No non Thinker

I am not blinded by leftist dogma which is constantly proved wrong and which you seem to adhere to.

Dearest Lexi,

Thank you for your concern. I've just found this Debunker's Handbook, on The Conversation:

https://theconversation.edu.au/fighting-fact-free-journalism-a-how-to-guide-5125?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+February+3+2012&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+February+3+2012+CID_dab4ba823e42fb766437bd6398533184&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=The+Debunkers+Handbook

I guess there are always three positions with an assertion (at least three):

* to deny outright, regardless of evidence;

* to accept outright, regardless of the lack of evidence;

* to suspend belief until one has evidence, or otherwise.

For example, most of us would like to believe (God knows why) in a Stolen Generation. What is the evidence so far ?

* The late Bruce Trevorrow, taken in 1958 from Meningie, SA.

What is the evidence of excessive Aboriginal deaths in custody ?

* Given that (at the time of the Royal Commission) 23 % of prisoners across Australia were Indigenous (a shocking statistic, but if you do the crime, you do the time), while only 22 % of deaths in custody were Indigenous, none really yet.

What is the evidence of the truth of the Rabbit-Proof Fence story ?

* Hard to say, apart from hearsay (i.e. oral history), but could be bolstered by newspaper reports, carping references by the opposition Labour Party at the time, some mention in the Moseley Commission (under the new Labour Party government) evidence or Report in 1934, some evidence of police movements or use of staff from the Rabbit Department (yes, there was). Or not bolstered, if it is just a yarn made up and which took on a life of its own.

What is the evidence of Indigenous success at universities ?

* DEEWR statistics pointing to a rapid rise in commencement numbers since 2005, and the equivalent of around a fifth of an age-group graduating each year, 20 % of those at post-graduate level.


There is stance and there is evidence. It's great when they come together :)

Cheers,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

The university graduates are not the ones that concern me.
They are obviously highly motivated people and will
achieve what they set out to do. What does bother me
are the preventable diseases that so many Aboriginal adults and
children still suffer from, the unemployed, and all the other
social problems that the Indigenous people are still
faced with in today's Australia. And what can be done about it.

As for "truth," :

"All truth passes through three stages. First it is
ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
(Arthur Schopenhauer).

Dearest Lexi,

Yes indeed, there are at least three ways of dealing with the truth, in "inverted commas" or otherwise.

That first 'stage': sometimes a truth is ignored, it's bad form to even talk about it, let alone bring attention to it by ridiculing it -pretending that there is no issue worth considering.

You know you really could be onto something when it is ridiculed - not invariably, because it may be rubbish. But at least, at that point, you've got under someone's skin.

Regarding Indigenous people in higher education: there aren't two species of Indigenous people, one of which goes on to university, and the other for whom it is forever out of the question. They are fundamentally the same people, with the same range of opportunities, even if those opportunities are much more remote for one population than for the 'other'. My interest is: what might the effects be on the Indigenous population and on policy, ten and twenty years down the track, when one in six, and then one in five, and then one in four, Indigenous adults are university-trained ? They are not going to go away, you know.

And to take Individual's point, yes, some Indigenous graduates - and some unqualified people too - are appointed to positions which do not seem to have any actual duties. You ask around but it's impossible to find out what they do. They swan around the place, come to work late, leave early, yet never seem to face any sanctions. I fervently hope that those days are coming to an end.

Cheers,

Joe

Clearly then Joe it is also rational to suggest, that these 2 species of which you speak also exist in the general community. Often the difference can be attributed to opportunity alone and not at all due to individual capacities, attitudes or lack of ethics.

Indigenous people have even less opportunity than the poor in our country, I have put forward this proposition from the beginning of this post.

I believe this endemic racism is both shameful and embarrassing Joe, and shows how little progress we've really achieved in our couple of hundred years of occupation.

Hi Thinker?2,

No, I think that what you write, that " .... Indigenous people have even less opportunity than the poor in our country .... " is rubbish, and very dangerous rubbish into the bargain. Many Indigenous people would suspect, without investigation, that it is so, and so it would not be hard to 'persuade' them not to even investigate., and thereby stuff up their lives.

But most universities (and most TAFE/VET colleges as well) still have functioning student recruiting and support units - they haven't all, surely, been destroyed by Indigenous Studies teaching schools, and Indigenous students haven't been sacrificed everywhere, surely, on the altar being built to the glory of teaching non-Indigenous students.

When I was working in the system, we got the Indigenous participation rate up to 3 % at our campus, twice the proportion of Indigenous people in the SA population. The opportunities were there then, and they are there still.

Indigenous women commence university at almost (92 %) of the rate of NON-Indigenous men in Australia. Taking class into account (as any good Marxist should), this is remarkable. Take remoteness into account as well, and history, and it makes any whinge about lack of opportunity quite ridiculous.

Yes indeed, there is still a very wide range of racisms facing Indigenous people, not least the expectation that they should confine themselves to 'their own' people, organisations and communities, a la Apartheid.

Yes, there was racism in the tacit attempt (not so much these days, but certainly in the recent past) to channel Indigenous students into Indigenous-focussed courses, and away from 'white', or mainstream courses - even by Indigenous staff, and sacking staff who disagreed, or who worked at campuses without Indigenou-focussed courses.

Yes, there is racism in assuming that Indigenous teachers are actually teachers' aides, and asking to see their parchments, or do the photocopying for other teachers.

And yes there is racism, in both confining Indigenous staff to Indigenous units, and conversely keeping them away from sensitive Indigenous issues and parking them in inconsequential jobs.

It's a complicated world out there, Thinker?2.

Cheers,

Joe