Dear Shockadelic,

You wrote: “Anyway, Blacks were not denied a bus seat, a meal, a hotel room or anything else. There were simply *separate* services.”

The above is not true. Separate usually meant inferior or non-existent. All hotels in a town might be for whites only with no accommodation for blacks. Black schools received less funds per pupil than white schools. In declaring school segregation illegal the Supreme Court wrote that segregation is ‘inherently unequal’.

Dear Lego,

As I said IQs are culturally dependent. IQ is only an approximate measure of intelligence. We do know that different races overlap in distribution of intelligence so we cannot determine that a particular person is more or less intelligent than another person based on their race. I think an Australian is entitled to as much consideration as a Chinese even though their intelligence as measured by IQ tests is probably not as high.

In the past various cultures and civilisations have risen and fallen. Black Timbuktu was a great centre of learning when Europe was in the grip of the Dark Ages. Britons were painting themselves blue and worshipping trees when Rome was the centre of a great civilisation. Later the British Empire spread over a quarter of the earth’s land surface. Now they are a second-rate power remembering the glory of the past.

To get its independence the US compromised with a great evil. To get the South to go along they accepted human slavery. People of conscience recognised the evil. George Mason refused to sign the Constitution since it accepted slavery. It took the bloodiest war in terms of US casualties the United States has ever been in to eliminate the evil. Later the South enacted segregation laws to continue the evil.

Racism condemns people because they belong to a group rather than treat them as individuals. Possibly the most violent and cruel individual to ever rule a country is Adolf Hitler. However, that is no reason to treat any German badly or unfairly. It is no reason to treat white Australians badly because Australians have massacred Aborigines.

Dear Cody,

No I'm not qualified enough to be an academic,
sorry to say. But Thank You for the compliment.

As for what would I do if I was on a plane and
someone screamed out that they have a bomb?
I suspect I would need to change my underwear
rather quickly :-):-);-).

Dear Antiseptic,

David F gave an excellent answer to your question
at the beginning of this thread as to why racial
slurs are worse than any others. Racism provided
a convenient justification for slavery and for
murder. And in the case of Adam Goodes - who lives
with discrimination every day - his reaction is
understandable.

Dear divine_msn,

As I've stated previously - if contemporary
Australians are to live at ease with ourselves,
we need more education, especially of the young,
and at least greater honesty about the culture
of racism that is so damaging to us all.

Anyway folks, I've had my say -
I shall leave you to continue
with yours.

Dear Lexi

As an aside to one of your previous posts, perhaps you could explain the genocide of the Mori Ori, the original inhabitants of New Zealand, by the later arriving Maori? Hardly the influence of European 'superiority' there. It surprises me that you are not an academic though; you give replies rather than answers. I think you would enjoy reading: 'The Triumph of the Airheads, and the Retreat of Common Sense.' Do you work in HR or senior management for a very large company?

Lexi, I live with discrimination every day based on my gender and on my race. I have a subscription to a job advisory service and I am excluded from applying for many jobs, regardless of qualification because either the ad says "females welcome to apply", "family friendly hours", "Indigenous job" or some other set of code words that mean, don't bother unless your female or black as the case may be.

That discrimination is legal, because I do not share a single characteristic that in no way defines my capacity to do the task. If I was to get upset about it and try to complain, nobody would be prepared to hear my complaint. Not the anti-discrimination commission, not the Ombudsman, not even my local MP would be bothered. If I fronted the advertiser and carried on like a pork chop about it they'd call the cops and if a woman on the premises said I'd scared her, I'd be charged with offensive behaviour or even assault.

In Goodes's case, he is a man who is privileged because of things that have nothing to do with his race, although he may have been given the opportunity because of one of the Aboriginal development programs that the football codes run. If so, it makes the point even stronger and that is that despite this privilege, it is deemed acceptable for him to be so sensitive about a perceived slight (no one has claimed she even knew what it meant) based on his racial heritage he cannot be expected to control his reaction, even if it means a little girl has to deal with it.

I say that's rubbish. We have to be able to ignore such silly insults, whatever they arise from. The European New Australians showed the way, as did homosexuals - take the intended insult as a badge of pride. Instead of taking offence, make it a joke. "Oh, you noticed?", "Yeah mate, wog and proud", etc. The Goodes response was intended to inflame. It was attention seeking. Presumably he was lauded within middle-class Aboriginal advocacy circles and he was certainly a darling of the foaming-mouthed progressive media.

Did it do anything at all to address the real racism that causes Aborigines to choose to remain in squalour rather than mix in white society? The racism I'm referring to is that of the Aborigines, since black Africans seem to manage to do it without any problems, Maoris are happily accepted, islanders too, so for the rest of us skin colour isn't an issue. Goodes seems to have done OK too, despite his high horse climbing display.

It is only because there are entrenched cultural attitudes like those of Goodes that Aboriginal people are kept in the dirt and parasites rake in millions exploiting their situation.

Ask yourself who gains from a population of poverty-stricken Aborigines. Then you'll have your answer as to who has an interest in making racism seem to be a huge barrier to Aboriginal participation in the wider society.

Goodes may have been genuine, his response was somewhat embarrased, but he is primed with the attitudes of the community he grew up in and they are that white fellas hate black fellas so don't take any sh!t.

It's dysfunctional, not admirable.

Antiseptic,

So Goodes has enough intestinal fortitude to stand up to ingrained and habitual abuse shouted from the stands week in and week out by those who would be too cowardly to enact it sans the anonymity of the venue - and you state:

"It is only because of entrenched cultural issues like those of Goodes that Aboriginal people are kept in the dirt and parasites rake in millions exploiting their situation."

How so?

Here's a comment I made on this issue a couple of days ago - I don't think it's too far from the truth.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5804&page=0#163715