News In Briefs

Race Relations

Okay, a couple of quick facts that we have to get out of the way before I begin in earnest. First of all, I'm white. Apparently that means I am responsible for slavery, the Myall Lakes massacre, the "stolen generation", Elvis stealing rock 'n' roll, and other such nonsense. I'm "whitey". A "cracker". And don't get me wrong, I'm okay with you using these terms, especially if you're... umm... (not sure how to put this in a politically correct manner)... a darker shade of pale. Yeah. What's more, I'm not terribly concerned about those darker people taking ownership of a particularly racist word that begins with the letter 'N' and using it in a plethora of hip-hop songs. If you wanna be a 'N'-word, that's okay with me. Don't wanna be an 'N'-word? Also cool.

This all serves as a frame of reference for today's irritation. Last week the Australian media made a big deal about Aboriginal communities falling victim to high rates of rape, violence and unemployment. Alcoholism was also an issue, I think. It's hard to keep up with news organisations who are more concerned with what the public are interested in than the public interest.
Shortly thereafter, we heard reports of a town in the Northern Territory where gang violence was running rampant; youths terrorising decent folk. What's more, they were ABORIGINAL youths.

So you can see why I had to preface this post. I can't talk about anything native Australian without crossing some massive cultural lines in the sand. I don't know if you're familiar with Australian history, but during the fifties and sixties there was a policy in place whereby Aboriginal children were removed from their homes and placed with white families, ostensibly to be raised in the cities as 'civilised folk'. This came to be known as the 'stolen generation', and on that issue I happen to side with the people who say it was a tragedy, and I admire people like Donna Meehan who has found her real family after a difficult childhood of being the only black kid in the school. Yeah that's right. I said black. Deal with it.
Now we have the situation where large numbers of Aboriginal couples are dealing with their own childhoods, and a culturally ingrained problem with drinking, substance abuse, domestic violence and other such nastiness. It's all very well to say that these problems exist because they were passed down from parent to child, and that this may well explain why such violence has occured in Wadeye, NT. But blaming the past shifts focus from the real issue, which is violent crime. Plenty of people have tried to use these horrors as a political springboard, and hopefully have succeeded only in undermining their political futures.

If you have a community where the majority of men are raping and attacking their women and children, common sense would argue that the innocent need protecting and would remove the violent from the community. After all, didn't they surrender their right to freedom when the first blow was laid? Yeah, BUT. And you'll hear a lot of that in relation to this issue. Yeah, but... wouldn't that result in higher numbers of Aboriginal men in prison? A white government invoking a policy that imprisons a group of people based on sex and race is a dangerous situation. So it seems that in order to stay politically correct, we must ignore the laws that pertain to whites.
How about we remove the children from the communities and place them in foster care? Yeah, but then we have a second 'stolen generation', and no-one twenty years from now will remember the rapes and beatings. Only that they were taken from their families.
We could always remove the causes. You know, alcohol, petrol, marijuana, American culture, a history of abuse...

And how about Wadeye? It seems that American culture is mostly to blame here, and while we could point fingers at video games, rap music and films, the more culpable party is a media that doesn't accurately report the news. Yes, gangs exist in LA. Lots of people die, too. By showing only one side of the story, these youths (who probably haven't had a proper education or viable options for the future) have latched on to the culture of those who look like them, and a 'Lord of the Flies' situation ensues.

So how do we solve these problems plaguing our native brethren? We could fence them all in, deny aid and watch them destroy each other. We could allow the situation to continue to escalate until it produces a militant leader who may or may not choose to start a race war. Don't laugh. It's more than feasible.
The only sane options seems to be addressing the issues plaguing these communities. Isolation. Psychological and/or psychiatric problems which produce violent actions. A reducing of the differences between whites and blacks. Like government payments. Why do we have Austudy and Abstudy? What does it matter what background you're from? Does no-one see that by throwing money rather than time and effort at the problem, we're only pouring fuel on the fire? A wise man once said that you can achieve anything with any two of the following: money, time, or manpower. All three guarantee success.

posted by Steve @ Thursday, June 01, 2006