bonmot,
way too much academic gobbledegook in your link. I found my figures in my daily life & I found that more indigenous than non indigenous are involved in criminal activities hence the uneven numbers. They're not disproportionate they're just higher.

Bonmot is correct Indi, despite your shallow attempt to deflect the facts.

The indigenous people, do get a better opportunity when it comes to ending up in jail. Even a disproportionate opportunity to be jailed.

I am surprised by this because your posts normally have some substance.
On the back foot are we ?.

As for you Rehctub you will even stoop so low as to use racist terminology. It is unbelievable that you should use this terminology in this day and age.

And Lexi , I agree that only Labor Govt's have instigated rights for the indigenous, the facts speak for themselves. Until the Labor Govt we now have. It has done nothing other than strengthen the intervention policies of the Howard Govt.

Sweeping generalisations, are commonplace when it comes to discussing racism. To speak out against racism is one of the 10 activities necessary (on a human rights charter that I have on my fridge). I will continue to do this despite the personal derision attempted by some posters. Goes with the territory.

SPQR tell me how many aboriginals there are working as receptionists, or car sales people, or on building sites or as bus drivers, school teachers, etc and so on. Would indigenous people even get an interview for these positions most of the time ?. How many own small businesses in suburban Melbourne or Sydney ?. How many had the opportunity to grow up in a middle class household, to acquire the skills to apply for the above opportunities on equal terms ?. Practically none, is the answer.

Opportunity and equality of opportunity are not provided or guaranteed if you are indigenous in this country, because of racism. Pure and simple.

In the absence of deep seated irrational racism, we might find than even our indigenous people have something to offer as well.

Call me misinformed if you like, but I would like a world without racism. Especially, one without the entrenched, irrational and deep seated form.

I think this is one of the main problems, their leaders just don't see what the rest of us see. They always play the victim.

The real victims here are the indigenous kids.

Many of Their parents having been provided with welfare, designed to provide both the necessities of life and an education, prefer to piss it away A THEIR OWN CHOICE.

Now somehow, that's our fault, because some 200 years ago we apparently took their land.

200 years ago they got didly squat!

Nowadays they are in most cases provided for and, in many cases a blind eye has been turned as they go about their Daliy rituals.

Until these leaders accept the fact that many of their people do do the wrong thing, nothing will change as the first step towards solving any problem, is admitting you have ome.

Thinker?2,

This wilful blindness is what I was trying to have a go at. Yes, there certainly is still a lot of racism, as well as Blackfellas who use white racism for their own careers, and many other grotesque variants of racism. But skilled and education Indigenous people tend to be employed, there is no excuse for throwing your hands in the air:

* there would be at least five thousand, maybe as many as seven thousand, Indigenous qualified teachers employed around the country;

* Indigenous qualified health professionals in employment would number between three and four thousand;

* qualified and employed Indigenous lawyers would number in the hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand;

* another fifteen or twenty thousand Indigenous people would have graduated from a vast range of fields of study, and are currently employed.

Yes, it has been very hard work for many Indigenous people, mainly in overcoming their own uncertainties and the lack of support from their communities and families. So sue me for saying so.

But they have done it. And so many of their brothers and sisters could have done it as well, until some moron blew in their ear and persuaded them that they might lose something by gaining qualifications. If I were paranoid, I would love to ask of those 'advisors': "Who do you work for ? Whose interests are served if talented Indigenous people are persuaded to remain unskilled and out of work ?"

[TBC]

[Cont.]

Many people in the world are fluently bilingual, they mix easily in more than one sort of cultural setting, they mix every day with people from different backgrounds - and they do all this without losing their identity, or any of their language (or languages) or sense of who they are.

Anglos, coming from a monolingual island to another monolingual island, tend to have trouble understanding this. They often can't grasp how someone can walk and chew gum at the same time.

But the great majority of Indigenous people don't have those sorts of problems, they mix with other people all the time (especially those in the cities, the centres of intellectual life) and yet remain Indigenous, and in their own ways.

So Thinker?2, who DOES benefit when Indigenous people pull back, decide not to gain any skills, and throw themselves on the mercy of the welfare system ?

Yes, there is still a lot of racism around, and what could be worse than to try to convince some poor silly buggers that they should spurn their only chances in life ? That modern education is somehow not for them ? That somehow, they are inherently 'traditional', that on the one hand, the world that they are locked into is not really theirs, when on the other hand they know very well that they cannot ever - and do not really want to - go back and live a 'traditional' life ? Isn't that the most dreadful racism ?

Nobody is born 'modern'. Nobody is born 'Old Stone Age'. We are born with more or less the same mental potential, and our environment shapes us from then on. The core belief of racism is that one is born, and forever stuck with, a certain mentality, or 'culture', that it's part of your blood, in your bones, in your genes as they would say these days. No it isn't. Leave those outmoded ideas in the past, where they belong.

Cheers,

Joe

tell me how many aboriginals there are working as...
thinker2,
not as many as there could be if they stayed in their jobs. Only today after lunch I was in a meeting with an indigenous DEM & she asked my advise as to how we could possibly keep indigenous old & young in the work force. Her dilemma was that about 12 clock in at 8 in the morning & then you don't see them till clock out time. Yet they put in 8 hrs per day in the time sheet yet no work is done. If you don't believe me call any community DEO at random, they'll confirm this.
Another couple of blokes just took off for a couple of months & now they want their jobs back instantly.
That Thinker2 is the daily scenario & realism. Indigenous people get high priority in employment but they give their employment no priority at all.
That's why you don't see many indigenous in the places you mention. It's their lack of concept of responsibility & their lack of thinking ahead. Many decent indigenous will tell you exactly what I just told you. They don't call me racist because they know I'm not. They know what I state is not made up unlike a lot of your academic views.
I know a lot of non indigenous who fall into the same category, many of whom have half-baked degrees.