Alan B, all the mentoring in the world won't help if it is so infused with political correctness that no one can speak honestly.
I worked in Health for over thirty years and towards the end, became totally disillusioned by the workplace attitude that indigenous employees can't be reprimanded for work place bad habits that saw anyone else pulled into a supervisors office and given warnings. Things like punctuality, days off, poor attitude, the habit of looking for racism in every comment or action by their work mates.
If aboriginal people are going to achieve equality, they have to be treated equally

Joe, one of my adult granddaughters, who is fairly dark skinned, is almost halfway through a government traineeship in Finance. She has spent a lot of time in my house and as such, is well aware of my expected work ethics amongst my indigenous grandchildren.
In her case it has really paid off. The Department is so impressed with her attitude and work ethics she's already being advised to apply for permanent jobs, even before her traineeship is half way through.
But what I am most proud of is the response she gave to her indigenous support worker who told her to always be on the look out for racism from her co workers.
In essence she said that she never looked for racism, she rarely had experienced racism in her life and she wasn't about to cause problems with the co workers who have been treating her so well.
It seems that even those who start with the right attitude are in danger of being sabotaged by their own support crew.

Hi Big Nana,

I wish your granddaughter all the very best, with all my heart. I don't know how organisations might get rid of the dead wood, the supernumeries that they feel they have to carry, who do little or no work, who often seem to have no duties at all, but get to go to the overseas conferences, the education workers who don't believe in education, the health workers who don't believe in germ theory, the legal workers (provide with car, etc.) who spend their time visiting relatives.

When my wife took over the management of student support at an unnamed university, she found one bloke who didn't seem to have done any work at all for a couple of years, except on his own post-graduate studies - that was all that was on his computer. She did a deal to get him out, paying a full year's salary to another department.

I'm told of an education worker who told the kids, "This is all bullsh!t - look at me, I didn't even finish primary school and I've had this job now for twenty years." How inspiring would that be for the kids ? He had that job for another fifteen years.

Or health workers - usually grossly obese - who are amongst the drug pushers to a 'community'.

So much of Indigenous society is based on a rentier economy - in which people are on pretty secure salaries, not for what they do but for what they are. I recall a ranger, very 'Aboriginal-looking', whose job seemed to be to stand or smoke or sit outside the regional headquarters 'looking Aboriginal.'

My wife once gave a very inspiring speech to a group of unqualified Aboriginal rangers about the successes of Aboriginal people in the Conservation Management course, they all sat, arms folded, sitting back, glowering. Not one took up the opportunity. Well, why would you, if you already get a full salary AND a Toyota to get around in ? Sweet.

{TBC]

[continued]

Perhaps with good intentions (and maybe not), government organisations have padded their Indigenous employment with unqualified people who will NEVER go on to attempt proper qualifications, in field after field. Okay, that's what people choose. They can take the consequences of their choices. And, unfortunately, so will their kids.

Other Indigenous people, mainly n the cities, will just get on with seizing genuine opportunities, for genuine jobs, where they can find them. And it usually isn't in public organisations: they already have their blackfellas quota, we're terribly sorry.

So who benefits from racism ?

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe and Big Nana,
Do you think any of this will change after they get Reconciliation or a Treaty or whatever. I would dearly love to be wrong but I suspect not. It seems to me that this whole disadvantage business is just a myth and I have come to that conclusion from my own observation without any input from you two.

Fortunately, there are also a lot who have managed to do all right for themselves. Back in the sixties I worked with a young part aboriginal and his sister who both fitted in with the rest of the crew. No one cared about who they were.

David

Hi David,

Will "any of this .... change after they get Reconciliation or a Treaty or whatever" ?

No of course not, such fripperies might make many white professionals - who wouldn't know a Blackfella if they fell over her - and the Aboriginal elites, as well as those no-work semi-professional Indigenous skivers feel better, put them on more committees and allow them to attend more international conferences. But, if anything, it will entrench the Gap and Widen it.

As Jeremy Sammut writes, the Indigenous people whose women and kids are suffering most have been exposed to 'colonialism' least: long-term contact with whites has had inversely proportional effects on Indigenous well-being, i.e. the less of it, the more disastrous is current life amongst Indigenous welfare-oriented populations. Isn't this so ?

It's not all sweetness and roses for Indigenous people even in the cities, and even with good education: new forms of racism have been in play, with the connivance of Indigenous elites. For example, the difficulties that Indigenous graduates may have if they have graduated in mainstream fields - which these days is 97 %. The old naïve notion that Indigenous students SHOULD study only in 'Black' courses, and not in White' courses, is still alive and festering away.

In that sense, I would suggest that the political level of many in the Indigenous elite are somewhere far below that of Africans in South Africa before the setting-up of the ANC in 1912. The elite seem to be totally unaware that most Indigenous people live in urban environments (perhaps because they don't want to know) - like themselves, actually.

Very few in the elite have ever spent much time in 'communities', certainly not over, say, pension day and its aftermath. And if self-determination has anything to do with economic development (as I always assumed, more fool me), then they are also totally ignorant of any of its requirements and problems. Everything, after all, drops out of the sky.

So the elites, so out of touch, are forever ignoring (or are oblivious to) the real issues.

Cheers,

Joe