Bazz.

They arrived here between 50-75,000 years ago - a longer continuing association with the land than any other race of people.

"....when ancestral Aboriginal Australians began their journey, the ancestors of Asians and Europeans had not yet differentiated from each other and were still in Africa or the Middle-East."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-23/aboriginal-dna-dates-australian-arrival/2913010

I s'pose that would sorta make your attachment to the place a little more acute.

Another puzzling aspect of the accusations of racism in Bolt's utterances is that he wasn't targetting the individuals concerned because they were Aboriginal, but because - in his opinion - they were not.

How does that work?

It underlines the grounds for defamation, particularly where he got his facts wrong. But racial vilification against Aborigines? Hardly.

Any offence on the grounds of racial stereotyping, if any, should be taken by non-Aborigines, on the grounds that Bolt was tarring them all with the same brush.

(Apologies for the singularly inappropriate metaphor)

Belly

'In another thread you questioned my right to be a spiritual being? because I vote Labor!'

Please don't make up porkies. If you can't win an arguement don't make up stories.

i wasnt going to add further to this topic
cause the greyman dont read my posts anyhow

so saying to him..via a forum..even his own forum
that bolt got shafted..not his news paper
is likely to be lost upon him..who has gotten into this state by selective bias via complaint...[but of course thats only my opinion]

this topic has exposed the heights of absurdity
[as anti has pointed out]..when we have medical advice handed out to him..by people voicing their opinion..heck as if people cant tell opnion[or bias]..from fact

as if we cant sepperate the ego
from the medium..that allowed it to be voiced
just the moderator saying oh well guess i will just have to be more firm..is just what those shutting down free speech want

nothing like silence
that allows good men to do nothing
so those with vile can do whatever the heck they want

who would dare to complain

as i said previously..here is someone got it wrong..ANYONE CAN FIX IT INSTANTLY..simply correct the error..its not like a news paper..here the whole thing stays..*on the same page

you cant get more fair and balanced than that
no place to hide..its right here in writing
wether you read it now..or in 1000 years

there is no relating the bolt thing
cause his paper wasnt sued

then of course how much did it cost andrew in penalties
relitive to his earnings..i will let you have 100%
of my earnings cause i got nothing from olo
or anyone else

so much so im leaving the web..when my limited
dodo server contract expires..on 4 dec

im over feeding pearls before people who know better
and israel issue is important..they really want armogeddon
[to deliver their messiah]

..to vanquish them landless peons
they hold in prison]..lol..the absurdity
wont even let me ask was the lawyer or judge a semite with blue eyes

cant wait till i cant acces the web ever again
it will be such a relief..not to feel obligated to help others

Pericles, I'm sure you already know the answer to your question. The aboriginal welfare industry that has been so generous to the people involved in the Bolt case relies on having as large a constituency as possible. Therefore, it behooves them to be as offended as possible at any suggestion that simply being white is sufficient to disqualify one from claiming Aboriginality.

To put it in the perspective of my own case, what the Court has decided is that my Danish grandmother (making me 1/4 Danish, for the mathematically challenged) gives me the reasonable right to claim offence at anybody suggesting my claim to be Danish is ill-founded.

I'm still puzzled by why the minority Aboriginal ancestry is more important to some people than the majority that's not and whether it would be if there were benefits to NOT having aboriginal ancestors. Perhaps Loudmouth can explain?

My thoughts exactly, pericles.

Antiseptic, I have no trouble at all with Geoff Clark and the Atkinson brothers claiming Aboriginality - they were raised on, or confined to, government settlements at a time when Aboriginal people were not allowed to be in town after 5 pm - one of Arthur Upfield's Bony novels, set in Echuca just down the road from Cummeragunga, pivots around this policy. No matter how pale people may be, such history, such experience, very much conditions how people see themselves. After all, if their white ancestors, fathers or whatever, have shot through, and the only relations people have around them, and if their play-mates and neighbours are all Aboriginal, then they have become Aboriginal, and that's how they will quite properly see themselves for life. Blame it on policy, on feckless behaviour by white men, or history, but that's how it is.

But: in my thirties, I lived for some years in an Aboriginal community and if I had discovered then that I had some Aboriginal ancestry, I don't think it would have been ethical for me to thenceforth strut about calling myself Aboriginal. My first socialisation has been non-Aboriginal and that's what lays down how one sees oneself: what one finds out in one's adulthood has much less influence, at least in my case.

Like you, my ancestry is Scottish, Irish, Geordie and (I hope) Welsh. Finding out about much of this in later life doesn't change who I think I am. But I tell you what, if I had been raised from birth in an Aboriginal community, with only Aboriginal relations and friends and neighbours around, and whites in the local towncalling me names, then I'm sure I would think of myself as 100 % Aboriginal, regardless of skin colour.

But as Pericles wrote, much of this controversy is precisely about whether or not certain people are Aboriginal. Anybody who has worked in Aboriginal organisations would have encountered non-Aboriginal people claiming Aboriginality. To accuse them of not being Aboriginal is hardly racial vilification, simply voicing a suspicion that some non-Aboriginal people are trying iton.