Originally Posted by kporte

Good point. Words don't solve much. Anybody got any leads on efforts that actually help out? I'd be interested.

Originally Posted by Officer Dibble

Interesting. Do the Scottish feel any guilt or does their underdog status absolve them from any wrong doing? The silence is deafening.

Originally Posted by pgtips

Why is it before the white man came the aborigines lived in relative peace and had non of these problems ?

You take a man
Murder His family
Steal his land
Treat him for centuries as an animal
Make him feel worthless....

.......then you wonder why he is now a drunk with no self worth ?

Originally Posted by pgtips

Why is it before the white man came the aborigines lived in relative peace and had non of these problems ?

You take a man
Murder His family
Steal his land
Treat him for centuries as an animal
Make him feel worthless....

.......then you wonder why he is now a drunk with no self worth ?
Guys, please take the blinkers off and smell the coffee.

You created the situation, you made the man into a beast, now at least have the decency to correct it, and no I don't mean genocide. Equal opportunities for them may be a step in the right direction and giving them back large portions of their stolen land may help to mend broken hearts.

Oh and please remember you are the guest in their country, so why do you think you have the God given right to call all the shots ?

Originally Posted by king kong

Guilt of genocide doesnt just wash away once the generation that was responsible has died . You being white wether you like it or not are part of a repressive system that has an inbuilt idea of itself it is superior to other ways of life .
I think you are taking it too personal , ofcourse i or others couldnt specifically blame you but you cant deny the white race was the perpetrator in the agression and this you are part of .
When it gets down to street level and you are picked on by 5-6 aboriginal lads the one of the first things they will say is ''f--k off back to where you come from white trash'' .
Sins of the fathers come to mind thats all i can say , its a hard one to get around and to be honest after 20 years here with a few run in with aboriginals ,i honsestly dont see how it can be resolved and even being underlyingly sympathetic to their plight doesnt prevent me from being onn the wrong end of a floggin and being called ''white trash '' .

Originally Posted by moneypenny20

I'm confused by this guilt and blame idea. Do we still blame and put guilt on the Germans for the millions of jews murdered during the 40s?

Originally Posted by PamE

Quite so. OH is German and he does not see himself as responsible in any way whatsoever for the Holocaust. Indeed it is quite offensive to your average young German (or indeed any German who was not personally invovled in atrocity), to suggest that they are in any way responsible for what happened in that time. I personally am horrifed by the arrogance, greed and abuse of British colonialism in many countries, not just in Australia. But the very notion of apology for the actions of generations past on behalf of the current generation implies wrongdoing by the entire current generation, and I have done nothing wrong. Actually I am quite confused by some of these posts which seem to imply that simply by being white I have done something of which I personally should be ashamed - that sounds a bit racist in itself imo

Originally Posted by billyboy1

Perhaps you should have been out on the road recently, and you could explain this to the poor bloke I found beaten to a pulp by a group of Aborigines, when he was just trying to walk home. He was beaten with fence palings with the nails sticking out of them, after having been called 'white this' and 'white that.' I imagine he would respond, 'well what the hell has that got to do with me, and what did I do to deserve this?'

Perhaps you could have been there to explain to the female backpacker why she was raped by an indigenous person (after having been beaten to a pulp), when she was only asking him for directions - welcome to Australia! As a tourist in Australia, is she responsible for the Stolen Generation?

I could go on and on, because it happens on a daily basis, and there are some really horrible things going on.

As stated I appreciate there have been some terrible things done to indigenous people in the past, for which there is no excuse, but these terrible things cannot continue to be used an excuse or mitigating circumstances for behavior like that which I have described. You are one of the bleeding hearts I described, who form part of the reason why indigenous issues will never be fixed. By trying to defend them in the way you are, using the historical argument, you are not helping them at all, you are actually hurting them, as you are allowing them to absolve themselves of responsibility for their behavior. As long as they never take responsibilities for their actions, and continue to blame others for their behavior, nothing will ever change.

Originally Posted by billyboy1

I work as a police officer in Australia, I came to Australia with a limited amount of knowledge in relation to indigenous issues, I feel I am fairly open minded, and was looking forward to see the realities. I would have described myself as a blank piece of paper, which is ready to be filled up and written on based on my experiences with the indigenous community, I guess I am trying to say I did not come to Australia with any prejudices against indigenous people. I have worked as a cop in a few different countries, along side other cops from various different cultures, and on teams where I was the ethnic minority. I have to say, like the vast majority of people I work along side, I couldn't give a monkies where you come from, what color your skin is, what culture you come from, I will take a person as I find them, and form my opinion of a person based on their behavior. I make this point because I know after having read the first line of my post indicating that I am a police officer, many will have already written anything I say off because I will be branded as a racist thug, which is far easier to do than to acknowledge that perhaps I have some experience to offer on the subject, however unpalatable it may be.

I have worked for two years now in Australia, in a city where there is a significant indigenous population, and not too far away from indigenous communities and reservations, so I deal with indigenous people on a daily basis. I have to say we deal with all sections of society, and for the most part across a given culture or race, we deal with members of that race / culture occasionally as offenders, and occasionally as complainants (they want to report their car stolen, relative missing - whatever). Unfortunately, when dealing with indigenous persons, 95% of the time it is in a negative capacity, as offenders, or occasionally as complainants (but usually the day before they were the offender flogging someone else, but today someone decided to flog them so they want to report it).

The fact of the matter is that 95% of the offenders we deal with are indigenous, I appreciate that there may be reasons for this, but tell that to some poor person who has just been flogged or raped when they were minding their own business walking home. It has become endemic in the city where I live, you see packs of indigenous kids wandering the streets at night looking for someone to flog or rob. Papers report about the disproportionate amount of indigenous persons in prison, well strangely enough that's because they commit the vast majority of the crime in the city where I work. Papers report on the difference in life expectancy between non indigenous persons and indigenous persons, well when you abuse your body on a daily basis for years on end do you expect to live for a long time? Their money goes on grog, not fruit and veg, exercise takes the form of brawls, flogging the partner, or walking to the bottle shop. Papers and other organizations report on indigenous deaths in custody, don't get me wrong sometimes the police are in the wrong, but given that 95% of the offenders we deal with are indigenous, and 95% of them have chronic health issues, is it really surprising? These people are walking time bombs, and when they decide to fight with the police they are usually on something, and then the physical exertion pushes them over the edge and their heart / body just can't deal with it. Another example is a member of the public calling in reporting a drunk indigenous person lying on the road. We go and pick them up, they are very drunk, and they ask us to take them to a diversionary shelter where they can sleep for the night. So in effect all we are doing is acting as a government funded taxi service (we spend allot of time doing this). The person then has a heart attack and dies in the back of the police car, and its called a death in custody - and added to the statistics of deaths in custody, which are used to support the argument that we are racist. I have read suggestions on this thread of racism against indigenous people, well having worked a few different places around the world, I have never seen so much racism as what I have been subjected to by indigenous persons. Yet they are more than happy to pull the race card on us and accuse us of being racist (usually because they have done something wrong, have been caught, and don't appreciate being arrested.)

I have been to the reservations and worked on them. MILLIONS of our tax payers dollars are sunk into these townships, in police resources, health, housing, schooling, and dole payments. 95% of the people in these areas have never worked or contributed tax, yet the townships are bottomless pits for our taxes to be poured into. There is work in many of the townships, for example mines, but why would you work when you get paid to do nothing? Some of the townships also have mines on their land, so they receive royalties, so again why work when you can get paid to do nothing? New housing is built, then they trash it, after all they never had to work for them like you and I, so why would they appreciate them and take care of them? Schools and other amenities are built, and the cost of upkeep is staggering because of the constant and massive amount of vandalism to public property. When their doll runs out and they don't have money to feed their children they try to get additional emergency benefits, then you go and check the records in the local grog shop and identify that the same person spent their entire dole check on alcohol.

Indigenous persons get various grants and scholarships when going to university or TAFE, so no discrimination there then other than the 'positive kind, someone mentioned indigenous charities, I'm not sure about charities funded by the public, but there are masses of organizations funded by the government for indigenous housing, diversion centre's, indigenous health, specialist indigenous training colleges, indigenous domestic violence agencies, all of which I'm sure many of us would appreciate the benefit of but do not have access to because we are not indigenous. It is even legislated in police procedure that indigenous people be treated differently, if you or I are arrested we can call a lawyer if we want, who may or may not sit in on an interview. If you are indigenous, the indigenous legal firm which is funded by the government HAS to be contacted, and they can't be interviewed without someone with them - so if its outside 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and not a rape or murder you can forget it. No such luck if you are non indigenous. The point I am making is that given that 95% of the indigenous people who live in the city in which I live do not work, they have a massive amount of benefits, resources, schemes, policy / procedure and funding available to them financed by the taxes which they do not pay.

I have talked to many indigenous people about all the issues, and based on my experience, I can honestly say the biggest obstacle for the culture moving forward are all the bleeding hearts, most of whom live in posh parts of cities thousands of miles from your nearest aboriginal, who continually accuse anyone trying to intervene of being racist. The end result is no government has the balls to take a tough stance on indigenous problems, for fear of being accused of being racist, so nothing ever gets done, apart from mostly half hearted initiatives which cost lots of money. There have been a few successful initiatives, for example cutting peoples dole when they don't send their children to school (again, the bleeding hearts called this scheme racist), but surprise - surprise in many communities they have seen school attendance rise significantly. Some communities went dry, again this was branded as being racist, but again as a result of this there were massive benefits to the community in terms of reduction in domestic violence and general problems.

I imagine many will brand my views as being racist, I say I am just telling it as it is. In fact nothing gives me greater pleasure than coming across indigenous people who are just Joe Bloggs normal people getting on with life, some of whom I work along side, and some I have as friends. People may disagree with some or all of my points, I would respond to this, come and work in a job where you deal with the public, like being a cop, paramedic, community nurse, social or council worker etc in the communities, or in a city like mine where we have a large indigenous population. After a year I will GUARANTEE you that you will see things very differently. I say this because I have met some increadbaly 'left wing' individuals, who I would describe as falling into the 'bleeding heart' category, then after a year or two of working in the communities or in the city where I live, dealing with the indigenous issues on a daily basis, their perceptions of the issues change completely.

Originally Posted by PamE

Quite so. OH is German and he does not see himself as responsible in any way whatsoever for the Holocaust. Indeed it is quite offensive to your average young German (or indeed any German who was not personally invovled in atrocity), to suggest that they are in any way responsible for what happened in that time. I personally am horrifed by the arrogance, greed and abuse of British colonialism in many countries, not just in Australia. But the very notion of apology for the actions of generations past on behalf of the current generation implies wrongdoing by the entire current generation, and I have done nothing wrong. Actually I am quite confused by some of these posts which seem to imply that simply by being white I have done something of which I personally should be ashamed - that sounds a bit racist in itself imo

Originally Posted by mohogony

The germans invaded most of Europe and killed 200 million people but everyone forgives them and says what nice people Germans are today , but white Aussies are all evil racists becasue of what happened to some Aboriginal peope two hundred years ago.

Originally Posted by mohogony

The germans invaded most of Europe and killed 200 million people but everyone forgives them and says what nice people Germans are today , but white Aussies are all evil racists becasue of what happened to some Aboriginal peope two hundred years ago.

Originally Posted by kporte

About 70m in total died in WW2.

Originally Posted by hereandthere

And around 40 million in WWI and you can pin that one on them too so that's 110 million.

Originally Posted by kporte

Yes but the Russians lost huge amounts and dispatched huge amounts. The Germans weren't the only baddies in that war. If you added up every death from German aggression, in every war in history, I doubt it would total 200m.

Originally Posted by hereandthere

I would agree, but then there's the whole beach-towel thing and that's where it gets really inflammatory.

Originally Posted by mohogony

The germans invaded most of Europe and killed 200 million people but everyone forgives them and says what nice people Germans are today , but white Aussies are all evil racists becasue of what happened to some Aboriginal peope two hundred years ago.