BudBrain

Is the aboriginal population holding steady, increasing, or in decline?

Shot81

treat them well, treat them like people, like real people, respect them and they will come to respect you.... treat them like shit and don’t respect them...they won’t respect you and probably won’t piss on you if you were on fire.....

all these people need is a little respect, a little respect goes a long long way....
if you respect a person, even if he is wasted on durgs booze etc... im sure that person will remember you for respecting him....

he will go on to tell his mates this dude treated me with respect etc... in turn they will start to treat you with respect... its a long chain...piss one off...piss them all off....

in london i was working in Soho for a few years and there was this black guy who always had a can in a hand and a cup asking for change, so one day he asked me for some change and i said ...if i give you some change you will spend it on drink so how about i get you something to eat.... he was happy with that... saw him a few times every time i saw him i would grab in a sandwich or something to eat.... then one night i was walking through soho ( yea just a tad drunk) and started getting hassled by some drunk kids....they wanted my bag.... walking across the road was the tamp who i got food for a few times.... as they tried to grab my bag, he comes over and smacks one round the head and they all run off.... he said he saw me so he's come and help.... which he did, saved me from having my bag nicked...after having missed the tube etc.. sat down on the bench and had a good chat with him.... learnt that he was from Canada... had a promising NFL hockey career till he busted his knee came back to the UK to find his folks but had no luck...so he was homeless, and was pissed off on how he was being treated by everyone.. He knows that he had issues etc but did not know what to do.... i was talking to him about how he should get himself off the drink and start selling the big issues etc.... well.... 2 months down the line i saw him again and he started selling the big issue outside our office...! looked much better did not drink as much and you could hear what he was saying... things only got better for him.....a month or so after, outsider our office i got a massive delivery of new pc's etc... this guy dropped what he was doing and gave me a hand to carry 100+ boxes inside did not ask for anything... the MD saw him giving me a hand and said if he wanted a job.... he became the office mailguy.... got himself a flat to rent, made friends with everyone, in fact everyone loved him at work great guy....a month later you would never have known this guy to be homeless drunk.....
he still had a drink issues which people at work where helping him with, they even arranged for him to go and see his family in Canada for a few weeks....
8 years later, last i heard he got a nice girlfriend off the drink baby on the way, been to see his family and they even came to visit him.......
just think how it could have been..... if i had not got him a bite to eat here and there. i was only 20 at the time....

Buzzy--Bee

He may well be right........

I hope you get to meet some. Not sure where you're moving to but down here in Melbourne we see none.

BB

Jen1977ni

Just saw an advert on the tele for this...interesting....very interesting....

http://www.unfinishedoz.com.au/

Kim67

Some good movies with aboriginal story lines are Rabbit Proof Fence, Radiance, Australian Rules, Tudawali, Storm Boy (an oldie but still a favourite at our house).

Pollyana

I treated someone like your example with respect once. He told me how he used to be a world class chef, then his boss went bust and he lost his job, had to live on the streets etc. So I helped pay for his food, paid for his dog's food. Contributed to his rent, organised someone to bail him out when he got arrested several times for stealing food from supermarkets, turned a blind eye to the fact a large amount of the money he collected from the Big Issue sales were going to fund his heroin habit....I still respected him and was sorry he'd fallen on hard times.
But you can only do so much. When you find everything you buy that person is sold to buy heroin, that they are trading the tins of donated dogfood with a fellow traveller to buy heroin, that they are using your cash to pay for petrol to drive to a school to sell heroin outside the gates at 8.30am.......you realise that person doesn't remember you for respecting them, he remembers you for being a mug and getting sucked in, and for being a source of easy cash. And then when he re-surfaces from the bottom of a pond 20 years later, he doesn't respect you then either, he just thinks you are still stupid enough to get sucked in again and is baffled when you turn your back.

I'm generalising, to a point, not everyone in need is like that, but my point is that just because you respect someone it doesn't stop them taking you for a ride.

Jen1977ni

Cool, thanku!

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Ignoring the nice story... do you actually live in Australia?

Shot81

Nope not yet, but will be very soon i hope....

BudBrain

Quite the argumentative type aren't you!?

I agree with some of your points but if the whole world shared your pov I think we'd still be in the dark ages.

Australia is a modern, stable, 1st world country and historical wars based on territory and the strong wiping out the weak aren't really relevant to the current situation from what I understand.

In the modern world, we try to lead by example which means we have a duty to protect and educate.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

I suggest the pair of you reserve judgement until you actually live here. It may change your view.

As for 'historical wars based on territory' do you think war has ended somehow? Wars about power and territory are currently being fought all over the globe. I guess we are currently protecting and educating Iraq and Afghanistan?

Shot81

i respect people.................simple as.....


and whats wrong with respecting them ?

please tell me how that is a judgment?

BudBrain

Obviously I'll reserve judgement towards them until then as I know little about them at present - but I still have my beliefs.

And picking the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is slightly unfair, I could just as easily counter that argument with an equally irrelevant fact that we pump billions in to the third world to educate and protect.

From a humanitarian 'big picture' point of view, it sounds as though they are in dire need of help.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

What's wrong with respecting them... absolutely nothing, but you will find that a VERY large percentage of Australian society doesn't and there has to be a reason for that.

'reserve judgement' is a pretty common saying, that you don't seem to be familiar with. English not your first language?

ProudVIC

....Except for the guy that used to hang around outside the KFC in Swanston street on weekends when it was really busy and literally assault you for money. Not sure if he is still around.
One of my friends was actually physically accosted by this guy in broad daylight on Saturday in the city with the streets crowded, wouldn't let him past because he didn't give him money and threatened to assault him.

It's a sad but true fact that an over representation of the aboriginal community of Australia are living below the poverty line, are drunk or under the influence of chemicals most of the time, day and night, are involved in street gangs and violence, and most of all feel great resentment towards the white Australians for taking 'their' land.

Australia's national holiday, 'Australia Day' is known to the aboriginal community as 'Invasion Day' when the British first claimed and colonized Australia. There has been a deep seated distrust between the indigenous and white Australians since 1788, it didn't all of a sudden start after the 'stolen generations'. It is a legacy of imperialism and colonialism I'm afraid and also exists in places like India and Indonesia along with many others.

Australia is, and has for a long time been, involved in major projects to better the lives of aborigines in terms of providing housing and welfare, has involved itself with all sorts of reconciliation attempts, the most famous of these being Kevin Rudd's sorry speech and even at public and private events and functions it is very common for a formal 'welcome to country' ceremony to take place beforehand where a tribal elder allows you on to 'their' land to conduct the event as long as you acknowledge that you are on their land.

The following link describes what I am talking about. It may seem like a token gesture but hardly demonstrative of a lack of respect towards the aboriginal community.

http://www.usc.edu.au/Students/Futur...etocountry.htm

All over Australia you will find acknowledgment and celebration of aboriginal culture, from public art installments to special days set aside to acknowledge the aboriginal community.

Many aboriginal people have become very successful in the fields of sport, politics, music and art. They have won Olympic gold medals, tennis grand slams, boxing world titles, won Australian music awards, acted in Hollywood films, are revered by all as Australian rules footballers. One aboriginal person was even an anchor for CNN Asia at one point. You can hardly say that they haven't been given the same opportunities as the white population in recent decades.

The fact of the matter is that many of them don't want to live a 'white person's life' or adhere to western culture. For these people there are aboriginal lands covering vast tracts of inland Australia, some of which they legally have rights to, where they are allowed to live freely in accordance to their age old traditions and customs, (but generally within the laws of the white person). Yes these places are the equivalent of the Native American reservations but they are there for those who want to continue living their traditional ways.

For others, they want to live in a western society but for whatever reason are unable to deal with it. They have been born into poverty and disadvantage from day 1, on the day in 1788 when the First Fleet arrived.

Sometimes it feels as if people from other western countries try to use aboriginal rights as a way to denigrate and shame the Australian people. The Americans use it a lot as well, even though their track record is even worse, both with their own indigenous peoples and others (unlike Australia they actually stole a native people from their land and forced these people to work for them as slaves on another continent).

Seriously, it is a bit rough to shame a nation of people, many of who are recent migrants, because of what our ancestors did 220 odd years ago isn't it?