"So, for a rapidly growing proportion of the Indigenous population, most policy measures that may be in place do not affect them greatly, do not concern them, and do not involve them. In a sense, for this population, they have fortuitously striven to go beyond policy, to live and work and love as any other Australians do, free of direct government interference. They have liberated themselves from policy. They live and work and love, as Indigenous people in an open society, an un-enclosed or encapsulated society, in an uncertain world full of promise."

One wonders why these people should really be classified as "indigenous" at all. Surely they should be accounted for as ordinary Australian citizens and just receive the benefits to which the rest of the community is entitled.

In the capitals around 80% of those identifying as indigenous are producing children with those who don't and around 80% of their children identify as indigenous. These are the ones to succeeding in the mainstream. In the remote NT 8-9% of women, my wife being one, and 4-5% of indigenous men have children with non-indigenous partners. The bush is being left out of this rush to acquire the socioeconomic benefits of the mainstream. Our daughter has had a decent education but doesn't speak good Warlpiri. Her Warlpiri relatives are enormously proud of her anyway. Her sons are doing well in school and proudly call themselves blackfellas. A white woman told me that my grandsons should be initiated because that is their culture. For her my wife's culture trumps that of the other three grandparents and she was confident enough to tell me what's best for them. I want them to be men in my culture. I believe passionately in the equal status of men and women, Warlpiri don't. We want our kids to have what city kids can have - a safe and happy childhood, a decent education, a long and fulfilled life. Ignorance of the outside world, dehumanising welfare dependency, horrific substance abuse, interpersonal violence, child neglect and abuse and entrenched poverty are prices too high to pay for the preservation of language and somebody else's idea of what culture is. Will not get what we want for them without the ability to speak, read and write English or if they are taught to believe that violence against women, violent payback, forced child marriage are normal and acceptable and that kin have undeniable access to their income and assets. All of this comes with traditional culture. Let's get fair dinkum and be confident and mature enough to discuss these issues openly. The metropolitan based indigenous elites basking in the rewards of life in the mainstream should not allow the romanticising of their people's past to act as a barrier to the bush mob achieving the same benefits they have managed to win.

VK3AUU,

I wonder how many non-Indigenous Australians think like you, that

"One wonders why these people should really be classified as "indigenous" at all. Surely they should be accounted for as ordinary Australian citizens and just receive the benefits to which the rest of the community is entitled."

In other words, once an Indigenous person graduates from university, they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves Indigenous ? They can't be both professional and Indigenous ?

It's up to people what they call themselves. It's called self-identification. Yes, we've got a long way to go in changing attitudes for the better, haven't we ?

Daphrys,

I fully agree with everything you write. Just one note: of the 26,000 Indigenous university graduates, maybe twenty thousand live and work in the cities: only a tiny proportion of them are an elite, or elitist. The vast majority have taken their chances in the work-force, no minders, no special treatment, no overseas conferences - these are indeed the preserve of the elite, particularly amongst Indigenous academics, busy working on their careers and pulling up the ladder.

Yes, there have to be pathways to self-reliance through higher education, all the way, from the lives which people in remote communities have to endure, right up to TAFE, trades and university, for as many as possible. And university and TAFE student support services should be involved in that difficult and long-term task.

It has been relatively easy for 'southern' graduates, since their first language (for the past 150-200 years) has been English, since there have usually been hard-workers in their families going back into the nineteenth century, and since they have had access (at least for fifty years) to standard secondary education. The big job still has to be done.

All the best to your wonderful family, Dave.

Cheers, Joe

"In the capitals around 80% of those identifying as indigenous are producing children with those who don't and around 80% of their children identify as indigenous."

These are the ones I am refering to Joe. Go back and read the bit that I quoted. I wasn't saying anything about the professionals. I agree with daphrys. It must be very difficult to remain true to your aboriginal culture once you have become educated and absorbed into mainstream society because the traditions that you have been brought up with often run contrary to the mores of the white society. I might add, that it is probably no more difficult for aboriginals than it is for muslim immigrants.

David

Well, David, Indigenous people can walk and chew gum at the same time, like anybody else. The tragedy for most of us Anglos is that we come from a monolingual, monocultural island, and have set up what we think is a monolingual, monocultural society, so we tend to think that monolingualism and monoculturalism are the natural forms for society. But it's not necessarily so: we can all be multi- or at least bi-lingual, and bi-cultural at the same time. Most non-Anglo immigrants have no trouble with that.

Becoming fluent in a 'western' cultural set of mores is not necessarily inconsistent with holding onto one's original cultural mores and practices. Daphrys' daughter seems to have had little trouble doing that, and the vast majority of Indigenous graduates have little difficulty moving in both worlds, if that is what is required. It's not either/or: to either stop walking or stop chewing.

Certainly, one influences the other, but ask any immigrant, if you know any. But how many times have we heard - if we listen - about migrants who come out with not a word of English and within a few years they are top of their class, or dux of their school ? Yes, that HAS happened with Indigenous people too.

And of course, for most Indigenous graduates, from the urban areas where most Indigenous people live, whatever they do is an Indigenous thing to do: they don't categorise what they do along some either-or lines either. Most have lived in a 'western' world for generations.

I guess it's some of us non-Indigenous who have trouble with that. But that's your problem, not Indigenous people's.

By 2020 or thereabouts, fifty thousand Indigenous people will have graduated from universities across Australia, overwhelmingly in standard courses. They will remain Indigenous, just as non-Anglo immigrants have been graduating from standard university courses for years. It's time for Anglos to start to get used to it.

Cheers,

Joe

“The vast majority have taken their chances in the work-force, no minders, no special treatment, no overseas conferences”

Joe, where do you get these figures from ? Are they your own estimation ? I would certainly dispute them !

I am aware that you are deemed some sort of an “authority” on indigenous issues on OLO,
and a lot of it has to do with the "sheer volume" of comments ! And unchallenged figures and statistics !
Of the “vast majority” of 26,000 graduates ( what are we looking at here Joe, 20,000 ? 15,000 ? )

I challenge you Joe, to identify, 100 that “Not” employed because of “Aboriginality” !!

Arthur Bell. aka. bully.

Hi Bully,

No, I'm no authority on anything, I just have a warped point of view and a bit of experience.

Obviously, I can't give out names, but think of the issue this way - of the Indigenous teachers and nurses and conservation managers and so on who are actually working, genuinely working, every day, in the sorts of positions that they have trained for. The great majority of Indigenous teachers that I know of, for example, are out there now, this morning, working in classrooms.

Yes, many organisations employ usually unqualified Indigenous people to stand there and do nothing, to validate the organisation, but usually graduates have to actually work. Fair enough.

Yes, some Indigenous graduates are in positions where they don't appear to do anything either, at least when they are back from overseas conferences - their role also seems to be that of shop-front dummies, appointed to provide a veneer of political respectability to enterprises and organisations. Usually this is in some Indigenous-oriented field, where, if you look hard enough, you may see non-Indigenous people behind the scenes who actually pull the strings.

A system of mutual patron-clientage seems to operate - the Indigenous elite providing respectability for their non-Indigenous minders in the Indigenous sphere, while the non-Indigenous minders provide respectability for their selected Indigenous clients amongst the senior (by definition, non-Indigenous) management of their organisation. For minders and elite alike, win-win. For anybody else, it's the mainstream.

But places in the patron-client system are already taken up: future Indigenous graduates will have to take their chances entirely in mainstream employment, unless they are closely related to somebody already in the system. Again, there is another valuable role for Indigenous student support services - to line up employment in mainstream organisations and enterprises for their upcoming graduates. We worked on this at our uni, back in the late eighties, but funding was definitely not forthcoming, so phht !

Joe

“But it is still a world that can impose constraints on Indigenous people. Policies may come and go but attitudes and expectations linger. Indigenous professionals may be subtly shunted into segregated units, or expected to focus on the needs of Indigenous clients, pupils or patients”

”subtly shunted into segregated units” ?
Joe, surely you are not referring to them “Indigenous Units” aka “Research Centres” by any chance !?

As Lois O'Donoghue observed, “They Get Comfortable In Them Uni's”

They are there by choice Joe !

( They are unemployable anywhere else ! This from me on my website, whitc.info, made a few years back, but still there and still relevant ! Obviously ! )

But enough of that and back to, “Obviously, I can't give out names”

Joe, are you saying that you “can” identify 100, “Not” employed because of their “Aboriginality” but just won't name them ?

Not necessarily, Bully. There are plenty of Indigenous graduates - in fields which are not easily co-optable - who just want to do a job, teachers who just want to teach, not necessarily a segregated class but a 'normal' class, teachers who don't want to get lumped - why should they ? - with all of the Indigenous 'problems' of a school, of other teachers.

Yes, one suspects that some initiatives have been rorts. You mention Research Centres, but I couldn't possibly comment, except to say that I'm not aware of any meaningful research that has ever come out of them. But I'm pretty much out of touch these days :)

To get back to your earlier contribution - out of the 28,000 graduates by the end of this year, besides the 1500 graduates for this year, another twenty thousand would be working, usually in the mainstream, but sometimes in Indigenous units, such as Indigenous university student support units - if you do that job right, then you are flat-out !

Yes, there are others who have turned token jobs into lifelong perks, who never seem to be able to actually say what they do.

For example, some Indigenous staff at universities don't provide student support, they say that they teach and tutor.

When you have a good look, they don't teach or tutor (whitefellas do that for them), so they will say that they do research.

When you ask about the research, their one piddly project has been going for ten or more years, and they really are busy writing papers about it for the next overseas conferences.

When you compare their new papers to older ones, they don't look that different, or any different.

So the bottom line is that they spend their time and six-figure salaries duplicating a paper that they helped to write a decade ago, getting it ready for a new conference, where it will be even more irrelevant than it was ten years ago.

{TBC]

[contd.]

And of course, a major task in some units seems to be to keep university senior management oblivious to how little they actually do in relation with Indigenous students, by harping on self-determination and academic autonomy, and how to fob them off with the implicit and racist view that 'they're only Blackfellas, what can you expect ?'

So yes, I've got great respect for the great majority of Indigenous graduates who want to work and to do a good job, but very little for the elites and the 'researchers'. It comes down, very much, with whether or not Indigenous staff at universities actually do their job and either work hard at supporting Indigenous students or work hard on their other teaching duties, OR spend their time cultivating their careers, and powdering their freckles.

Joe

"Not necessarily, Bully"

Joe, is that a "Yes" or a "No" !?

Seems like a "maybe"

David

Bully, you asked: "Joe, are you saying that you “can” identify 100, “Not” employed because of their “Aboriginality” but just won't name them ?"

Not employed just because of their Aboriginality - yes and I won't name them ? yes, that's right. And many would be UNemployed precisely because of their Aboriginality too.

There are many Indigenous graduates who don't, or don't know how to, play the game and who don't let themselves get shunted into some segregated unit, or lumped with all the Indigenous 'problems', who have a lot of trouble staying employed, by sticking to their principle of simply wanting to work in a job regardless, as a qualified person first, Aboriginal second.

You may have a point, but not in the way you think: the great majority of Indigenous graduates are as competent as any others, they don't need any special treatment. But it's not so simple: it seems to be very difficult for some employers, especially public employers, to treat Indigenous graduates as graduates. Almost by definition, they are seen as Indigenous first, graduates second, and 'therefore' liable to be pushed into non-mainstream units.

Secondary school teachers seem to have had great difficulty in getting appointed: one bureaucrat told one applicant that sorry, there weren't any Indigenous secondary schools in SA. Another wasn't appointed until the third week of term. Others have been offered part-time positions - one was offered two in schools about fifty km apart. So although there have been dozens of Indigenous people who have qualified as secondary teachers in SA, there are only a handful actually in the system - and I suspect that they are there only because they are working primarily with Indigenous students. Which is fine - but the entire mainstream should be open to Indigenous graduates just as it is for anyone else. There's still a lot of racism out there, Bully.

Joe

Joe, this is good revealing stuff about the research centres, tutors and everything and needs to out there and discussed in the public domain.
I may even quote you and I hope you don't mind.

Another concern Joe, is that many graduates are taking positions in community organisations and services that would normally go to community educated or, the semi-skilled. These people turn up at interviews with their diplomas (?) and overwhelm other, less certificated job applicants.
My sister for instance went to uni for many years in Brisbane and Melbourne, but was, is happy and contented to work as a liaison person at a hospital. A position that essentially requires good communication skills and to be able to relate to other indigenous. In other words she is over qualified and not necessarily a good communicator. But got the job over other applicants because of her uni education. They are doing others out of a job Joe.
And will not engage with the private sector. This is a point I talk about.

No Joe, don't go on with your “extremely long winded” explanations on why this is so !! Please !!

Joe, for more info, arthurbell5@bigpond.com
Hope to hear from you soon.
Arthur Bell.