Squeers,
No we're not Immigrants, my last overseas born relative came here in the 1880's and the reality is that due to assimilation most, if not all Aboriginal people alive today are blood relatives of White and in some cases Asian Australians, there is no longer a cut and dried definition of a Native.
This is the world as it is, not the PC fantasy world, "Nation of immigrants" is dogma, ecclesiastical language from the religion of the PC Managerial and academic caste.
If Aboriginals have the right to call themselves legitimate Australians then so do I and any other person born on this continent regardless of their race.
What is the point of denigrating legitimate native born Australians as nothing but immigrants?
You statement serves no constructive purpose, so why persist with a notion that is unhelpful and offensive?
Your attitude sends us down the road of having to define people on the basis of genetics and we all know that DNA and identity are two separate issues, do you want to start DNA testing people like they do in Israel?

Ramesh Fernandez
"Who is he, and why is he so enthusiastic to ascertain my identity where I come from?
Did I find him racist and condescending? Yes."

You're assigning motive where no motive has been established. Thinking 'racism' and 'condescension" as your initial instinct could be either a reflection on your own insecurity issues regarding your identity, or a willingness to think the worst of, what seems to be, an innocent inquirer.


"Was there a power dynamic inherent to this question? Yes there was."

This is a Marxist-Foucaudian interpretation of phenomena. It is a paradigm that insinuates oppressive power relations. We now know you're schooled in leftist thought. You see victims everywhere, even where no oppressor-oppressed relation exists.

"Do I answer this, or tell him what I think, that he is just another racist trying to judge people by where they come from or what they look like?"

Again, you're assigning motive where no clear motive has been established. This false assigning is due to your Marxist-Foucaudian education.

"I found myself in a similar situation two months later. I was in an elevator with a friend and colleague, a fellow Melbournian who was born in West Papua. A lady entered, looked at us, and, with no hesitation, she straight away asked "where do you blokes come from"? I replied with "I’m from North Melbourne and my friend’s from Thornbury". She responded with "no, I mean where you are originally come from". I told her that I found it condescending to be asked where I came from, and she said she was just trying to be nice. Is she?"

She was being nice. Again, your Marxist-Foucaudian thought processes have interpreted this situation to be an oppressive one.

"Then why is she labeling me?"

Labelling is an essential part of human life. We cannot function in a society without applying labels to designate things.

cont.

Ramesh Fernandez
"Do you realise that the question "where do you come from?" immediately sets in place a structure that excludes people, rejecting them with a form of passive racism?"

No it doesn't. You've just interpreted it to be so. The question could have been, and highly probably was, genuine interest.

"I don’t blame the individual: I blame the society which, led by politicians, enables passive racism to be acceptable. In a friendly conversation, let alone a political one, a person of colour whether they are born in Australia or not is obliged to automatically go through this process of questioning. It is demeaning and makes you feel that you don’t belong here."

No. If there is any blame to be assigned, it is to be from yourself. You chose, through your Marxist-Foucaudian thinking processes, to take offence.

"Australia has a way of segregating cultures, looking down on people, giving them labels, putting them in boxes. Day to day this manifests through questions and comments like "Where are you from?""

This is the reality of multiculturalism. The policy of multiculturalism is all about segregation. Labels are the natural way to describe each of these cultures. Denying the existence of individual cultures could be interpreted as racist. Do you deny other cultures their existence, their right to describe or 'label' themselves?

cont.

Ramesh Fernandez
"In Australia there is a pattern of racism and it pervades all aspects of society: the non-profit sector, the private sector, governments, hospitals, schools and elsewhere. A perfect example is the treatment of Indigenous peoples as second-class citizens; not to mention the locking up of asylum seekers and refugees who arrive to Australia by boat while there are thousands of backpackers in this country without valid visas. Some call it cold punishment and it is a dishonourable treatment of people."

Please supply evidence that Aboriginals are second-class citizens. That's a mighty statement and you ought to back it up. They are given every opportunity a non-Aboriginal person is in Australia. There is no discrimination based on race here. (In fact, there are many jobs who can only be filled by Aboriginals; sounds like racism, doesn't it?).

If 'refugees' or 'asylum seekers' enter our waters without documentation, then we have every right to detain them until their identity is identified. Maybe thousands of whites could rock up to Zambia or Tunisia unannounced and demand residency, and make the tax-payers of that country pay for their food, shelter, and clothing as well? Let me guess, you would think that's racist?

"One should not forget this land was stolen, and not in the past only; a modern day indigenous land grab is happening around the country so don’t tell me to stop living in the past."

This sentence (as well as your previous paragraph) is not connected in anyway to the central argument. You go from personal experiences of (supposed) racism to general statements on Aboriginals and 'refugees'.
When writing an essay or article, each point must be connected to the thesis statement (even though one was lacking, I inferred it was about your personal experiences of alleged racism). Adding unrelated subject matter confuses the reader

“Aboriginal Australians are really the only ones who have the right to ask the question with that proprietorial air. The rest of us are immigrants.”
I'm sorry Squeers, but I really must take exception to this statement, as it is clearly technically, literally and simply untrue.
I'm 'originally' from Murrumburrah (buggar of a thing to fit onto forms). My ancestors may have come from Ireland, but it would be ridiculous for me to make that claim when I have never even visited the place.
I submit that my place of birth is as legitimate as any Aboriginal's, since none of us had any say in the matter.
Frankly, I believe one of the most obscene words in the English language must be 'birthright'.
This single concept has caused more wars, more inequality, more dissension, more social problems than any other, religion included.
I accept that Aboriginals have land rights, simply because when the English came here they brought their Laws with them, including the right to inherit land.
Clearly, if whitefellas have that right, then so must blackfellas.
But to claim that blackfellas or whitefellas should have more rights on the basis of their ancestry is as bizarre to my mind as Charles 1st's claim of the divine right of kings.
In fact, if we accept the justice of a real meritocracy (which must also be largely be the product of birthright), then we would have to say that immigrants, and most particularly boat people, should have more right to be here than we native born.
They earned the right to be here, by risking life and limb. My being Australian is pure happenstance.

Jay of Melbourne and Grim, if you don't mind I'll respond to the points you raise generally.

I could argue the point you object to, since 200 hundred years of colonisation is nothing to the aborigine’s 50k years plus, but that’s a red herring and you both make my real point much better than I could; that the whole issue is not really about where you’re from, but what you look like.
Australia “is” a nation of immigrants, a cultural tossed salad with new ingredients being added all the time, and this has been the case since, dare I say, “Invasion Day,” which established the Anglo-Saxon template. Since then Australian identity has always been paranoiacally white and romanticised as innocent (of European decadence/aristocracy), reborn, rebellious, laconic and free of pretension—you’ve got to laugh! The reality is a long history of racism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Australia
First, second or third generation whites can embrace their Australian “heritage” because they don’t obviously contradict it, but those of an “other” extraction, however many generations Australian they may be, often have to put up with passive racism. It doesn’t matter if you are third generation white Australian, it’s denialism and hypocritical to treat the latest arrivals as somehow incongruous.
But the aboriginal experience interests me most. It doesn’t matter, Jay, that aboriginals today are a cultural mix, or that “there is no longer a cut and dried definition of a Native”. We don’t need to split hairs. There is a cut and dried “perceptual” definition of Australian, and Aboriginals, Asians, Africans and “Middle-Easterns” is not it: http://griffithreview.com/edition-15-divided-nation/of-middle-eastern-appearance
TBC