phanto,
I'm at pains to be as clear as I can be yet you still manage to completely misunderstand what I say.

Joe,
I've got no answer for that, I'm not an anthropologist, but I'll give it some thought. In the meantime I just know how I would feel if I had the prejudiced, superior and judgemental eyes of suspicious westerners always on me.

Hi Squeers,

What makes you think those attitudes haven't been felt much keenly by Indigenous people in settled areas, in the 'south', in the cities ? If anything, the remote settlements are insulated from that, yet it's in those settled areas that the vast majority of Indigenous graduates have been living in, side by side with non-Indigenous people. It's in the 'south' where people have seized opportunities and spat in the whitefella's eye.

If anything, people in remote settlements are oblivious to whatever whitefellas are supposed to think of them. Of course, the decline in a lingua franca, in this case English, has been devastating in driving a wedge between what amounts to the two Indigenous populations by denying the opportunity of people in the 'north' to ever read newspapers or follow the news on TV, to understand the outside world. But that barrier has greatly hampered the chances of the next generations from those settlements. The Gap may not Close.

Yes, of course, there is a welfare-oriented population in the 'south', in outer suburbs and country towns. But they always have the example of their opportunity-seeking cousins, English is usually their first language and they know how to operate in the city. They don't have to be victims, although such a stance keeps the welfare flowing - and also keeps the next generation that much more powerless to exercise any agency.

Joe

Joe, Hasbeen, Big Nana,
“There could be a host of reasons [for squalor], none of them to do with anything innate or to do with the direct effects of colonialism, but more to do with a misperception of how the outside world works.”
“They may consider themselves victims but they are victims of their own choices.”

Your comments suggest that you have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the Reagan-Thatcherite spin that victims (of structural cuts to education, health, and employment, etc) are powerless. That is the total opposite of what the article and Stringer are saying.

Stringer is saying that people who are the victims of such cuts by the one percent can use their legitimate resentment about being treated as if they are expendable to stand up and demand their rights. But until they see that they have been made victims by the system, they don’t see any reason to stand up. Rather, the hooked-in go on about being better—harder working, more stoic, etc—than those who have been harder hit.

The one percent would fall over if we stopped buying their spin and stopped buying their spam. Why do you think the one percent tries to keep us all in a Murdoch-and-spam-fed stupor?

And Joe, you have not answered my questions about the inaccurate information you have published. According to the ABN 2011 census, ‘In 2011, one in twenty Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander 15-24 year olds were studying at [higher education] level compared with one in five non-Indigenous students the same age.’ One in TWENTY.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features20July+2013#p10

Why do you hold to your completely inaccurate figure of one in four? And, given that the figure is one in five for whitefellas, how do you expect anyone to believe that the figure for Indigenous people is higher? What would you call it when someone continues to publish inaccurate information in the face of contrary evidence?

Hi Imhho,

" victims (of structural cuts to education, health, and employment, etc) are powerless." Hell no, absolutely not. Why on earth do you suggest that ?

I've given you the actual figures for Indigenous under-graduate commencements in 2013, and the ABS figures for Indigenous people turning 20 in 2013, as rough equivalents. Those are the figures. You can quibble about exact ages all you like, but it is clear that roughly 35 % of each group of young indigenous people, as they pass 20, will be enrolling at university. That's how it is. Why do you want there to be only one in twenty, 5 % ?

Where does the ABS get its figures from ? I don't know, but they certainly aren't using Comm. Ed. Department figures which can be found at https://education.gov.au/student-data

I suspect they are using figures provided by useless Indigenous education 'leaders' who have their own agenda, to play down Indigenous involvement at universities, in order to pump up their own preciousness as the Only Successful Graduates, the Tiny but Valuable Few, the Mighty Cohort. But thirty eight thousand are not a 'Few'. The fact remains that in 2013, 5,231 Indigenous people commenced study at universities, including post-graduates, 11,344 turned 20, and the number of graduates was 1,859.

Do the maths: if 1859 Indigenous people graduated, then the equivalent of 16.4 % of that age-group graduated. One in six. The equivalent of, since most graduates were well over 20. If you want to use smaller age-groups to compare with, be my guest, it works against your assumptions :)

My point is that Indigenous people have little reason to think of themselves as victims in 2014. More than one hundred thousand - that would be one in six, all told - have at some time been to university since 1980. That's probably a lot better than Italy, Spain, perhaps France. Certainly it's a lot better than anywhere in non-Western countries except perhaps South Korea, Singapore and Japan.

Just trying to help you out of your mind-set :)

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Joe:
This is what I posted: “the Reagan-Thatcherite spin that victims (of structural cuts to education, health, and employment, etc) are powerless."
This is what you quoted me as posting: “victims (of structural cuts to education, health, and employment, etc) are powerless.”

Enough said: misquotes/doublespeak, miscalculations, misinformation.

Imho,

Not really: I quoted your quote, and in the same spirit.

A bit if a diversion from topic: you're not Poirot on another computer, are you ?

Curses ! There's goes one out of four posts. Devilishly cunning, Poirot !

Joe
www.firstsources.info