream Oz slipping to having the same as Indigenous Australians. This would definately cause an uproar from mainstream Oz.

You assert that I am somehow demanding something extra. If by that you mean that I want my educational qualifications recognised the same as my mainstream colleages (me ed is all mainstream btw) then yes I do - it is called equality.

Joe, assimilationist equates to maistream culture being insisted on as a condition of being accepted as equal.

I know that Indigenous people are entitled to go to uni and we do, and do very well at it. The point I am trying to make is that simply having an education is not the key to success, particulaly as in some sectors it is treated with disdain and seen as a 'black degree'.

I know I am generalising but I would like to challenge the inherent racism that still acts to exclude Indigenous Australians.

Joe, you hit the nail on the head - there are many reasons and uses for gaining an education, but if it is done as a way of gaining secure employment there can be the assimilationist strings attached.

If on the other hand there are many benifits of gaining an education and post grad research can be very rewarding - but employment can be conditional. Now I am aware that many people are happy to comply with the expected cultural norms in the workplace.

However, for Indigenous people the demand to follow mainstream worldviews and culture can be a tall ask and the expectation that people do so - is assimilationist.

Aka,

There are NO panaceas ! Not even education. Such things help, rather than hinder, but there are no silver bullets, and nothing is perfect. Not even education.

No, Indigenous people are not forced into mainstream education, whatever that may mean: it's theirs as much as anybody else's. I certainly don't agree on ' .... mainstream culture being insisted on as a condition of being accepted as equal .... ' Have Indigenous kids been forced into mainstream education in the Territory ? And look what a mess education is there.

In fact, what has worried me for twenty-odd years is the opposite, that Indigenous people are subtly barred from mainstream courses and funnelled into 'Black' courses by virtue of being 'Black'. I think that's why I was pushed out of the uni system, for supporting the right of Indigenous students to study whatever they liked, and not channel them into Ab Studies.

And once people graduate, they are just as subtly funnelled into 'Indigenous' jobs, units, when they WANT to work in the mainstream, on the pretext that 'you want to help your own people, don't you ?' With the unspoken assumption: ' .... then p!ss off and keep out of OUR business.'

The philosophy back in the 80s and 90s was that Whites have 'their' courses and Blacks should have 'theirs'. Of course, this was a racist view, through and through, even though its proponents probably thought that they were being radical. I'm very glad that it has died so thoroughly in the @rse.

No, nothing is perfect. Indigenous graduates still, I'm sure, get asked to show their degree parchments, and still get pushed into Indigenous-only compartments and sections and units, in teaching and nursing, etc., when they wish simply to be teachers and nurses.

In fact, I think that the big problem is being pushed out, or kept out, rather than dragged in, Aka: exclusion and segregation rather than integration and equal rights to work, restrictions on how and where one can work rather than open opportunity. There's not much new under the sun, dear :(

Joe

rpg,
Education is not bad. Who said so anyway ? Education for education's sake is pointless. Real education is to enhance knowledge & ability not to cram pointless information into a mind that doesn't desire pointless knowledge.
We have prove that it doesn't work, just look at the many educated but useless beings walking the streets & wasting space in offices.
Also, education does not build houses in communities, nor does it catch fish or grow food.
Knowledge with a dose of wisdom does that.
As to your "Whites are bad" I can only speak from experience as a white living in indigenous communities. Yes, many whites who get sent to communities are bad for the community simply because they don't want to be there & only stay there because of very generous allowances. They are actually the major hurdle for those communities to develop any social cohesion. Of course the blame lies with academic type bureaucrats telling fairytales to academic type politicians who then develop academic type policies which don't function in a practical, hands-on situation.