Realist wrote:

(The end of the day, white people and the Australian Nation did this to a peoples who were largely untouched for 100,000 years)

Aboriginal people have only lived in Australia for 40,000. They are trying to extend that to 60,000 but it isn't working. The Aboriginal people also displaced the 'native' pygmy people that inhabitated OZ at that time (the remains of these indigenous people have been found). My point being that most countries/nations in the world have been invaded at some point in history - and it is still going on today ... we are invading Iraq are we not ? There would be people of aboriginal heritage in the armed forces would there not ?

I am not guilty for what happened in the past, but I am capable of making sure that this type of behaviour is not tolerated in the future. Unfortunately, the only people causing racism in this country today are the aboriginal people themselves. The rest of us would just like to get on with being Australian.

I wonder why the Aboriginal people aren't sueing the churches? , they were the worst offenders throughout the stolen generation fiasco :-

I think the idea of Boarding school away from the dysfunctional families is the only idea that has any chance of working.
Every child , black or white, has a potential for good or for bad and much depends on environment.
White people have had thousands of years of civilisation in which to evolve and to create, the Aboriginal has had just over two hundred years.
The beautiful Aboriginal art and the sporting prowess shown by many is undervalued but the potential is there and nothing should be spared to give Aboriginal children a chance to shine.

TO the blinkered racists ,
You Give the native original owners of Australia no compensation , No Treaty, very little respect for their complex culture or lost lands ; alcohol and drugs instead of good food and education for 200 years, Then Throw in a good measure of white ignorance, fear and arrogance ,some dole money to ease your consciences then take away their independent voice and expect it will SOON all fall into place and we will all live happily ever after together ,you must be joking .

Beautifully said Graham. And with humour too! Insert long sigh - if only more of those guilt ridden critics of Indigenous folk could get or retrieve their sense of humour the world would be a better place for us all...

Freestinker wrote : “Unfortunately, the only people causing racism in this country today are the aboriginal people themselves. The rest of us would just like to get on with being Australian.”

Freethinker,

The next time I get racially vilified or must once listen to white rednecks publicly rave (as they do) about 'abo's, Muslims, Asians in deliberate earshot-- I'll have remind myself that its bloody well my fault they think and speak like this.

It’s got nothing to do with them; it’s because of who I am and what I look like, my history, my family. How can I stop causing them to think and feel this way?
I just want them to be peace loving, humanitarian, non-racist Ozzies.

Please tell me how?

Posted by Rainier, Monday, 1 May 2006 6:52:40 PM

[It’s got nothing to do with them; it’s because of who I am and what I look like, my history, my family. How can I stop causing them to think and feel this way?
I just want them to be peace loving, humanitarian, non-racist Ozzies.

Please tell me how?]

Where do you live ? I had a similar conversation with 2Deadly about this. It doesn't go on where we live, perhaps you should move here.

I would say that white (peaches & cream) Australians are getting a might peed off with their tax dollars being thrown at Aboriginal kids and families with nothing to show for it. It is not the majority that is the problem, much the same as racist people are not in the majority, but those minority bludgers that exist in any culture.

If you want other folks to be peace loving, humanitarian, non racist Aussies then you have to be that yourself. I forget who said this but it is one of my favourite quotes:

"You go out into the world, the world reproduces you and you experience yourself"

What about the aboriginal people from the central coast of NSW who claimed and won their traditional land, then sold it to the highest bidder. Do you think that this would make Australian people as a whole think that those aboriginal people respected their own culture and heritage ?

Alison.