The word that most tribes have for themselves translates to ‘the people’. Racism served a purpose when we lived in tribal conditions. Xenophobia or fear of strangers made us ready to do battle with and slaughter people of other tribes. The development of the monotheistic religions gave divine righteousness to the slaughter of the outsider. The person who worshipped another God could be labelled an unbeliever or atheist as our God was the real one. Ben Kiernan wrote “Blood and Soil” describing 2,400 years of genocide dating from the Spartans. Genocide was fuelled by both religion and race. The English slaughtered the ‘uncivilised’ Catholic Irish. Their savagery was fuelled by the Church of England which justified the slaughter even though the English themselves had been Catholic when Henry VIII wanted a divorce. Racism is usually not logical. The English slaughtered Aborigines also. in the eyes of many of the early settlers to Australia they were not regarded as human. The prevailing scientific thought before Darwin was that the different races of human had different origins. Some clergy regarded the Aborigines as human since they subscribed to the biblical myth of all humankind descending from Adam and Eve. They protected Aborigines from the slaughter at the price of brainwashing them with the European religious myths. After Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man’ most enlightened opinion regarded all humans including the Aborigines as one species. Even so massacres of Aborigines continued into the twentieth century. The idea of all humans having a common origin was still rejected by some scientists such as Carleton Coon, an anthropologist.

Most no longer have the primitive belief that spirits are in trees and rocks even though some believe that we are engaging in spiritual cannibalism in consuming a wafer that has been subjected to the appropriate ritual. Where people of different beliefs and cultures live together racism is longer an aid to survival but a source of senseless conflict. Calling an Aborigine an ape brings back the bloody past when Aborigines were regarded as less than human. Both racism and religion are relicts of a bloody past.

Dear Lexi

No, I am afraid I don't get the message. What, exactly, are you saying?

Wow Lexie! So the Caucasian peoples emanating from Western European lands invented RACISM and continue to hold peoples of any other racial background under their wicked bigoted thumbs ....

I suggest travel. Try a nice predominately Muslim country for starters. Insult a local ... Better still be insulted by a local ... the result is usually about the same. See if you reckon you get equal treatment as a foreigner ...

If you are one of the wicked white majority, albeit a very apologetic one, I guess you wouldn't be at all concerned if you were racially vilified? Let's say you saw a child of obvious non-caucasian race suffer injury - fall off a bike for example. When you've gone to lend assistance a person of similar appearance as the child comes running at you yelling "Don't touch him you white #^&." You probably wouldn't consider you've suffered a racially motivated attack would you? It would be a simple case of an oppressed minority person expressing fear and anxiety over the welfare of their kinsman - Yes?

I hope you are a young person with limited life experience because then there is time yet to develop a balanced outlook.

Poirot, some of us have spoken about life experiences which have shaped our POV. If I have no knowledge of yours, as you point out - why not share?

The sweetest irony of your last post was quoting Goodes, "Unfortunately, it's what she hears, in the environment she's grown up with that has made her think that it's OK to call people names..."

If you hear the language, name calling, shouting, screaming and verbal abuse that abounds in so many Aboriginal communities - that 13yr old sounds more polite than the most polished debutante.

He should start with his own tribe.

Lexi,

So now according to you I am 'humourless', along with some noxious names you call me because I object to the appalling treatment and denial of the rights of the 13yr old girl adolescent child minor.

You quote Virginia Trioli, who with her rude gestures on camera towards a federal politician, is an example of what is wrong with the ABC. Honestly, since when was Virginia Trioli an expert on the care and rights of children anyhow?

The left authoritarianism and extreme political correctness that permitted that to occur are abominations wherever they occur and a foul blight on Australian society.

It is truly disgusting that anyone would turn a blind eye to the ruthless, excessive, cruel and politically convenient treatment of this child and not be demanding redress, let along seek to defend and justify it as you do.

It is NOT RIGHT, it is Never OK to warp the rights of a child and treat her like that.

Hi David F

Human beings have always formed self protecting groups made up of shared kinship ties, or at least social similarity. If in our post arboreal existence human beings had not evolved to do this, then lacking teeth, claws, spines, horns, armour, or large size, our species would have gone extinct.

The forming of self protecting groups, and the defence of territory, is a psychological imperative. It is in our DNA, and no amount of moral posturing, or thinking that you are morally and intellectually superior to others, is ever going to change that. As a matter of fact, if you think that people who think like you do, who can casually discard their group identities, are superior to those who do not, then you have just delineated two opposing groups and denigrated your opponents.

Groups usually define a territory and defend it against all comers, regardless as to whether they are the four legged, or two legged variety. Competing groups on common territory normally do not like each other, and they routinely think up hurtful or amusing names for their opponents.

Defence of territory by sedentary creatures is instinctive, regardless of whether the defender is a groper fish, a stickleback lizard, or a magpie. Human beings are sedentary creatures.

Wishing away the concept of "us and them" in order to conform to a fairyland ideology that promises to Save the World, but ignores human psychology, is about as effective as telling teenagers that they can easily stop the population explosion by not having sex.

Dear Lego,

You wrote: "Wishing away the concept of "us and them" in order to conform to a fairyland ideology that promises to Save the World, but ignores human psychology, is about as effective as telling teenagers that they can easily stop the population explosion by not having sex."

We humans like all other organisms have two basic drives - to survive and reproduce. The drive to reproduce fuels our sex drive which is strongest in teenagers. Your analogy is a poor one. The instinct for racism is causing conflict and can prove harmful to our survival. That means that it can be abandoned. At 87 I still find the female body attractive. I don't find racism attractive.