Adam Goodes - Australian of the Year

[daisycutter 28,484]

wot no gif stuie? c'mon lift your game

[stuie 7,374]

wot no gif stuie? c'mon lift your game

Here's one just for you....

[daisycutter 28,484]

that's better

like "one beer please" jack

[DemonFrog 1,347]

[Hannibal 5,814]

What a shame that the Left contribute to Aboriginal impoverishment.

Care to disagree with Bolt's assertions ?

The Left’s myths are destroying Aboriginal children

Andrew Bolt

FEBRUARY

16

2014

(7:54am)

The "stolen generations", The politics of race

The media Left’s addiction to the stereotypes of white racists and black victims puts Aboriginal children in grave danger.

Example one, from the Sydney Morning Morning Herald:

Imagine if more than half the young people detained in Australia today were from Sydney. Imagine if they were white. Newspaper letter writers would whip themselves into a frenzy, GetUp! would run a national campaign and tens of thousands would take to the streets to march for the freedom of Australia’s children.

Instead, 53 per cent of young people in detention are indigenous. And instead of a national outcry, Australia is gripped by a national silence.

According to the latest national figures, indigenous young people - who comprise just 5 per cent of the population - were detained at a staggering 31 times the rate of non-indigenous young people on an average night in June 2012… So how, we should be asking, can we pretend the national shame of mass Aboriginal incarceration isn’t symptomatic of other problems?

Reporter Bianca Hall’s demand for “freedom” for such children and her suggestion that they are victims of racist double-standards is irresponsible and deceptive.

The children are detained generally because they broke the law or posed a danger to themselves or others. They are not detained because they are Aboriginal.

But to bolster her argument of racial double-standards, Hall decouples this link between crime and punishment. Indeed, not once in her article does Hall use the word “crime”, talking only of the high rate of “incarceration”. It is as if we arrest Aboriginal children on a whim.

Hall is right, of course, to suggest this high rate of incarceration (or, actually, crime) is related to the terrible dysfunction and family breakdown in so many Aboriginal communities, but she is profoundly wrong to suggest we do not talk about that or try with social policies to fix it. (In fact, Hall herself won’t talk of the role of Aboriginal culture in producing the terrible outcomes she deplores, which is the real silence we must end.)

But Hall again tries to decouple actions from consequences when she insists:

.... cutting the incarceration rate of indigenous people should be at the forefront of attempts to close the gap.

That is exactly the wrong way around. In fact, closing the gap - in education and employment - should be at the forefront of attempts to cut the incarceration rates. Reverse the order, as Hall suggests, and we’d have to refuse to jail Aborigines for crimes for which non-Aborigines would be jailed. We would be entrenching racism in our judicial system, and also entrenching the terrible victim mentality which incarcerates so many Aboriginal children.

Example two, from the ABC’s PM program and the irresponsible Greens:

BRENDAN TREMBATH: For nearly a century, tens of thousands of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by state and federal governments and church missions.

Aunty Hazel from the Gunnedah area in north-eastern New South Wales argues little has changed.

AUNTY HAZEL: There’s never been a gap, there’s never been a stop in stolen generation and that’s evident today…

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Grandmothers and their families have attended a rally outside the New South Wales Parliament to condemn the forced removal of Indigenous children by the State’s Department of Community Services… Greens MP David Shoebridge says there’re no doubt cases where the organisation is doing the right thing, but its first reflex is to remove children.

DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Between 1997 and 2012 we saw a five-fold increase in the number of Aboriginal children being removed across Australia. And New South Wales tragically is a real hot spot, it’s the highest rate of Aboriginal child removal and more than one in 10 Aboriginal children across New South Wales are in care. It’s the new stolen generation.

Here is the link I’ve often warned of - between preaching the “stolen generations” myth and attacking attempts today to save Aboriginal children from dangers from which we’d rescue them if they were white. How many Aboriginal children have died already, thanks to the poison of this myth?

Yes, PM did also quote NSW Minister Pru Goward rightly insisting that child welfare officials had no choice but to remove Aboriginal children at high rates, given the high levels of danger they faced:

PRU GOWARD: But we also need to see rates of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities come down too, so we can be sure that Aboriginal children are safe, it’s very much a two way street.

But PM - and the ABC generally - has never made the obvious link. If we are removing many Aboriginal children for their own safety, how can we say previous generations of welfare officials were racist and wrong to do the same? What exactly are we apologising for when we talk of the “stolen generations”?

Fact: AM misleads in blandly describing the “stolen generations” as comprising “tens of thousands of Indigenous children ... forcibly removed from their families”. The definition is actually more precise and more damning:

Tonight we debate the stolen generations - the claim that between 1910 and 1970 as many as 100,000 aboriginal children were stolen from caring parents for racist reasons.

Robert [Manne] says the figure is actually lower. He suggests one in 10 Aboriginal children were stolen from 1910, and estimates the total number at up to 25,000.

But what do we mean by “stolen”. Let me tell how Robert has defined it.

Says he: “It was not from harm that the mixed-descent children were rescued but from their Aboriginality.” (1)

And, he said in one essay, this was overseen by authorities who “wished, in part through the child removal policy, to help keep White Australia pure”.

So, he adds: The “stolen generations is for Aboriginal Australians what the term Holocaust was for the Jews’’. (2)

Fact: not one “stolen generations” activist has ever been able to produce even 10 examples of these children stolen from their parents by officials just because they were Aboriginal, and not because they needed care.

Fact: not one of the many court cases since involving “stolen generations” claimants has found there was a policy to remove children just for being Aboriginal. Those findings apply particularly to Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. An Aboriginal-led Stolen Generations Taskforce concluded that in Victoria, too: ”there was no formal policy for removing children”.

Think of the Aboriginal children who have since paid with their lives for this “stolen generations” myth of the Left:

Just ask the New South Wales Child Death Review Team, which investigated why Aboriginal children of drug addicts were 10 times more likely to die under the noses of welfare officers than were children of white addicts.

It blamed a fear of the “stolen generations”, pleading: “A history of inappropriate intervention with Aboriginal families should not lead now to an equally inappropriate lack of intervention for Aboriginal children at serious risk.’’

Or this one:

I quote from yesterday’s Australian:

A senior departmental official (said) the child involved was sexually abused at age seven and, as a safety measure, was put with various foster families, eventually ending up in 2005 with a non-indigenous family . . .

“These non-indigenous people were fantastic—ensuring she went to school, and the father actually took a year off his work to personally supervise this girl,” he said.

“But two new social workers were appointed to the north and they expressed the view, which was repeated many times to the investigating committee, that putting an indigenous child with white foster parents was another stolen generation . . .”

And so this girl was sent back to Aurukun, to be pack-raped again.

EDIT: added italics for easier understanding.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Hannibal

[stuie 7,374]

Isn't this a thread celebrating Adam Goodes winning Australian of the year?

Also, if I'm reading you're quotes and grabs how i think you want them to read, you're an absolute moron.

However, I think you're not clever enough to see the irony in you posting this rubbish.

[Hannibal 5,814]

Isn't this a thread celebrating Adam Goodes winning Australian of the year?

Also, if I'm reading you're quotes and grabs how i think you want them to read, you're an absolute moron.

However, I think you're not clever enough to see the irony in you posting this rubbish.

It started that way, but it became a more elaborate discussion, as threads often do ?

As for me trying to guess how you interpret posts you'll perhaps appreciate that I couldn't possibly imagine how you process stuff. One of life's blessings.

But you're welcome to share.

[ijbfossil 77]

Goodesy not doing himself any favours in over doing the Indigenous Aussies bit as Aust of the Year - far more to focus on in the role you have been given Adam.

[hardtack 10,126]

Goodesy not doing himself any favours in over doing the Indigenous Aussies bit as Aust of the Year - far more to focus on in the role you have been given Adam.

What exactly is he supposed to do in the role he has been given?

[ijbfossil 77]

You AGAIN hardtack - are you stalking me.

He is supposed to be an ambassador and role model for all Australians - not just the Indigenous Australians and bang on about their cause all the time.

Go Dees.

[hardtack 10,126]

You AGAIN hardtack - are you stalking me.

He is supposed to be an ambassador and role model for all Australians - not just the Indigenous Australians and bang on about their cause all the time.

Go Dees.

Ask you a couple of questions and you think I'm stalking you? If you don't want people questioning you, don't post... simple. Anyway, why was Goodes nominated and made Australian of the year? Do you think it may have had something to do with his stance on racism? As a result, don't you think he may have a "mandate" to represent his people? And what exactly has he been "banging on about"? I can't say I've noticed him much in the news.

[ijbfossil 77]

Happy to take any questions.

Not so sure it was his stance on racism - however probably did have something to do with his heritage - that got him the "gong".

I admire the guy - but if you have been reading the media he has had too much to say about racism and been criticised by others as well for it - and has not said anything else. His role is to represent all Australian people no matter there background.

I repeat I do admire Adam - just spread it around a bit more - e.g. say something about the horrible Malaysian plane crime and the Aussies killed and his feelings for their grieving relatives.

I still admire the guy - just with the benefit of hindsight maybe not the best choice as Aussie of the year.

[hardtack 10,126]

Happy to take any questions.

Not so sure it was his stance on racism - however probably did have something to do with his heritage - that got him the "gong".

I admire the guy - but if you have been reading the media he has had too much to say about racism and been criticised by others as well for it - and has not said anything else. His role is to represent all Australian people no matter there background.

I repeat I do admire Adam - just spread it around a bit more - e.g. say something about the horrible Malaysian plane crime and the Aussies killed and his feelings for their grieving relatives.

I still admire the guy - just with the benefit of hindsight maybe not the best choice as Aussie of the year.

It is an award, not a job... from the Wiki page on the award: "Nothing comes with this office except an inscribed chunk of green glass. There's no title; no stipend; no uniform; no official residence; nothing to pin in the lapel; and only the haziest of duties. What the winners are given is a voice."

Sure it might be nice if he were to comment on the shooting down of MH17, but it is NOT his responsibility to do so.

[nutbean 8,837]

It is an award, not a job... from the Wiki page on the award: "Nothing comes with this office except an inscribed chunk of green glass. There's no title; no stipend; no uniform; no official residence; nothing to pin in the lapel; and only the haziest of duties. What the winners are given is a voice."

Sure it might be nice if he were to comment on the shooting down of MH17, but it is NOT his responsibility to do so.

Not that I disagree with the choice but we would be naive to think that there was no agenda in his appointment and even more naive to not realise what his major theme would be when they appointed him.

Edited August 1, 2014 by nutbean

[hardtack 10,126]

No that I disagree with the choice but we would be naive to think that there was no agenda in his appointment and even more naive to not realise what his major theme would be when they appointed him.

Exactly... in fact, go to the Australian of the Year website and you will see precisely why he was given the gong.

[ijbfossil 77]

It is an award, not a job... from the Wiki page on the award: "Nothing comes with this office except an inscribed chunk of green glass. There's no title; no stipend; no uniform; no official residence; nothing to pin in the lapel; and only the haziest of duties. What the winners are given is a voice."

Sure it might be nice if he were to comment on the shooting down of MH17, but it is NOT his responsibility to do so.

Fair enough - why bother with the award then?

[hardtack 10,126]

Fair enough - why bother with the award then?

Why bother with any award?... it's simply recognition for what the winner has achieved or excelled at in their particular field. Can't say it means a lot to me, but I'm happy to see him recognised for his efforts.

[ijbfossil 77]

So why not Michael Clarke, Mitch Johnson, Gary Ablett, Adam Scott, Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey??????????????????????

[nutbean 8,837]

So why not Michael Clarke, Mitch Johnson, Gary Ablett, Adam Scott, Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey??????????????????????

Because they weren't nominated ? Have a look at the criteria for the award and then revisit the names you just suggested.