Stephen what is your point? you rabbitted on about something that could have been interesting and informative to people not educated in black poitics in this country. Then you broke off onto some tangent that made no sence to me at all and I'm Indigenous.

I think its time you got with the 21st centuary and stopped blaming other's and try educating people without insulting them, which would be far more sucessfull than what you are doing right now.

Perhaps there are times when people need to be insulted in order to effectively get the message across.

"70 per cent of the Indigenous population that live in urban areas receive the smallest piece of the financial pie while the minority who live in remote areas receive the lion’s share of federal funds."

My impression is that in general, they are the ones who are more in need of the pie. I live in Lionel Rose territory and the services available to local aboriginals are at least as good as those available to the white community, except that the whites have to pay fees for their vocational education but those who claim aboriginality only pay a token amount.

"The whitest of all white countries"? Not now, not ever. Try Poland, Estonia, or maybe Belarus!

For a long time Australians *tried* to create and even enforce a whiter-than-white self-image but we failed, most of us stopped trying, and we're a better nation for it.

I don't know if Hagan agrees with Vernon Ah Kee or is merely congratulating him on his bravery in insulting an elderly Holocaust victim.

To come here, even if the lady arrived during the White Australia years, was no more, and perhaps less, of a racist act than moving to Israel would have been, or even America or South America or South Africa. She probably settled in one of Sydney's or Melbourne's most densely-populated suburbs. How is that racist? Did she have a better, less racist choice?

The least racist thing she could have done would have been to go home, reclaim any surviving property, and stare down her erstwhile oppressors in Europe. The statistical likelihood is that she did exactly that and only emigrated when the anti-semitic spectre reared up again several years later. For example, graffiti spotted in Budapest in October 1956 as Soviet tanks began to withdraw read: "Kill the Communists and the Jews" ... the tanks came back with a vengeance, and many Jews fled.

To flee from Europe to Bondi Junction or Elsternwick is no more an act of oppression against Australian Aboriginies than were the petty crimes that got Australia's first Jews sentenced to transportation in 1787, whatever Vernon Ah Kee has to say on the matter.

The argument that is eventually disclosed here is one of structural racism, that essentialises human experience in to being 'more' or 'less' racist and admitting of no nuance or qualification. It offers virtually no guidance in terms of policy (try asking someone who runs a structural racism argument what their view of the good society is) and boils human experience down to stereotypes. Calling a survivor of Auschwitz 'a racist' tells us little more than the speaker is a person with a giant sense of entitlement who thinks it is acceptable to be vicious to someone who is elderly ('respect for elders' anyone?). That is not intellectual bravery: it is ignorant buffoonery at best and bullying or posturing at worst. Of course, the survivor of Auschwitz might well be a racist: when you are dealing with millions of people then yes, some will be racists: but the assumption that because someone has come to Australia that makes them structurally 'a racist' is determinism of the silliest kind.

Mostly a load of twaddle, especially the bit about being a racist because you chose to immigrate to Australia.

However, a few good sentiments raised, particularly in relation to the lack of action on child abuse in NSW (and presumably other states) communities. I've lived out in these remote communities and the level of abuse, both physical, emotional and sexual, is atrocious. The black communities are in many ways their own worst enemies, because as soon as someone tries to help a child that they know has been abused, the cry of racist white c**t goes up in chorus. Been there, tried that. Where I lived, it was common for 13 and 14 yo's to have babies, and it was common knowledge even amongst the whites of the community (who were in the minority) that once a little girl turned 5, the elders (the ELDERS) considered her fair game. Thats disgusting. But try and so anything about it and you are likely to have your house burned down. These are kids that SHOULD be taken away from their homes and protected. Take their parents with them by all means, if the parents arent the ones at fault. Its been allowed to go on for so long, that radical action is needed before we lose yet another generation to the rubbish heap of society.