Ro,

I don’t see what you’re getting at other than attacking me for questioning Pearson’s political and ideological integrity. Is there something you find offensive about this? Why? Is this not permissible? And who sez so?

I can’t help but think that Pearson’s rhetoric is much important to his supporters than those he is speaking about. I can understand how attractive it must be to defend one eloquent black spokesperson absolving white fear and guilt? Cathy Freeman did it on the track; Noel does from a lectern to the middle classes who flock to hear his latest orations about ‘naughty aborigines’, and their behavioral dysfunctions.
And everyone goes home feeling like they’ve done something for blackfellas. Puleeze!

And Ro,

• When you speak of Australians being less concerned with political jargon, who are these people- you’re golf mates or the bloke who owns the corner store? Pray tell?

Forgive me for being somewhat cynical but your reference to Australian egalitarianism and its apparent concern for Indigenous peoples – but it’s simply not born out in contemporary evidence.
• So tell me oh knowledgeable one, what are Pearson’s actual actions? I’ve got a pretty good idea about what they are, but it appears you have a much more grounded understanding

On-Ya Megan Davis,

Agree with the main bit of what you say "Indigenous communities are different with different problems requiring different solutions".

Keep on Keeping on.

Earlier this year there was a march to acknowledge the first anniversary of the death of TJ Hickey at Waterloo after a bicycle accident. The march got big press. Yet in the fortnight before the protest two young aboriginals in Redfern died from heroin overdose (one in the very centre of The Block). Those young Aboriginals did not get a mention in any forum.
The subsequent inquiries into Redfern highlighted what was known by many for years, that the indigenous community was ravaged by heroin. Yet after all that was exposed the heroin trade is still flourishing in Eveleigh Street, Aboriginals selling Aboriginals heroin.
For all the debate that has taken place NOTHING has been achieved, and now Megan wishes to move the subject of debate from how best to resolve the problem to how we should debate debates.
Is it any wonder the government are seeking to take back power over Aboriginal Australia.
PFH

PFH, you totally miss the point of Megan's arguement.
If public debates have an impact on social policy, then the current process by which one commentator dominates the discourse is not tenable to solving problems, either in Redfern or in remote communities.

Its about problem definition and solution by respective communities.

The debates have simply identified problems that are already well known to Indigenous leaders at the grassroots. But have we heard from Redfern community people, have we heard from Cape York leaders?

There voices have been locked out in favour of a castigating discourse about substance abuse in Aboriginal communities.

Am I putting to much emphasis on how its being covered in the media and not enough about what to do about it? I don't think so.

Its as though everyone is now expert at naming what the problems are -as if this encapsulates the 'solution'. It does not.

Hence the reason Megan is trying to first balance the debate toward proper support for grassroots leadership.

Why should the cape communities come under the Iron Rule of Noel Pearson? Boni Robertson, a long term critic of Pearson, has come out recently and queried his welfare reforms from the position that they violate fundamental human rights. Robertson and Pearson have been at loggerheads for a number of years but it would be difficult to find any comments from either party that has attacked the other personally.
Perhaps O'Donauhue could learn from this.

I think it is important to stimulate open autonomous debate on what is occurring at ground level between communities of Cape York.

No where in Australia is there a place that is more mis-understood, than Cape York.

Be it in the nature of Wik, CYPLUS or recent changes to Local Government Councils, Health and Crime Prevention, the new introduction of Alcohol Laws, or through Economic "self determination" and Employment?

The Cape, like many isolated regions of Australia, has a history of haphazard processes in national and state development.

There is a lack of Social Planning, lack of intergration between major government departments, lack of "inclusiveness" of peoples at ground levels, lack of understanding in a Community Development that prevents strain, and which leads us out of the causal links that contribute to the break-down of family and community crime

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