Posters, there's a bit of round and round the mulberry bush happening. I will boycott Indonesia, not because I hate the people, rather, the fact that I cannot guarantee that if i was going on holiday to Indonesia/bali, I would arrive there drug free (via Qantas) into a country that would give me a death penalty. I might risk flying to Paris via Virgin with a lover stashed in my boogie board bag. That would be different. I don't think it's racism against the Indonesian govt, i think it's a wake up call for all of us who have travelled around with the "there but for the grace of god go i". Qantas may have gotten the best advertisement going from "Rain Main" but I wouldn't trust them with my pet dead rat in a sealed box in cargo! That's the dilemma, not the colour of Corby's eyes. Down with Qantas!

Di, Ok, you get my vote for the “Kath and Kim Personality” Online Opinion poster for 2005. Look at moi!

Dihaan, I'm still mulling over how I should respond to your last post about your experiences of racism. It must have been life shattering for you and your Dad to be confronted by those horrible aborigines. Goodness me! (Watch this space)

Personally, I doubt seriously if I would wind up in Bali, or anywhere else for that matter with drugs in my luggage because I would not have put any there, and the chances of anyone else putting them there and then forgetting about them would be rather slim, I'm thinking.

BUT, Di,if your problem with going to Bali is that drugs might mysteriously get into your luggage via a baggage handler on a domestic flight and then be "forgotten" and accidentally left there (can you imagine how mad this supposed baggage handler's drug boss was),then I would boycott all oversea's and domestic flights, as I doubt the incident would have had anything to do with her going to Bali, if indeed that was the scenerio. She might as easily been going to New Zealand or Tiawan or L.A. or anywhere, so a boycott of Bali, if these circumstances are to be believed, is rather silly. And, if she had arrived in any other country with those drugs in her luggage, I'm sure she would have recieved the same verdict. Only the sentence would have been different, perhaps worse, perhaps better.

It is time to get rational about this whole thing instead of being led along by the press. IF the problem is with the baggage handlers, then I think our main concern should be with security. I could fly quite comfortably to Bali with a few kilos of drugs someone smuggled into the baggage compartment, but a small bomb in there could really mess up my day.

If this situation has pointed out one thing to me, and frankly the only thing that I find very meaningful about the whole situation, it is that there is apparently a large hole in security at airports. If this is true, then it is true of all carriers. To heck with drugs...I don't use em and I don't care about them generally. I think they are personal choice. But if there is a chance drugs are being smuggled onto aircraft, then there is a good chance that anything could get on there.

Rainier, as you are struggling to find an appropriate response please permit me to make a suggestion.

You could try understanding. Any direct racist attack be it verbal or physical can be very distressing and unsettling. It places the recipient in a position where they wonder how far the situation may go and what an appropriate response is. Verbal abuse from a couple of kids may not be as damaging as not getting a job because of the color of your skin or getting assaulted etc but it is still something none of us should need to have in our lives merely because someone does not like a grouping we are part of.

What was with the Kath and Kim bit about the lovely Di's posting? I don't watch Kath and Kim so maybe I am missing something simple here.

Robert,
I'm still mulling over it. It takes deep thought to respond usefully to poeople whose own life experience of racism is minimal and incidental to how they organise their everyday life.

Thanks for your suggestion, but its an explanation I first encountered 40 years ago as a child. Its relevant but not rigorous.

Racism is a deeper and much more theoretic topic than many (especially to those whose lives are not organised by it) think.

So I ask again, what does it mean to be white? That you've never really needed to think about it should be a profound revelation, but it appears not to be the case. I suppose, that what it means to be white is never having to explain it or move beyond the comfort zone that this challenge is asking. That's what I've witnessed here in these posts and explanations about racism.

But don't count this as my definitive response to your posts thus far. It ain't.

rainier, im hazarding a guess here and im guessing that your posts would be confronting for most white people who are not aware of the white priveldge thing.

i think that you are correct in your comment about white people not having to think about what is or means to be white and how that doesnt form their everyday life behaviour.

read between the lines of the boycotting and return of tsunami aid monies and you get those dark skinned ingrates dont deserve our money let them rot in their 3rd world conditions. not very charitable really for a so called christian country. but then again if we look into the past history of australia we'd find some uncharitable acts then too mostly against aboriginal people.

the hysteria for corby is unreal but not surprising, racism is certainly alive and well in australia, i was aware of that before corby got busted.

there is a war on drugs people remember that and indonesia is playing its part in that war.