So, lets talk about racism for a minute

[Death Carr]

Its no secret that in Australia's past, racism has been a BIG problem for Aborigines.
But, thats not the kind of racism I want to talk about. I want to talk about the opposite kind. The one that favors Aborigines.

I was reading the newspaper earlier when a job ad caught my attention. It read this:

Career Employment Group have two school based traineeships for indigenous year 11 and 12 students available
*Meaningles job info*
To be eligible for the course you:
- must be Aboriginal
- Must be over 18 years of age
- Must be willing to undertake a pre-employement medical inclusive of a drug and alcohol test

None of that has been modified.
Another example:
My school recently had a morning tea for only the aboriginal students and their parents.

This irritates me.
When did it become acceptable to be racist when it isn't against a minority?

 

[JoJo]

Affirmative Action isn't a new thing, it's been around since at-least 1960's. Given the way that Aboriginal people were treated in the past, I see no problems with giving them a little leg up to help escape poverty if they want to. In a perfect world there would be no need to discriminate in that way but we don't live in a perfect world.

 

[Freechoice]

Look at the situation in Australia.


White Australians have far greater life expectancies, higher paying jobs, (and higher employment in general), and higher incomes than the Aborigines of Australia.

Some people look at this and think it is sad. I am one of them.

But some of these people take it a step further to respond to the great disparities in Australia between Aborigines and other racial groups, (lets face it, it isn't only whites that have it better than the Aborigines), and try to give them advantages that others don't have so they can catch up, which they would theoretically do given some amount of time, (and one wouldn't expect it to be short given the hard time the Abos have had. I certain;y can't deny that.) But the thing is, the idea of affirmative action here is based on the assumption that aborigines have equal genetic drive to achieve materialistic things and intelligence to whites, Chinese, Indians, etc, and therefore won't need the support forever. I'm not sure this is the case.

I'm going to get a warning for this most likely but that's ok.

I think society should accept that some racial groups are generally better at certain things, so we shouldn't give them special advantages to achieve things in society that, even if it were made slightly easier for them, (compared to groups of people doing well), STILL would not catch up as a people. There are millions of animals on the earth and we have all evolved and are currently evolving. Is it so hard to believe that there are groups of homo erectus/humanoid beings in certain areas of this vast world who have generally significantly lower intellect than other groups of people?

http://jewamongyou.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/aboriginal-vs-slav.jpg?w=510

Guess which skull is the European's and which belongs to the Aborigine. Its not conclusive but it illustrates what I'm trying to say in the general sense.

By the way, I'm just generalizing. I'm sure there are Aborigines who are smarter than I am. Just not on average. If this still makes me a racist, which I imagine it probably does, then let it be so.

It's not racist if it's factual. Remember that. There are feelings and there are truths. Feelings are rarely truths.

As a minority, I don't need no fuckin' handout from some fuckin' guy just for being a minority. I will accept handouts that are just handouts, however. A freebie's a freebie, no matter what color you are.

Captcha:
too bad

Fuck that!

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

See basically my theory is that we european australians basically fucked over the Aboriginies ancestors. The current Aboriginies are inheriting that culture of poverty and actual poverty and something has to be done to get them on the right track.

 

[Vault101]

I always wondered back when I was doing tests (back to the days of year 1) why it had to ask me specifically if I were aboriginal

seriously..EVERY test I did in school it would ask if I were aboriginal, any other country do this?

whatever they are doing its not helping

 

[Craorach]

Its an unfortunate fact of Australian society at the moment that people of Aboriginal blood are getting so many handouts in the shape of benefits, native title, free education and cheap rent that they are learning that they don't need to do any work for anything.

A friend of mine who works extensively in the education system, and is aboriginal himself, told me that many of the kids are being encouraged to leave school and have children asap to get more money from the government. The more kids, the more benefits, and the more people receive Native Title payments in the household.

Those that DO try to make it out of this cycle, live in fear because at any point their family members will turn up on their doorstep and expect to be allowed to stay for nothing, behave like scum and ruin their lives.

It has, quite honestly, gotten to the point in some areas that the Aboriginal people are getting away with everything and various organisations are completely unable to act against them. My immediate neighbour is a Homewest house that has been passed around the extended family of the registered occupant (against lease conditions) for the last few years, abandoned, had wild dogs running around it, been cleaned up, half rebuilt, and is still being leased to the same tenant.. how allows known criminals to live there instead of herself.... and nothing has been done about it for 4 years now.

The usual arguments are trotted out.. they're poor, they're disadvantaged, they have a different culture, they are victims of the system. I call bullshit.

They are a disgrace to themselves, their ancestors and the country they now live in. They are given more benefits than white australians in the same economic bracket yet somehow do less with it, and don't get jobs. They drunk and smoke and inject their benefits. It's time Australia started to demand they obey the same laws and rules as everyone else, either they are Australian or they are not.

The worst thing is that the people who are standing up, within their community, to try to fight what racism there is and make the place better for their people refuse to target this sort of behaviour. Sure, I'm willing to accept that terrible things were done once, but it is now time for them to take the advantages that are given them, clean their act up, encourage their children and pull themselves up out of the gutter.

 

[DoPo]

I always wondered back when I was doing tests (back to the days of year 1) why it had to ask me specifically if I were aboriginal

seriously..EVERY test I did in school it would ask if I were aboriginal, any other country do this?

A friend of mine was entertained by the idea to go take the SAT and just write down "I'm a ******" then when he got the results (that he failed) to sue them for discrimination.

He wasn't black skinned though. Nor a US citizen.

 

[the Dept of Science]

While I don't disagree with "positive discrimination" in theory, it can increase bitterness and feuds between the two groups rather than alleviating them. I assume that the idea is to allow a previously oppressed minority to permeate all levels and areas of society, rather than being stuck in the lower rungs. If, say, more black people are poor and poor people are more likely to be criminals, then that only gives fuel to the idea that black people are criminals.

One thing I would say is look how far we've come in such a short amount of time. The idea of using conquered races as slaves has been around for millennia. 50 years ago, it was still strongly ingrained in our culture that black people were second class citizens.
Racism has gone from being a problem with society to being a problem with individuals and small groups. If someone nowadays makes a joke about watermelons or cotton fields, we say "that guys a racist" and condemn him as a flawed individual. Racism has been written out of our lawbooks and, in theory, social structures.
It will take a while before racism is completely removed from our culture and probably requires widespread integration. There will always be racists, but there are still flat-earthers and people that believe you can talk to the dead, so don't get too caught up on that.

captcha: high horse

 

[Vault101]

seriously..EVERY test I did in school it would ask if I were aboriginal, any other country do this?

Can't say that we do this in any tests in the schools that I've attended (in the good ole USA). Even for the standardized tests, they do have an optional section requesting population data (Age, Gender, Ethnicity).

While not Australian myself, I have heard the term "Abos" thrown around here and there. It seems like the generic image of Aboriginals in Australia, is the same generic image that we have for welfare recipients in the States. The ones that pump out more babies to get more welfare money (though I couldn't tell you that I've ever met a woman that would pump out another kid to get a bit of extra money).

.

people like that exist everywhere..regardless of skin colur

with aboriginal people in particular there is a very strong sterotype of them living off welfare...because to be honest if your aboriginal getting welfare is not hard, theres also a million other benefits


this is going to sound bad but.....it kind of reminds me of a 20 year old guy living at home playing videogames all day, his mum and dad give him all the money he wants..while they try and "ecourage" him to go and get a job..or do somthng else, he doesnt though

 

[Bertylicious]

By the way, I'm just generalizing. I'm sure there are Aborigines who are smarter than I am. Just not on average. If this still makes me a racist, which I imagine it probably does, then let it be so.

Sorry dude but I think stating that a bunch of people are less inteligent and/or incapable of materialism based on their genetics is pretty hard-core racism. I mean it is basically the nuts and bolts from which all racist notions/decisions are built from.

If you compare poverty stricken abbos with them white trash types you have there, I forget the name you guys have for them but it is hilarious, you'd probably find them both pretty rubbish. Poor people are awful no matter their racial background.

OT: I've actually wondered about affirmative action for some time and whilst I was originally against it, now I'm not so sure. The fact of the matter is that private companies talk at great length about "meritocracy culture" but competency measures are only applied to people once they have their foot in the door. In terms of getting the qualifications, in terms of ensuring that disadvantaged groups make the inroads in mainstream culture that will help that culture as a whole escape the poverty trap, you need to force organistions to give these people oppurtunities.

The comments regarding the harm charity/welfare does to people are interesting and another topic I've been thinking about a lot lately.

 

[JoJo]

http://jewamongyou.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/aboriginal-vs-slav.jpg?w=510

Even forgetting the rest of your post for a moment, I'm very dubious of that image, which for anyone-else reading is this:

(Supposedly a comparison between an aboriginal skull and a slav skull).

For a start it comes from a blog labelled as "Jew among you" and is apparently dedicated to "race realism". I did a reserve Google image search to find out where it had originally came from and among nuggets like Stormfront and some Nazi forum I found the original source from early 2009, over a year before your link was made:

http://ricercares.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/

It's in Spanish but a quick translate brings up the skulls true identity, human vs Neanderthal! You've been caught red-handed.

 

[Bertylicious]

http://jewamongyou.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/aboriginal-vs-slav.jpg?w=510

Even forgetting the rest of your post for a moment, I'm very dubious of that image, which for anyone-else reading is this:

(Supposedly a comparison between an aboriginal skull and a slav skull).

For a start it comes from a blog labelled as "Jew among you" and is apparently dedicated to "race realism". I did a reserve Google image search to find out where it had originally came from and among nuggets like Stormfront and some Nazi forum I found the original source from early 2009, over a year before your link was made:

http://ricercares.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/

It's in Spanish but a quick translate brings up the skulls true identity, human vs Neanderthal! You've been caught red-handed.

Boom, headshot.

 

[DJjaffacake]

"Positive Discrimination" infuriates me. It's just a phrase used to justify racism that isn't against ethnic minorities. For example, if the job offer in the OP said "Must be white" it would be ripped to shreds, and rightly so, but replace that with the name of another ethnic group and suddenly it's fine apparently. No. No it's not.

 

[Xangba]

I don't care what you call it, racism is racism. That includes affirmative action, "positive discrimination" or whatever. It's all racist. Everyone needs to stop pretending otherwise and admit they're being racist bastards with it. Same for people who pull the race card. I just want to tell them "Sorry, your race card has expired. Now shut up."

 

[Agayek]

-snip for racism-

YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON! They clearly deserve every advantage we could possibly give them. It only makes sense that we pay to right the wrongs committed by people we don't know and have never heard of. Clearly, you're just a racist xenophobe so terrified of their superiority, that you will gladly deny them their right to be more equal than you are.

PS - If you can't tell, I'm not serious.

OT: There's valid points on either side of this debate. There's certainly some degree of merit in the idea that we should give minorities some level of advantage in order to try to balance the social scale.

Unfortunately for that side of the debate, I disagree utterly. The core principle behind that conceit is that a) everyone is inherently equal in skill/talent/motivation/etc and b) it is the duty of government to ensure everyone lives prosperously, and I cannot agree with either of those tenants.

A is wrong simply because people are different. It's a proven fact that people have a wide variety of natural talent and the drive to nurture or apply those talents. You can put any two random people in the exact same situation and the end result will be completely different. They might both succeed wildly, or mildly, or one succeeds while the other fails, or they both fail miserably. Equalizing everything else has no bearing on how someone uses their talents.

B is wrong because the role of government should be limited solely to protecting people from predation. Any other role, when taken by government, is inherently invalid. The core reasoning for this is that people are flawed by nature, and most are amenable to corruption on some level. As such, the influence others have over how one lives their life should be minimized as much as possible, while still facilitating a functional society.

I'm of the opinion that any laws about who can hire what are just stupid. The way economics work, the people with the best employees meet with the most success. Let the economy deal with the businesses that want to be restrictive in their hiring practices.