Stephen,

Hope you are about read this on time. I do appreciate that you have the opportunity of spending a great deal of time trevelling overseas telling people about mistreatments.

Would youe please address the matter of familial responsilities, as mentioned in my previous post, if you are still in contact and not off another indigenuous persons conference.

Perhaps, you could make four or five suggestions directed towards the dysfunctional family.

Thanks.

I've been pondering the central premise of the article.
The government probably would not place a similar ban on urban whites but then the problems seem to be different. They do fiddle with nightclub curfews to try and alleviate the problems experienced in the hot spots. They do ban alcohol consumption in specific places and times if the risk of not doing so seems unacceptably high.

Some years ago when I worked in the field we were banned by our employer from having counter lunches (drinking or not). The view was that some would drink if in a pub so none of us were allowed to be there. At the time a good counter lunch was often cheaper than a lunch sized take away.

I'm required to be on standby regularly for my current job and am not allowed to get intoxicated whilst on standby. I never drink much anyway but the restriction applies to those who "like to have a few" as well.

If I understand the restrictions relating to some indiginous communities correctly they apply regardless of race. Whites passing through the area have to take measures to ensure they don't have alcohol with them or they can face hefty penalties. Those most hurt by alcohol abuse in indiginous communities would seem to be indiginous people.

Is this thing a racial issue or an attempt to manage a problem where the current strategies happen to fall out primarily along racial lines? I suspect the latter. Are there better solutions? Probably.

How do we move forward? I think we would do a lot better if people such as the author stopped trying to see everything in racial terms and started working on solutions.

He seems to have a confirmation bias, determined to find white racism under every gum leaf. Racism exists but so do people trying to find answers to difficult problems who may not always find an ideal solution.

How about a few articles from the author outlining what he would like to see done to resolve the issues which concern him.

R0bert

Governments make racial laws for Indigenous people because our politicians really support racism.

Politicians see racial division as a handy political tool, presenting voters ideology of either you are one of us or against us...

Many academics see racial divisions as academic career building tools, they can present ideologies requiring you support racial identification or claim you object to human rights... despite so obvious contradictions.

Such tactics particularly effective where presented to people lacking good education, people with little wider world understanding and most importantly people who are earning so little income they can hardly escape the day to day worries of whether can feed, clothe and shelter their families near to equal the wider community standards as presented to all by media.

Few really want to live the "noble savage" life, and far to many confuse living standards as portrayed on TV as living standards of ordinary people in the real world.

Even with a good education the social pressure such approaches place upon individuals is extreme...

eg "Do you want to live with your family or not ? IF you want to live with your family you must join us... "

Many people who previously opposed racial laws and behaviour usually muffled into silence after surrendering to accusation "you are not one of us..."

As parents we all provide family models for our children, problem is parental models usually based upon memories, experience, learning from our growing up more than our understanding and seeing what is needed for ourselves and our children next year... People who survived on subsistance lifestyles need see value from efforts to plant, to cultivate, to grow, to harvest.

R0bert asked how we can move forward, certainly unlikely advance far whilst people encouraged to see problems as related to racial groupings and discouraged from seeing problems as problems common to people everywhere.

Until people concentrate on the problems without racial grouping they are part of the problem not the solution.