Hi Rainier,

I agree with almost everything you write, but my points were:

* should people who discover that some distant relation was Aboriginal or 'Native', but who have never suffered the slings and arrows of living in formerly-racist Australia, be able to claim the benefits that were intended for people who have known them, and copped them, all their lives ?

* that people who don't 'look' Aboriginal have a much easier time of it than those who do, in a still-racist society. Yet, I was trying in my clumsy way to say, those who claim some Aboriginality on, if I may say, technical grounds are often the people who have the means (and the hide) to hop in and claim the benefits which are supposed to accrue to people who have lived the Aboriginal experience, i.e. those who combine Aboriginality and need, as I'm sure Dr Dillon would agree.

To have lived the experience of being Aboriginal, and of being treated as Aboriginal, one does not have to 'look' Aboriginal. Back in the bad old days, the dead hand of policy reached out to many people to drag them back down, no matter what they looked like. People were stigmatised, no mater what they looked like, and they knew damn well exactly who they were. Assimilation was pretty impossible in those circumstances, so if that was really the policy, it failed dismally.

[TBC]

Rainier,

My wife Maria would have had, I suppose, Italian and Chinese ancestry, as well as Anglo and Celtic (yes, she was beautiful, flashing dark eyes, black hair - as Charles Darwin would say, she inherited the best genes from many sources, what he called 'hybrid vigour'). But she was raised as Aboriginal, with Aboriginal parents (certainly an Aboriginal mother, an incredibly feisty woman), and nine strongly Aboriginal brothers and sisters. And a multitude of Aboriginal relations who stayed in the sleep-out on their way through, sharing all their yarns. And their port, as I discovered.

In the small country town where she grew up after they left the 'mission' (as a baby, she was carried around the mission by her grandfather, Wiltshire Sumner, a gun shearer, in the pocket of his WWI great-coat, peering out), and where they were the only Aboriginal family, she was reminded often that she was Aboriginal: the school bus never picked them up, for example: they lived just on the edge of town - that was called 'assimilation'. The boys all individually wanted to root her but collectively threw rocks at her instead.

She left school at not quite fifteen and, as the eldest, had to go to work on a sheep station to take the financial burden off the family as an unpaid house-maid. (I suppose she could have put her hand out as one of the mythical 'Stolen Generation'). A bloody hard worker all her life. She finished up as a Senior Lecturer and acting head of SA's Aboriginal Education Advisory Committee. From her beginning on the Mission to her goodbye, she was Aboriginal, nothing but Aboriginal, and fiercely proud of it.

How are people raised ? Who have been their formative influences, not just who might have been their distant ancestors, who they never knew (and neither did their parents, or grandparents) ? Is the definition merely biological ? What have been their connections to the community, one of the three parts to the definition, after all ? And what are their needs now ?

Cheers,

Joe

For Aka
“I think you have ceded, and admitted defeat, when you quote articles in Quadrant and cite Windschuttle. You write for CIS, the far-right winged so-called-think-tank funded by big businesses.”
“Do you also find it funny that of all Anthony's supporters, none of them identify as Indigenous, because I do.”
Typical classic statements by Aka. I love it! I think you have ceded, and admitted defeat, when you make statements like that one. And as for my supporters, who cares? Well actually I care on one aspect, that my father is my greatest supporter

For Rainier
“I'm from the old school of thought that believes our legal and constitutional rights need to be recognised and that special provision for positive discrimination be included in the Australian constitution.”
“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 majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people?”
Typical classic statements by Rainier!
“He (unlike you) has a very grounded understanding of the dynamics of institutional racism. Anthony, I can only feel sorry for you, I really do.”
And you still think you know my father better than I do. Dad and I had a good chuckle over you recently. Both of us feel sorry for you! Let me repeat, I am in no denial that racism exists. But the point remains, that people have a choice how they will respond to racism. For some, they are totally unaffected by it. For others who moan and groan, it becomes an excuse for all their misery and they end up seeing racism around every corner. I am sure you know the sort of people I am talking about here Aka. Sorry, I mean Rainier.

On 15 March, Aka said "You have made me cranky though that you dare assume what or how I might think." Well I think that pretty much sums up his world view - others are responsible for my happiness! On a serious note, I do not doubt the integrity of the people who give you their response when you speak with them. However, people are able to find explanations for their behaviours/feelings that are not correct. For example, I recently encountered somebody somewhere (can't remember where) but he actually believes I make him cranky. Can you believe that? If people truly understood their problems, they would realise that a solution entails looking within first.

Joe, There have been many occasions where I have confronted this issue with individuals who suddenly discovered that one of the predecessors was Aboriginal.

In fact there are many who claim to be Aboriginal now on the basis of this historical evidence but whose siblings (brothers and sisters) do not and it’s interesting to learn about why they disagree.

Some just think it’s unimportant; others want to deny it because they hate blacks. And quite often these same individuals believe in the myths about the free car, house & other concessions they learnt (before they discovered their Aboriginality).

In my capacity as a board member of a community organisation we often have people requesting a confirmation of Aboriginality form & for those known in our community or through our networks these requests are often not a problem.

Note: (We are the only people in Australia that must provide proof of legal ethnicity & hence the reason for explaining the long legal history of this legalised racism in my previous post.)

However, from my own observation, there are a younger generation coming through now, and these are youth who don't engage or socialize within community who don't understand what it means to self identify as Aboriginal/TSI, and they are very different in attitude to their peers who strongly identify with community along with their traditional clans or language groups.

TBC