Is this racism ?

A friend was telling me that, one evening a few weeks back, after work while drinking with another friend, the topic got around to Indigenous affairs, and he asked how many Indigenous university graduates did hisfri3end think there ere, just a rough ball-park figure. His friend thought awhile and answered, "Oh, maybe fifty."

Correct answer: forty thousand, as at the end of 2015.

My friend later asked a lady friend how many he thought there were. She was surprised, and answered, "One: Charles Perkins."

Correct answer: forty thousand, as at the end of 2015.

These are just ordinary, good people. But how and why do they think there are so few ? A few years back, I asked a bloke the same question and he replied, "Fifty".

What is the image of Indigenous people that good, ordinary people have that absolutely screens out any sort of educational achievement ? None of them were at all overtly anti-Indigenous, by the way.

Am I reading too much into this ? Or is there a sort of very deep racism, not just amongst white people but, I suspect, amongst Indigenous people as well. Nobody is telling them otherwise.

The Indigenous elites don't seem to want anybody to know, or else they don't believe it gthems3elves: a recent 'Review of Indigenous Higher Education' used data which was 7 or 8 years out of date, they certainly could have used far more up-to-date data, but didn't, so that the impression given was of stagnation and even decline. Of course, it's possible that Indigenous elites can't read simple spread-sheets.

For the record, enrolments and graduations have doubled since 2005, their cut-off date. The period 1995=2005 was indeed one of stagnation, right up the elites' alley. But no, sorry, there aren't just one or fifty, but forty thousand Indigenous graduates, breathing down the necks of the elites, threatening their positions.

Fifty thousand by 2020.

A hundred thousand by 2032 or so.

And why should it stop ?

Joe

I will be voting NO, simply because we need to be one people -Australian -.

Our population is made up of many races but we are Australian first.

There is more than enough recorded history for anyone to see that aboriginals were here before the British colony. Maybe aboriginals can argue about who or which of their groups were here first, second, third and so on and what good will it do them.

I am a bit surprised to learn that the aboriginal flag is an official flag of Australia. When did we give approval for that? It should be abolished.

No it does not require a constitutional change to see that there were others here before British settlement. It is fortunate that the poms were strong enough to prevent others from claiming part as well. some other nations treated the 'original inhabitants' of their colonies far worse than the poms did.

Hi Banjo,

On balance, I'm not so sure that Indigenous people have lost out from being brought into contact with the rest of the world. I suspect that all the bad stories are either invented or exaggerated, sometimes massively, and that nobody dares to point out any benefits from that contact. I suppose the simple measure of all that is: how many people are throwing aside welfare benefits and going out bush to live traditional lives ? No Toyotas ? No houses ? No fast-foods ? None.

But I can't agree with you about the Flag: to me, it has always been a strong symbol of Aboriginal unity, at least one thing that might pull people together instead of the idiot feuding and bickering that dominates 'communities'. There's enough around already - and always has been - to fragment Indigenous people into regions, tribes. clans, families, etc., etc.

And also, we took it for granted that the Flag represented ALL Indigenous people, Aboriginal and Islander people, united. Then s0me ---- devised another flag for TSIs. Brilliant. I suppose there's no anticipating every idiot. Or perhaps the impulse for fragmentation runs too deep ?

Frankly, I would be happy to see the Aboriginal Flag up in the corner of a new Australian Flag. It may not get a single kid through school, or fix up a single diabetic, but it always makes me happy to see it. Such a strikingly beautiful flag !

So there's another Referendum option:

8. Inclusion of the Aboriginal Flag in the national flag.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Banjo,

Speaking of fragmentation: Noel Pearson has understandably advocated the teaching of Aboriginal languages. Surely this can be done alongside the common language of Australia, i.e. English ? Many years ago, my kids used to go to Saturday-morning Greek classes at their local primary school. It certainly didn't do them any harm, and has made them many lifelong friends. So why not Saturday-morning classes in Aboriginal languages ? Taught free by volunteers, like the Greeks and Dutch and Vietnamese Saturday schools ?

But, whereas in New Zealand, there is more or less just one Maori language - and other Polynesian languages are often not that different - and therefore language is a unifying factor, there are many hundreds of Aboriginal languages here, so language will never be a unifying factor: nobody can learn hundreds of languages after all.

I'm certainly not saying that Aboriginal languages shouldn't be promoted locally, and taught to kids, but that we should be aware that it may have the unintended consequence of fragmenting Indigenous unity, even in small regions. And the Indigenous Cause, if you like to call it that, is desperately in need of factors which promote unity, not ever-more fragmentation.

Cheers,

Joe

Greek and Latin had uses, for understanding the roots of English and gaining a deeper appreciation of literature.

There is far too wastage in the curriculum as it is and political correctness is usually responsible.

Hi OTB,

I'm all for whatever strengthen the cohesion and unity of Indigenous people, provided the rationales and stories which do that are genuine and not fabricated, and provided that there will be genuine and substantive outcomes, not just more symbolic stuff, with a handful of people doing well out of yet another symbolic thought bubble.

I suppose that's why I'm on and on about the successes of Indigenous people at universities - forty thousand graduates, god that's an army ! That's something that the people themselves are doing, usually without any 'leader' being within cooee, something which strengthens a positive sense of unity and purpose, AND provides the foundation for genuine self-determination and empowerment. Which is probably why Indigenous 'leaders' in education are dead quiet about it, since it's something over which they have absolutely no control.

Fifty thousand graduates by 2020. Maybe a hundred thousand as early as 2030, only fourteen years away: that would mean about one graduate in every four adults, two-thirds of them women. I long for the day when TAFE/VET can do something similar for Indigenous people.

Apart from the Flag, and achievements in higher education, what else might unite Indigenous people in positive ways ? Surely any change to the Constitution would have to be in that spirit ?

Cheers,

Joe