"...there is a widening gulf between the 60 percent or more Indigenous people working and living in mainstream Australia and the minority living in welfare-dependent urban ghettos, country towns, or remote settlements."

p://www.cis.org.au/publications/issue-analysis/article/788-indigenous-participation-in-university-education

And this acknowledges that you agree Joe, so why don't you use this as a great example to illustrate how disconnected Dr Dillon is from the the majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people?

60%? I think its around 25% and this piece by Dillon is actually a good example of the class war happenning within this 25 %.

Hi Rainier,

Thanks for spelling out your case so civilly. But with respect, I must dispute the finality with which you write that it is " .... not so easy for those at the bottom to look up."

The opportunities are available for them too: ask at any university's Indigenous student support centre if they could have taken in more Indigenous people, and the answer would be 'yes', if they had applied.

I'm not saying that preparation for university, and study at university, is easy, but it has been done by tens of thousands, so I don't recognise the justification for anybody to cop out and complain 'into their beer'.

My wife and I came down from a rural community to start university as mature students. It was a struggle, with two young children, but each year for about six years, 1977-1982, we used to go apricot-picking and -cutting immediately after our last exams in order to have something towards the rent for the following year. One year was so good that we earnt enough to pay for the whole of the next year's rent. You do what it takes, 46 degrees and all.

'Walk a mile in our shoes' ? I'd like to see that.

And what's the alternative ? To pretend that there aren't any opportunities to break out of one's situation, to curse the world and cry into your beer ? To play the victim ? To let the Man win ?

Your choice, Rainier :)

Cheers,

Joe

>>The opportunities are available for them too: ask at any university's Indigenous student support centre if they could have taken in more Indigenous people, and the answer would be 'yes', if they had applied.

I'm not saying that preparation for university, and study at university, is easy, but it has been done by tens of thousands, so I don't recognise the justification for anybody to cop out and complain 'into their beer'.<<

Because the only way for Aboriginals to get ahead in life is to get a degree. After all, what remote Aboriginal communities need more than anything is a bunch of Arts and Aboriginal Studies graduates and nobody with any real skills.

A community populated mostly by university graduates may be more erudite than one populated mostly by layabouts: it will still be dysfunctional. There is no value in understanding the health benefits of modern sanitation if there are no plumbers to lay the piping. There is no value in understanding Maxwell's laws if there are no licensed electricians to put in the wiring. And so on.

Aboriginals should be encouraged to obtain the skills they need to improve their own lot in life as well as those of their communities. It's nonsense that this can only be achieved at university.

Cheers,

Tony

Tony from memory Joe has posted some interesting material on another thread outlining a shift in the nature of the studies undertaken by indigenous people. My recollection of the material is that there has been a significant shift away from indigenous studies type courses into ones which provide mainstream skills. Hopefully Joe can expand on that (or correct me if I have it wrong).

Some of this discussion reminds me of some discussion I saw on flack that Obama was getting from some civil rights leaders in the USA prior to being elected. Those who's lives and careers have been built around negro disadvantage and who really didn't want him to be president, a coloured man being president is off message.

What's left for those who've embraced fighting racism as their life mission when those that need to feel kept down start to realise that they have choices.

There will be hurdles, they may do it tougher than someone else but they don't need to be kept down by skin colour (gender, sexual orientation, etc).

R0bert

"And what's the alternative ? To pretend that there aren't any opportunities to break out of one's situation, to curse the world and cry into your beer ? To play the victim ? To let the Man win ?
Your choice, Rainier"

I made my choices, which followed the path of decisions my parents for me, a long time ago and they were good choices, ones that have sustained me, made me into the self reliant advocate for my people. I'm not living at the periphery of my community but at its centre because its where I choose to be, would ever want to be. I often come across missionaries, mercenaries and misfits like you Joe, lots of big opinions about what we should or should not do, always ready to tell (brag?) to other white folk about their expert knowledge and experience. So thanks but no thanks, I'm fine and I don't drink beer or any alcohol by the way, so there's another one of your sublime assumptions blown away. Why not retire from "researching us" and take up another 'hobby'. Lawn bowls?

Half-right, Tony :)

Most Indigenous people live in urban areas, and can be expected to spend their working lives there. So the full range of study and career fields would be relevant, certainly not useless degrees, as you note.

But if we are talking about the small minority of Indigenous people who survive in remote areas, then what sorts of skills do remote communities need ? What would the skills configuration of a community with full employment look like ? Completely hypothetically, of course.

First off, economic-oriented skills, depending on the economic potential of the area. Certainly accounting, human resource management, agrosciences, agribusiness, as well as teachers (Primary, Secondary, TAFE), perhaps a nurse, maybe even a social worker for the elderly and invalid; as well as mechanics, plumbers, masons, electricians, refrigeration mechanics, builders, gardeners, etc. If the community had a population over three hundred, it might even be able to support a shop-keeper.

I agree, there is little place for Arts and Ab Studies degree-holders in remote communities. Instead, I look forward to the day when there is somebody at every community who can change a light-bulb or replace a tap-washer. Live in hope, I guess.

But really, I would assume that the great majority of people from remote communities who gain skills of any sort, would find work in towns and cities. There's no automatic or compulsory return to the sticks. Some would, of course, as some do now, but the majority would seek their career paths in the cities, just like anybody else.

So you really are putting up a straw man, Tony. As it happens, the proportion of Indigenous graduates with science, business, teaching or other useful field of expertise is growing rapidly, at maybe 10-12 % p.a. Graduate numbers in Ab Studies-type fields are shrinking even more rapidly: I wouldn't be surprised if they amount to less than 10 % of all graduates from now on, even less than 5 %, fading away to nothing.

[TBC]