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Special treatment for Aboriginal people

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nioka said:
1. A sign at a hospital "On arrival please tell us if you are aboriginal." Why?
2. On seeing a fisherman fishing in a closed area I told him it was a prohibited area for fishing. I was told "It's OK I'm aboriginal. I can fish". I was also told that they have no bag limits or size limits.
3. The local ranger was told he was not allowed on "aboriginal land" when he was attempting to catch a dog that had bitten a visitor on a beach.
4. Free bus transport to sporting events and funerals.
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1. Because there are a range of conditions and blood types that are specific to Abs. and are important for medical practitioners.

2. Not necessarily true. It's not enough to be Aboriginal to fish in a prohibited area. You have to be a part of that land holding tribal group. It also means the lands that Abs. hold are not legislated into worthlessness like they have been done in parts of Queensland. It's a measure to protect the culture of the original inhabitants. There are a huge range of positive outcomes for the local groups if they are allowed to maintain a diet reflecting the local land's produce. And obviously positive health outcomes are a huge focus point and I'm not sure why anyone would want to make a problem out of that.

3. Depending on who he or she was, they should have to gain permission or a permit just like everybody else.

4. Sport is a huge leverage point for self determination in Indigenous Groups. It can be a massive way out, especially in the Territory. Communities like Port Keats (Wadeye) rely on teams from the outer areas to form a competition and the transport to get them there. Without it we wouldn't see some of these fantastic athletes, their talent would never be seen, and the AFL and NT certainly wouldn't be blessed with a lot of the superb Tiwi Bombers players for instance.

4. Funerals are also massively important in their culture, perhaps moreso than ours. Serious consequences can befall those that don't pay their respects to important people in the community. So you just can't have someone perhaps studying in town, with no money, stranded and unable to attend.

I think all these reasons you list as complaints are fairly representative of basics in terms of helping with self determination. :confused:

Julia said:
And it's one of the reasons aboriginal children are presently being left in abusive situations, i.e. because child protection agencies are afraid of being accused of "stealing children".

If you read some of the philosophy of Noel Pearson, you might understand more of how continuing to treat aboriginal people as victims is increasing their disadvantage.

I know you feel you're in some way redressing some of the past wrongs by being sorry for indigenous people, wanting them to receive more services than whites etc., but until they are allowed to feel that they have the same potential as white people, and are prepared to cast off the mantle of victimhood, nothing will change.

Just consider if someone consistently says to you: "my goodness, it's just terrible that you lack the potential to succeed, just look at all the disadvantage you have to overcome: really, it's hopeless, and the government should be doing much more for you because it's just unreasonable to expect you to take any responsibility yourself for getting an education, taking basic hygiene and health measures, etc". Particularly if you lack even a basic education and you hear this over and over again, you're simply going to have this as your basic belief about yourself.

But if someone says to you: "I can see you have immense potential to do the necessary work to get an education, and that you understand how taking basic care of yourself and your property will increase your sense of self esteem" and other positive messages, aren't you going to be more likely to see yourself as pretty damn OK instead of a victim?

We have all at some stage in our lives had to take responsibility for our own outcomes. Indigenous people should not be treated as though they lack the same capacity.
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Brilliant post Julia.

Especially the first point. In the territory, we had a terribly incompetent minister Milandiri MaCarthy or somesuch, in charge of the children's portfolio and what not. Indigenous, and very afraid to deal with bad Aboriginal parents. No doubt because of community pressures.

But it reflects the problem. An area can be over represented by Abs. So an Aboriginal is put in charge of it. Yet they have difficulty dealing with it for obvious reasons. No good being called racist by your own people.

And usually I'm for defending political correctness, but in this area I think it is a legitimate target for PC thugs.

BradK said:
I argue that there is NO BREAK in colonialism and that relations are still very much colonial.

Anyone care to guess at a break in colonial relations?
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Pretty much. Just look at the education system. The curriculum mandates that it be taught in English, and all the national standardised tests set out all that rubbish that I'm sure you're aware of being a teacher.

Yet teach a 6 year old kid at Wadeye like that who has very rarely heard English in his life. :banghead:

Rather than teaching it in a local dialect like Murrinh-Patha, and then translating it so it makes sense, it's all **** about. We don't come half way for them and that is a huge attitudinal issue.

Also doesn't help much trying to teach them how to count when they don't have a number in their language above 5 or something. :rolleyes:

But then again, the national education system seems to have an over riding colonialist wankestry power emanating from NSW, so it might not be race specific.
 
gooner said:
All of us benefitted from the theft of Aboriginal land. You may feel that this is irrelevant and you may enjoy being the victor. The reality is that indigenous people were the victims. Do not you not feel any moral obligation to assist?
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gooner said:
Julia, I think your argument is about HOW we best address the disadvantage faced by indigenous people, rather than WHETHER we should address it. The Government tries to address all disadvantage, whether it is getting unemployed into jobs, rescuing abused children etc. Indigenous people are disadvantaged, so IMHO the key thing is that we work to address this.
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Of course we should address the disadvantage.
But no more, imo, than we should do likewise for any disadvantaged section of our society.

(When you have a spare few minutes, gooner, do a bit of googling about the difficulties of bringing up and caring for profoundly disabled children, just as one small example. And then perhaps also consider how we hang out to dry people with significant mental illness, because a few decades ago governments globally decided it would be smart to close down psych institutions where people severely disabled by mental illness had been cared for and where they felt secure. Just take a stroll through a few of the most squalid caravan parks you can find and observe all the sad mentally ill people barely surviving there on their disability pensions, but devoid of other support and friendship.)

Few people care about either of these disadvantaged groups (and I could come up with more) because essentially they don't have a voice. i.e. they lack the vocal backing of those who take up the cause of indigenous people as though they were the only group to suffer any disadvantage.

Disadvantage is everywhere. The white child who is repeatedly raped by a member of her own family throughout her childhood, the kid who looks a bit different who is severely bullied at school, the intellectually disabled who look OK but just 'don't make sense' to other people because they process stuff slowly. The aged who have lost the confidence to make their feelings and needs known, and who are as a result ignored and left to fester on hospital waiting lists for the most basic of surgery.

So, I hope I may be forgiven if I'm just a bit over hearing year after year about the disadvantage of aboriginal people when so few people will listen to aboriginal leaders like Noel Pearson who are trying to tell you that as long as you refer to indigenous people as being disadvantaged and unable to redress this by their own actions nothing will change.

So, gooner, what you can do to help is to stop accusing people of being lacking in empathy or sympathy, or encouraging them to go on an extended guilt trip (a favourite of the Left), and instead start thinking of ways to encourage aboriginal people to take their lives into their own hands and start making a difference for themselves.

In your post at the top you are doing what so many do, i.e. referring to aboriginal people as victims.
This was the whole point of my post in reply. If you treat people as victims, that is how they will perceive themselves.
 
Julia said:
a few decades ago governments globally decided it would be smart to close down psych institutions where people severely disabled by mental illness had been cared for and where they felt secure. [/B]
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Many are now living on the streets which really just creates more problems.

N.T
 
If there are different rules for Aboriginals versus the rest of society then we will forever have a divided society, since that is what we are intentionally creating via differing rules.

Every time I see that "are you of Aboriginal origin..." question it simply rams that message into my head once more. Aboriginals aren't as able as the rest of us, therefore we have to give them special terms and conditions to compensate. That's not my own view of Aboriginal people, but it's certainly how I perceive the message being sent.

There's also an issue with Aboriginals living in these "towns" in the NT etc. In short, it seems fundamentally flawed to be attempting to bring about non-Aboriginal influence over their lives whilst they attempt to live in the traditional manner. That's never going to work - it's like trying to mix oil and water.

Either move them to "proper" towns and cities - ones with roads, properly constructed houses, shops, businesses and so on where many people are NOT Aboriginal. Existing towns and cities with a mix of people, not specially constructed "Aboriginal towns".

Or alternatively leave them to live in the traditional way and stop meddling with it. They survived perfectly well living like that for thousands of years - it's only in the past two centuries that us Europeans have messed it up through constant meddling.

It's not a subject I know a lot about I'll readily admit. But it seems that the constant interference is attempting to do something that shouldn't work in theory, to impose the government of one culture over the physical conditions of another. Hence it's no surprise to find it's not working.

Either leave them to live as they always have. Or get them into proper conditions that non-Aboriginal Australians would find acceptable. Just don't try to do both at once - it's clearly not working. :2twocents
 
Smurf1976 said:
If there are different rules for Aboriginals versus the rest of society then we will forever have a divided society, since that is what we are intentionally creating via differing rules.

Every time I see that "are you of Aboriginal origin..." question it simply rams that message into my head once more. Aboriginals aren't as able as the rest of us, therefore we have to give them special terms and conditions to compensate. That's not my own view of Aboriginal people, but it's certainly how I perceive the message being sent.
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:iagree:

I wonder though how many would wish to live a traditional hunter gatherer existance that existed before european settlement and to what extent it is even practical.
 
drsmith said:
:iagree:

I wonder though how many would wish to live a traditional hunter gatherer existance that existed before european settlement and to what extent it is even practical.
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History shows that hunter, gatherers became farmers and built stable communities. They developed and started learning new skills, since less time and energy was needed for hunting and gathering.

Seems like there could be a missing step with having tried to bring the world's hunter and gatherers along the logical path of evolution.
 
It took thousands of years for Eurasian civilisation to evolve from hunter gatherer to our present civilisation. People at an individual can obviously adapt quickly but entire cultures seems to be much more problematic.

It didn't help that that the starting point from the colonial powers was largely one of conquest but that's how evolution works.

If there is extra-terrestrial life I only hope that we find them and not the other way around.
 
chops_a_must said:
Pretty much. Just look at the education system. The curriculum mandates that it be taught in English, and all the national standardised tests set out all that rubbish that I'm sure you're aware of being a teacher.

Yet teach a 6 year old kid at Wadeye like that who has very rarely heard English in his life. :banghead:

Rather than teaching it in a local dialect like Murrinh-Patha, and then translating it so it makes sense, it's all **** about. We don't come half way for them and that is a huge attitudinal issue.

Also doesn't help much trying to teach them how to count when they don't have a number in their language above 5 or something. :rolleyes:

But then again, the national education system seems to have an over riding colonialist wankestry power emanating from NSW, so it might not be race specific.
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So have you sat down and written a Merrinh-Patha to English dictionary? I doubt it, probably someone elses problem even though there is probably no written Merrinh-Patha language.
I have been through a similar problem having a deaf child. They said she wouldn't fit in mainstream and would only achieve grade 4 reading ability.
Well to cut a long story short, she completed year 12 then a diploma and is currently employed in mainstream.
 
The only "special treatment" that could help our indigenous people would be a total prohibition on alcohol. Most of their problems stem from the misuse of alcohol - and there is no solution in a free society.

Patterns of alcohol- related harms
Alcohol misuse is a contributing factor to a wide range of health and social problems, including: violence; social disorder; family breakdown; child neglect; loss of income or diversion of income to purchase alcohol and other substances; and, high levels of imprisonment. In addition, Indigenous Australians experience harms associated with alcohol use, including deaths and hospitalisations, at a rate much higher than other Australians..
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http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/health-risks/alcohol/reviews/our-review
 
We carry on about the rape of Indian women and the genital mutilation of Muslim women, but the degradation, bashing, sexual abuse and murder of our Indigenous women is virtually ignored. The incidence of violence against Aboriginal women is 80 time greater than the rest of the population.

Northern Territory MP Bess Price said the Aboriginal and white communities had long known about the violence and done nothing.
She had been "routinely attacked", called "a liar" and "obscenely insulted on the internet" - in particular by people with left-wing political views - for raising the issue.
She told the NT Parliament last month that two of her relatives who were "young mothers" were killed in Alice Springs this year.
"One was injured mortally in the public, in front of several families," Ms Price said.
"Nobody acted to protect her.
"Dozens of my female relatives have been killed this way. Convictions usually lead to light sentences.
"I was told by a senior lawyer that no jury in Alice Springs will convict an Aboriginal person for murder if the victim is also Aboriginal and he or she is only stabbed once.
"We all have done nothing effective to stop this from happening. It has been going on for decades.
"Why hasn't there been the same outrage over the continuing killing of our women and abuse and neglect of our kids?
If these women victims were white, we would hear very loud outrage from feminists.
If their killers had been white, we would hear outrage from the Indigenous activists.
Why is there such a deafening silence when both victim and perpetrator are black?
"I believe that we can blame the politics of the progressive left and its comfortably middle class urban Indigenous supporters."
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Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-new...se/story-e6frfkp9-1226661209335#ixzz2VmnvzQqT
 
Good to have the issue raised, Calliope.
Most of this horrific violence is alcohol based. In the communities where strict income management has prevented money being spent on booze, the violence has abated considerably.
 
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