I won't comment on the interracial marriage question although it was the main focus of the writer. About Whoopie, we should remember that she is first and foremost a comedian and attribute no significance to her tasteless and foolish remark. This was a feable attempt to get a laugh.

Oh my, how sensitive we are. I would suggest from Whoopi's comment that perhaps domestic violence is a way of life for the African Americans too and in a backhanded way she was patting Barak on the back for not going down that road.

The rest of the article gives the lie to those who blame the whites for trying to breed the blackness out of our aboriginal population. They have been doing it themselves, quite successfully and in fact the trend has generally been led by their leaders, most of whom have white spouses.

David

Oh the same old culprits pushing the white Oz policy.

David VK3AUU. remember the apology? It was about the stolen generations. This means that many people do not know their close relations so the safest is to marry out.

You also forget to remember the mass genocide (what was often called dispersals that actually means murder)that cause great depopulation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. And while you are busy remembering you might also recall from your vast reading, as obviously you consider yourself an expert, about the intoduction of diseases, relocation of peoples at the whim of whomever wanted land or obedience

Those wishing consider seriously issues and difficulties facing multicultural families could start reading examples in the Alice Springs News www.alicespringsnews.com.au

AliceSpringsNews provides easy to use archives with Google search within.

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Aka,

I've read a lot of bullshut over the past fifty years but your totally unsupported comments rank with the best. Intermarriage because people are afraid of marrying a relation, because there are so many Stolen Generation people ? Utter crap. The sort of stuff a passionate and well-intentioned but utterly misled person in Chicago or Manchester might view Aboriginal affairs, but not in my experience.

I've been happily married for 43 years to an Aboriginal woman and still regard her as my best friend. This morning she was telling me about endorphins, and the importance of at least one hug per day, at least seven seconds long, to produce enough endorphins: sounds good to me.

Very few people from her community were ever taken away (and they almost all came back in less than a year) but the rate of intermarriage is very high: in one family of cousins, about a dozen or so, every person has married out, sometimes twice. Of course, another set of cousins have each married an Aboriginal spouse, but the average probably cracks out at 80-90 %.

A common feature of intermarriage is that both partners are working, since after all, that is how people meet. I don't think that people go out of their way to meet and marry someone from another group, but if a minority makes up only 1% of a population, chances are that 99% of their friends at school, and later their work-mates, will not be from that minority. So 80-90 % intermarriage should not surprise anyone.

But what on Earth has Whoopi's comment got to do with anything ? And what's it got to do with intermarriage ?

Joe

Loudmouth, I see nothing about Whoopie's comments that was pertinent to the main thrust of the article. I can only guess that perhaps the author threw it in only to attract attention. Others may see it differently but as I said, "I won't comment on the interracial marriage question although it was the main focus of the writer." It was only my interest in pointing what may have stimulated Whoopie to make such a remark.