ALCOHOL.

It's not just a question of proximity. When we lived in Katherine (1999-2002) the stark reality was that many non-indigenous locals had no aboriginal friends and few if any acquaintances.

Sport and art were the usual go-betweens. It's just not good enough. The struggle to integrate ESL students into mainstream classes was an ongoing one at the High School. Perhaps it's a symptom of urban life. Who knows the neighbors these days? Time we knocked on the door!

Kevin Rennie
Former topender

This reminds me of someone saying "no one ever rings me". The question is the asked" do you ring anyone?" Unfortunately most peoples views of Aboriginal Australia are shaped by the likes of Sam Watson, Marcia Langton, Sugar Ray Robinson et al telling us how wicked we are.

How naïve and presumptuous is Maggie Walter to pronounce Sheridan’s claim that he wishes he had more aboriginal friends as “…obviously genuinely felt…” when she has no idea whether he is genuine or not; and she has not checked up on him to see if he is now actively looking for more aboriginal friends. No disrespect to Sheridan: the only person who knows if he is genuine or not.

She also “hazards” a guess that many other Australians feel the same way as Sheridan claims to feel. That guess is certainly hazardous; she would not have a clue about how “many” Australians think about anything. Nor would she have a clue how many of us do or do not have aboriginal friends.

And this one: “Why don’t Indigenous Australians know more about and know more Aboriginal people than they do?”

What! Why don’t aborigines know more about themselves? All the made up descriptions – ‘first Australians’ (when there was no such thing as Australia); ‘Indigenous Australians’, then Aborigines (when aboriginal is a common noun relating to the ‘original’ inhabitants of ANY country and, therefore, not deserving of a capital ‘A’, even though some galah with no right to change the English language decided that the original inhabitants of a pre-Australian land should treated differently from all other aborigines in the world); confusing, manufactured titles and names have certainly confused this sociologist.

And, let’s not overlook another fact that these abusers of our language overlook: no one living now can claim to be an original inhabitant or an aborigine; they are merely ancestors of those people, and they have no business carrying on and calling themselves anything but Australians.

We hear enough about problems with black Australians – at least from their professional urgers and trouble-makers; the very few black Australians I have known never caused me any problems – without feeling we all have to make friends with them. And, as a sociologist, this author should know that all people are driven to mix with their own kind.

I have friends. I never ask for their pedigree only their friendship.

What bl@@dy rubbish, how the hell would they know.

When I played hooker for my country high school league team, I swung between a couple of blokes who had some aboriginal blood. They did not call then selves anything other than kids, & neither did we. Even out in the bush quite a few of us had more than a few strains of blood running through our us.

I went to the city, they didn't.

Strangely, I don't ask my friends if they are aboriginal, or part there of, & they have not told me. If they were the type to tell, they would probably not be my friends.

One of my best mates is a bit dark of skin, he even has some aboriginal physical characteristics, but I have no idea of his ethniticy,& you know, I don't give a damn one way or the other.

Our folk with some aboriginal blood will be much better off, when they, & the rest of the population feel the same way. We will all be much better off, when we no longer have twits researching these subjects.