I saw Jacinta Price with Mark Latham last night. A few more like her could solve all indigenous problems

A breath of fresh air,

"Alice Springs councillor Jacinta Nampijinpa Price against changing date of Australia Day

Indigenous Alice Springs town councillor Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says aboriginal people have become professional mourners and it’s time it stopped...

Ms Price said there was no need to change Australia Day and people who celebrated on January 26 need not feel guilty..

“It is the aboriginal middle class who are concerned about date changes. Those pushing the agenda come from privilege themselves in comparison to the aboriginal people most marginalised.

“I’m sure if we are pressured enough to change the date then there will be something else for aboriginal middle class activists and guilt ridden white fellas to be offended about.

Ms Price says present indigenous problems should be fixed ahead of what has past.

“Why aren’t these people as concerned about the aboriginal people affected by domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse?” she said.

“People want to call it a day of mourning. Us aboriginal people have become professional mourners … we are constantly in a state of mourning. What do we have to benefit from being in a constant state of mourning? Mourning does not give us freedom, it imprisons us ... I’ve had enough.

“I want everyone to have opportunity. I want to pull my people out of their crippling state of mourning and I don’t want anyone to feel bad or guilty for feeling joy and celebrating a country we love.”

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/alice-springs-councillor-jacinta-nampijinpa-price-against-changing-date-of-australia-day/news-story/426d70114e2436d0b71f6134e76391b1

Hi Ttbn,

That's for sure ! My hope is that, once graduates get their eye in, they will look around, speak out, maybe get organised, and start to reach over their 'spokespersons'.

One amazing possibility: if you differentiate those graduate numbers, 57,000 or so, what leaps out is that many cities have big numbers of graduates - Sydney alone has around eight thousand, Brisbane nearly as many. Out around Penrith, for example, there are more than fifteen hundred between Campbelltown and Richmond and St Mary's. What if they held an annual Graduate Reunion ?

More than a thousand around Cairns. Nearly three hundred just around Wagga. Two and a half thousand just around Perth. Hey, what if they all held annual Graduate Reunions ? Who knows might come from those Reunions. Maybe even a more representative range of opinions about treaties, representation, etc.

It may not happen soon, but it will happen. Oh happy day !

Cheers,

Joe

//Of course, another idiocy with this sort of trick is that Pitjantjatjara kids can already speak Pitjantjatjara, if not all that well (and English usually not at all). They wouldn't have needed it at school.//

Yeah, I'm not sure I buy that argument. Bilingual education, even when the second language learnt is of little practical value for communication, does seem to have it's own inherent benefits.

My cousins are bilingual because they're Swedish, and apparently that's how Swedish kids are taught. They're fluent in two languages... the Swedish for talking to fellow Swedes, and the English for talking to the rest of us, like the simple Australian cousins. I am rather envious.

But my aunt could have just as easily married a Welshman as a Swede, and emigrated to Wales, and had Welsh children. In which case, I'd have bilingual cousins who spoke Welsh instead of Swedish. And what's the point of that? Welsh is crap language: you can't even have a decent game of Scrabble without an extra 50 L tiles. So why bother?

Well, it gives you a sound understanding of the importance of grammar for a start... something that seems to be sorely lacking in today's society. It gives you a basic understanding of linguistics. It seems to provide an overall cognitive benefit. It's worked well in the past, and works well in other countries.

And it would seem that what the language is doesn't matter too much - it might as well be Dothraki or Klingon as Swedish or Welsh.

And the arguments against? Well, they seem to revolve around the idea that learning in a extra language in addition to English means that your English necessarily suffers. And given that my Swedish cousin's have better written English than half the regulars on this site... I don't believe it.

Nope, I can't see a problem with bilingual education. As long as you can get the teachers, that is...

Sorry, spotted a stray apostrophe.

This:

//Bilingual education, even when the second language learnt is of little practical value for communication, does seem to have it's own inherent benefits.//

Should have been this:

\\Bilingual education, even when the second language learnt is of little practical value for communication, does seem to have its own inherent benefits.\\

My bad.

Hi Toni,

My point was, since English is the common language across Australia, the language of TV, schooling and university, it is vital for kids from remote areas to learn it as well as the language(s) that their mothers are quite capable of teaching them. One hears of young people having to take their grandparents into town if they want anything interpreted for them or buy anything.

My fear is that a rapidly developing class structure in Indigenous society in which urban versus rural populations, and educated/working people versus phenomenally-UNeducated/ welfare-oriented populations, broadens a Gap which it's nobody else's business to close except those disadvantaged populations. Indigenous society has always been very fragmented, probably for the sixty thousand years that it's been in Australia, so it's simply people's daily reality, even though it's looming as presaging the disintegration of Indigenous society. So those rural and remote populations have a longer and longer road ahead of them, with little guidance or motivation.

Of course, universities ' Indigenous programs have a major role here: twenty years ago, we used to go out to schools to enthuse the kids about working hard at school, going on to either uni or TAFE and getting solid, worthwhile, fulfilling jobs for life. Some schools, I recall, we would visit a a couple of times a year. Strangely, the lower down we went, down to Class/Grade Six or even lower, the more enthusiastic the kids were about their careers: one lovely kid I talked to after a session who was only in Class Two in a semi-remote community on the West Coast, she wanted to be a nurse. I hope she made it. Linda.

It seems universities don't do that any more, but are content with the low-hanging fruit of urban children coming through Year 12. Meanwhile those poor buggers out in the sticks are thereby condemned to short, boring and violent lives. Shame on them, heartless bastards.

Cheers,

Joe