Australian Aboriginals

[Havock]

Originally posted by Lucern: So we blame them. Now what? Do we stop caring? Does it affect no one else? I can't see stats like those (and they at least have been comparable to Native Americans at some point) and not see the effects of history as a mitigating influence. Call it contingency: in the chaos of every second of every day upon which we each must act, the effects of conditions like this multiply and echo throughout time and space. The ultimate free will Havock alluded to is the product of simplified social economic analysis - only meant to serve analytical purposes. It does not exist outside of theory, ideology, and fantasy. That we are not affected by the social, historical, economic (the list goes on) terrain around us is as impossible as being wholly consumed by them. Blame whoever you want, but fail to recognize social forces - the very context of these stats - and shoot ourselves in the foot. Repeatedly.

How is it societys fault that these people waste their days? Everyone has a choice, either do or do not. It seems that these people choose to "do not" when it comes to improving their own lives. Personal responibility is a harsh reality, but at the end of the day it comes down to the choices we make. Ultimately no one is responsible for us except for us.

When people on govt. assistance buy booze instead of food, that is a choice. When they sit at home all day and watch T.V. instead of looking for work , that is a choice. When they have 6 kids and can't feed them because they don't work, that is a choice. I choose to work 2 jobs because I like to go on vacation and live in a nice apartment and have a car. I am not too proud to work at McDonalds part time because that extra $150 a week pays my car note and insurance at the end of the month. It is all about choices and I have no pitty for anyone who chooses to waste day after day stealing oxegen from the rest of us.

[Sever]

It's more of a proverbial carrot than a proverbial gun. They're not subject to the same laws we are and we're not eligible to the benefits they are. Nobody's forcing them to steal my car (and they did, twice. Cost me a fraggin' packet) but when the law lets them off because there's already too many in jail, they're tempted to do it again. Nobody's forcing them to sit at home and drink, but when they're paid money every week for nothing, why would they bother looking for a job?

It IS slowly changing in Australia and people do care. I can't see any elections being won or lost over it, but the government IS slowly changing their tune.

[Lucern]

Originally posted by Havock: How is it societys fault that these people waste their days? Everyone has a choice, either do or do not. It seems that these people choose to "do not" when it comes to improving their own lives. Personal responibility is a harsh reality, but at the end of the day it comes down to the choices we make. Ultimately no one is responsible for us except for us. When people on govt. assistance buy booze instead of food, that is a choice. When they sit at home all day and watch T.V. instead of looking for work , that is a choice. When they have 6 kids and can't feed them because they don't work, that is a choice. I choose to work 2 jobs because I like to go on vacation and live in a nice apartment and have a car. I am not too proud to work at McDonalds part time because that extra $150 a week pays my car note and insurance at the end of the month. It is all about choices and I have no pitty for anyone who chooses to waste day after day stealing oxegen from the rest of us.

My point was that we go beyond fault. The guy who stole Sever's car, and the other guy that stole it again (or was it another?) are at fault for stealing them. The sexual abuser of children is obviously and heinously at fault.

When we do this, there are pretty much two ways, between us, that we have presented choice, and probably goes right down to how we see societies. We do not seem to disagree on the reality of it, only the effect and scope of it. Your choice seems to me to exist in a vaccuum, but you allude to the very reason that this is impossible. Choices have consequences. Multiply that by several billion and you'll get to what I'm talking about - actions have effects that change the world a little bit at a time, changing the terrain of all subsequent actions. I'm not saying society is at fault...what would that even mean? I'm saying that these things constitute society along with everything else and change it for the negative. The choices we make exist in an extremely complex social context. As a social scientist, I'm interested in social action, but I'd be deadweight in my field if I didn't also care about how decisions were made, what the context of those decisions are, and what effect those decisions have.

My stance can be simple really...criminals and lowlifes are made, not born, just as hard working individuals such as yourself are made. At the end of the day they remain criminals and lowlifes by their actions, but, again, ignore the processes that continue to make degenerates and you've solved nothing nor appreciated the problem.

[Sever]

Originally posted by Lucern: The guy who stole Sever's car, and the other guy that stole it again (or was it another?) are at fault for stealing them.

In fairness to the aboriginal community, i do not actually know who pinched it the first time. I'm just generalising based on statistics. It happened in Northbridge (Perth's nightclub district) and, according to the report number, was the 150th odd car stolen that night. No insurance and about $5000 of damage.

The second time, however, was outside my place of work in a small country town. It's something of a funny story. The shed was 2km out of town just off the highway. I had sent the other workers home for the afternoon because the boss was away and we couldn't proceed with the job we had without him. I carried on working on something in my own time and left my car in the carpark. As was customary then, i left the keys in the ignition. Car theft was pretty much unheard of where i come from. Whilst i'm working, i hear the distinctive sound of a 5.0L revving its tits off on the dirt roads around the area and think to myself: "wow, that sounds like my car", and i carry on working. Half an hour later, i hear the same car driving past again in the same manner and think: "hmm, that really does sound like my car" and i head outside to where i parked my car and discover it gone. Walking out to the main road, i see my car parked in the middle of the road about 300m ahead and a small group of people standing around it. I head back inside and call WA's finest, tell them exactly where my car is and tell them to hurry. Long story short, they never made the 2 min drive from the cop shop to where my car was. 10 min after making the call, i had been picked up by alternative transport and discovered where they had finally abandoned my car (at a wheat bin about half a km from my work). Upon a cursory inspection, my car appears undamaged. I didn't touch it at that stage so as to preserve any fingerprints for WA's finest to recover. I head into town to locate the thieves who could not have gone far and found a group of aboriginal females of various ages, all drunk. Their car had broken down along the highway and they decided to walk into town. They weren't the ones who took my car, but i knew the ones who did had been part of the group. After a little more searching, i head to the cop shop to talk with Sherlock.

At that time, we had an aboriginal man working with us (one of the ones who makes something of themself and bares the burden of it from others of his community for the same reason.) He's a good bloke. Within half a day, he has learned the names, ages and address of the people who stole my car. Two aboriginal girls both under 18 living in the next town along. I pass this info on to WA's finest who basically tell me they can't do anything about it. No court will prosecute them, and they cannot be forced to pay any fine (which basically amounts to fining the taxpayers). I don't think i endeared myself to WA's finest after they told me that. Instead, i was made a target of opportunity for random breath tests, license checks and vehicle inspections for a month or so whenever they saw me. The only redeeming part of the whole story is that because i also passed the info along to the insurance company, they covered the cost of repairs. (Oh yeah, they never fingerprinted the car. When i picked it up from where it was abandoned a day later i discovered that it had been damaged. It had taken a serious knock to the front suspension which made the car undrivable. Technically, it was a write-off, but the insurance company paid for it to be fixed anyway. I'm still scratching my head on that one. Perhaps more forces at work, the details of which i'm not privvy to...

Anyway, you can be your own judge on that one.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Something else at work here, I think, is the way that some people look at problems like these through the lenses of their own experience. From the way some of you are talking, you're judging a group of people by your own standards. I sure can relate to some of the sentiment- I'd love to get paid to sit around and drink, too. But you're forgetting something. It's right there in Wellard's post- Aboriginals were given the vote and counted as citizens 40 years ago. 92 years ago, in 1915, for I don't know how many years, the Australian government started kidnapping Aboriginal children and putting them in internment camps. Remember that? And now it's 2007, and people are actually wondering why there are problems with this group? People are actually blaming this group for not "getting over it" quickly enough?

It doesn't even seem to me like there should be a question about this, and I sometimes have trouble understanding that this may be difficult to grasp by some.

Change takes time, and understanding takes perspective. Think about it.

[ZFR]

Originally posted by Illumina Drathiran'ar: Something else at work here, I think, is the way that some people look at problems like these through the lenses of their own experience. From the way some of you are talking, you're judging a group of people by your own standards. I sure can relate to some of the sentiment- I'd love to get paid to sit around and drink, too. But you're forgetting something. It's right there in Wellard's post- Aboriginals were given the vote and counted as citizens 40 years ago. 92 years ago, in 1915, for I don't know how many years, the Australian government started kidnapping Aboriginal children and putting them in internment camps. Remember that? And now it's 2007, and people are actually wondering why there are problems with this group? People are actually blaming this group for not "getting over it" quickly enough? It doesn't even seem to me like there should be a question about this, and I sometimes have trouble understanding that this may be difficult to grasp by some. Change takes time, and understanding takes perspective. Think about it.

yeah right. They'll be using that excuse indefinately for a long time now. Just like anything wrong a Black an African-Americans does is blamed on the fact that his great-great-grandparent was a slave on a cotton plantation, and the reason Africa is in a shitty situation now is because of the terrrrrrrrrrible colonization by "white" empires...

[Aelia Jusa]

Of course, in this case we're not talking about people's great-greate grandparents or even grandparents. This landmark event was only 40 years ago - well within the lifetime of most adult Indigenous Australians or their parents. Imagine being able to talk about past events as being in the time 'before we were citizens' (of the country you were born in! And having absolutely no allegiance to any other country! And having the citizenship 'granted' to you as if there should be some question of your right to it by people who colonised your country!). Imagine too that your citizenship was granted by referendum - that is the populace as a whole (except for your race of course) was asked whether they thought you should be granted citizenship or not (and that 10% of people voted no! And if a majority had said no you wouldn't have got it!).

I also wonder about the whole 'use it as an excuse' argument. This kind of implies that the day-to-day actions of Indigenous Australians (or similar groups) whose circumstances might be considered to have been influenced by these social factors are directly justified by those individual people as a result of said social factors. Like, an unemployed Indigenous person wakes up and is all 'yeah, I could look for work today, but you know what, I think I'll just booze instead and if anyone asks, it's because of injustice. Woo! What a sweet deal!' So we can then say they're not taking 'personal responsibility'. In fact, they're just doing stuff and surviving. It's only when we wonder, with the systemic racism and discrimination of the past gone, why they as a social group are still so disadvantaged in comparison to other groups that explanations like the influence of social issues are introduced.

I'm currently working in an Indigenous school. I find myself really angry at the plight of some of the kids, but inpsired at other things. The other day I watched some of the kids practice a cultural dance. A girl I was talking to said that she was 'deadly' (a positive term that has been taken by Indigenous Australians as being culturally significant). It was fantastic to see the kids embracing and showing such pride their culture, where once it may have been shameful or downgraded while they 'mainstreamed'. At the same time, many of the kids are affected by domestic violence, abuse, and are involved with the department of child safety. Many are in foster care. One little boy of 6 has just been moved to his 7th placement since he was 2 1/2 years old. He's showing problem behaviours like a lack of empathy and poor social understanding. How on earth can he be expected to know how to respond socially or behave appropriately in the classroom when he has had absolutely no constant figure with whom to form a strong attachment, or any predictability or stability in his life whatsoever.

Indigenous kida are 4 times more likely to be involved with child protective services, because of problems with physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and general neglect. You can argue whatever you want regarding the reasons that these kids' parents behave this way, no personal responsibility, whatever. The fact is that the current generation of Indigenous Australians are starting off in the worst possible way. It is really hard to pull yourself out of that environment as an adolescent and adult, which is why when people do it, it is held up as admirable and remarkable. The foster care system in Australia, or at least in Queensland, is terminally underfunded and under-prioritised. Kids often have to move placements because it is their carers that are the ones perpetrating abuse on them. The little 6 year old I mentioned was moved to his most recent placement away from his little brother, and without any sort of gradual introduction process. He also hasn't been back to school, either because they've moved him somewhere else, meaning absolutely nothing in his life is the same, or his new carers can't be bothered to make sure he attends school. And ultimately, the group who should take personal responsibility for this is the government, who knows what the problems are and how these kids are being affected, and choose to do nothing. The parents of course are also responsible, but the kids are blameless and if we simply stand tsking about personal responsibility without doing something, the cycle of disadvantage will continue.

Another example. In the 20s and 30s (or possibly into the 40s?) in Queensland, many Indigenous people were employed in rural areas in agriculture and farming. However, the governments of the time paternalistically believed that they were not responsible enough to look after their own money, so they kept their wages from them while giving them a nominal stipend (and the wages were of course less than white Australians would have been paid for the same work). Unfortunately, this money was never repaid, until a few years ago legal action was taken and the money was finally paid to the workers' children or grandchildren (as hardly any of the actual workers were still alive). What are the implications for those Indigenous people and their descendents? Economically, they and their families remained in poverty despite having gainful employment and 'taking personal responsibility', as it were. Poverty affects the opportunities for those families to improve their social standing and become educated. Lack of education and social status affects the ability of the next generation to get jobs and improve their position. The next generation then would be similarly affected. And of course this is going on in the context of overt racism and discrimination, so employment, education, and social standing are difficult to obtain anyway. Socially, having your wages withheld says a lot of things about self-worth, self-determination, and about whether you should even bother getting employment at all. Attitudes like this are also transmitted to subsequent generations. It's easy to write this incident off as something that lazy Aboriginals can just dine out on while they collect welfare, but this is a example of something, which despite happening quite a long time ago, has clear long-term implications even for present-day problems.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Originally posted by ZFR: quote: Originally posted by Illumina Drathiran'ar: Something else at work here, I think, is the way that some people look at problems like these through the lenses of their own experience. From the way some of you are talking, you're judging a group of people by your own standards. I sure can relate to some of the sentiment- I'd love to get paid to sit around and drink, too. But you're forgetting something. It's right there in Wellard's post- Aboriginals were given the vote and counted as citizens 40 years ago. 92 years ago, in 1915, for I don't know how many years, the Australian government started kidnapping Aboriginal children and putting them in internment camps. Remember that? And now it's 2007, and people are actually wondering why there are problems with this group? People are actually blaming this group for not "getting over it" quickly enough? It doesn't even seem to me like there should be a question about this, and I sometimes have trouble understanding that this may be difficult to grasp by some. Change takes time, and understanding takes perspective. Think about it.

yeah right. They'll be using that excuse indefinately for a long time now. Just like anything wrong a Black an African-Americans does is blamed on the fact that his great-great-grandparent was a slave on a cotton plantation, and the reason Africa is in a shitty situation now is because of the terrrrrrrrrrible colonization by "white" empires... [/QUOTE]I didn't say that. There's a difference between an African-American using slavery as an excuse, and *understanding* why that African-Amerian "chose" that path in life.

As for THAT, I wouldn't even cite slavery. Brown v. Topeka BoE was in 1954! What, you think that they're going to forget that they were LEGALLY non-persons 53 years ago?

Now, I don't live in Australia, but I sure as hell can discuss the status of African-Americans in our country and why they have problems in that community. Go ahead and think about five TV shows on network TV that feature African-American families. Done? How long did it take? Now think of five TV shows with white families. Think of white role models, and black role models. Which list is longer?

What about racism? Are we going to pretend it doesn't exist? Are we going to pretend that all people of all races have access to education of equal quality? Are we going to assume the ostrich position on this one? Or are we going to wake up and face the undeniable fact that white privilege exists instead of scratching our rears and thinking the fact that other communities can't get on their feet is just a coincidence?

[Havock]

Originally posted by Illumina Drathiran'ar: What about racism? Are we going to pretend it doesn't exist? Are we going to pretend that all people of all races have access to education of equal quality? Are we going to assume the ostrich position on this one? Or are we going to wake up and face the undeniable fact that white privilege exists instead of scratching our rears and thinking the fact that other communities can't get on their feet is just a coincidence?

That is just an excuse for them to do nothing. I have 2 guys at my full time job who's familys are on public assistance, Josh and Darrell. One is a white guy the other an African American. They are both the laziest S.O.B.'s working there and I have to constantly keep on top of then to get any work out of them. I don't realy have that problem with the other guys on my crew.

It isn't about color or social standing, it's about the person. Either you want to work and make something of yourself or you are a just a lazy P.O.S. I can't speak for the Australian job market, but here in NY there are plenty of jobs. The only problem is that our little welfare knuckleheads all feel entitled to jobs that start them out at $50 grand a year. It isn't that they can't find work, they just refuse to do the work that they are qualified for.

[Iron Greasel]

Originally posted by Havock: It isn't about color or social standing, it's about the person.

Which person? Some guy you know from work? The situation with the aboriginals seems to be that very many of them behave differently from the majority of the immigrants. So many, in fact, that it shows up in statistics. Sounds to me like a mostly cultural difference, not a personal one. And with the African-Americans it most certainly has to do with color. They're black. They're not going to get any less black just because you don't use the word "■■■■■■". And everything has to do with social standing. If you work in a sweatshop 21 hours a day, from the age of four, ad mortem, you are different from someone who can afford the sweatshopped clothes, and very different from someone who has the majority of stocks in the company whose logo appears on the clothes. Not all are given equal choises. And among those who are, trends often follow race, color and social standing.