Chek,

Don't be discouraged by what your brave article has stirred up. There are a lot of us out here in the readership who admire your courage.

The Corby case is a tough issue to confront. Like Pauline Hanson, Schiapelle Corby uncomfortably defines we older Australians. The question of her guilt or innocence of the drug smuggling charge no longer really matters any more - it is all about cultural symbolism. Why else is the Howard government proposing to fund travel for her new defence witnesses - they have read the opinion polls. You are taking on a big icon here.

Tony Kevin

Again we are told by the cultural elites that we whites are the only racists of course! Nonsense.

Racism works both ways, especially here in Australia re the Aboriginal population. I've known Aboriginal kids to harass white kids and as far as I'm concerned that's just as bad as white kids harassing Aboriginal kids.

In Australia it seems that everyone who is racist is white. Whether concerning Asians or Aboriginals, the anglo race is to blame.

Well I'm sick of that being bandied around. Because I know, from personal experience (as a white person), just how offensive some Aboriginals can be. And of course, if I dared to say anything back to an Aborigine who was calling me everything under the sun, I would be considered THE racist. Now that's just plain wrong.

Yet of course the left and the social elites would state that the Aboriginal race has had it hard in Australia and that I should take the "punishment" for my ancestors misdeeds. However, this denies the fact that Aboriginals have had it too good for too long. They receive special handouts, school camps and benefits (I was particularly offended at the week-long camp held for Aboriginal students only, at my high school), unemployment benefits, massive media attention, and yet they hardly ever want to take the batton of responsibility up themselves - to get skills, jobs, start businesses or improve health, with the exception of a few fantastic WA regional communities which have taken up mutual responsibility agreements with the Federal Government.

My view of racism is simply that it isn't a one-way street. The left and the social elites of today don't want to acknowledge that, instead, blaming white people for every problem the Aboriginal people face and trying to solve the problem by throwing money at them. This hasn't worked in the past and won't work in the future, either.

Dear all

Thank you to those who have given me support. It is always hard to swim against the tide.

For the rest, many of you surprised me. I expect that people on this forum would read properly, and not attribute things to me which are not reasonably inferrable from my article.

I was careful to document what is observable about our society. You are completley right to question my interpretations or deductions, but stick to that. For instance, our racist past is well accepted, maybe not by some home-grown Irvings. I say nothing about Howard being a racist. Yes, he plays the race card unashamedly. My article, White Ghosts,Ethnic Dummies, on The Brisbane Institute website will give you more on what I think of multiculturalism.

Too many of you waste time telling me that we are all racists, from time immemnorial. So what? Try envisioning a better Australia. If we spend all our spare time raucously imbibing whatever our media or pollies throw out at us, we would just be like robots zombieing around in an unconscious civilisation.

As for the perceived special treatment for Aboriginal people, try lifing your eyes above the ground level. How many people individually or in a group would want to be in their position? Remember, they once were free spirited peoples with blithe physigues, and often very generous to foreigners looking for pastures and water. But that was before the guns, diseases, and starvation took their toll.

Remember how we got $1M/day oil royalty from what is now East Timor as quid pro quo for not opposing Suharto's annexation of East Timor? And Downer contiually saying that we will be generous in our current negatioations with East Timor?

Mate, we gotta get our act together yet, as a nation.

Chek

Dear Chek,

If it’s any consolation - those who have attacked and misquoted you have never published or spoken publicly about racism, multiculturalism or on anything for that matter. Certainly not as many times as you have.

Apparently they don't feel compelled or have a need to do this because 'all Australians already agree with them, [just ask them]. They don’t have to rely on research or scholarship (the craft of elites they call it) Instead they are born with a genetic implanted understanding of what it means to be Australian (and importantly, what is or who is not Australian).

And besides, if they did write or speak publicly, they inherently know they would have to articulate their views much more succinctly than the BBQ and Bar room mumbles and grumbles they use here. Shock horror!

So in many ways this forum (and others) is the only place they can feel safe in espousing their Hansonite logic and xenophobic insecurities. These forums can and do become internet talk-back radio sites for the functionally literate, albeit, mostly intellectually challenged.

Just mentioning the words race or racism, I’ve discovered, allows them to exercise their patriotic right to become defensive about the Australian national character, something they fail to fully explain back to me - let alone understand.

Your article broke one the unwritten sacred rules set out for non white Australians like us. That rule is that we should never purport to understand, publicly analyze, theorize, unpack, or discuss how their privilege and power works. You’re not supposed to be intellectual about these matters, just be happy to be Australian!

They see this as an attack and not as engagement of perspective. Sad but true.

Keep up the good fight my brother! I look forward to your next article.

But Chek, your idea of a better Australia is not my idea of a better Australia.

I think the Corby case is less about race, than a concern about whether or not she recieved a fair trial. The Bali nine for example are obviously guilty, so the attention them is minimal. There is a chance that Corby might just be telling the truth, and is not guilty.

The plight of Aboriginals is tricky. Yes they need a hand to improve their quality of life, but they also have to take their own initiative. They need not drown in their own bitterness...

I'm new at this forum and read Chek's article with interest. By and large I concurred with his position and felt that his arguments were well founded in the literature eg, amongst many, Jennifer Rutherford's "The Gauche Intruder: Freud, Lacan and the White Australian Fantasy (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000) and Ghassan Hage, "Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for hope in a shrinking society" (Sydney: Pluto Press, 1999). In fact, I thought Chek was being quite restrained and not going for the juggler. On the other hand, I've been amazed at the many reponses having a go at not only his arguments but but personal attacks. I didn't expect to find these kinds of responses here and that I'd have thought would be more at home at Tim Blairs' extreme right blog over at The Age site.

why is it that it's always the same kind of redneck attack something along the line of "we/Australia have/has given you a fair go and now you've got the nerve to bite the hand that feeds you" and/or "if you don't like it here, why don't you go back to where you came from?" and/or "and therefore you must be a double-standard racist" re the "people in glass houses" comment.

And as far as the diatribe on hard/soft multiculturalism and how the silent majority prefer assimilation etc, Please! Australia IS multicultural by Federal legislation decree (see AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT, Multicultural Australia: United In Diversity. Updating the 1999 New Agenda for Multicultural Australia: Strategic directions for 2003-2006 (pdf edn., Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2003).
--, A New Agenda For Multicultural Australia (pdf edn., Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1999).) whether you like it or not. My advice: Get Over It!

gauging from the responses, I'd say xenophobia is alive and thriving in Australia!