Racism is alive and well

I’m watching Lateline at the moment which has a story about a group of young Aboriginal leaders asked to leave an Alice Springs resort where they were attending a first-aid course sponsored by Lifesaving Australia.

According to Lateline the group of mostly young Aboriginal women and children were asked to leave a backpacker’s hostel, which they had booked because they needed a pool to do their course, after Asian guests complained to management they were scared of Aborigines. The women are considered young leaders in their communities.

This will no doubt be a big story tomorrow and it will be interesting to see how the racist filth on A Western Heart and the News Corp websites’ reader comments react to this, especially as they’re unable to hide behind their petty arguments against Sorry Day such as “it was a long time ago”.

Let’s see the excuses they rattle out like how the “Abo’s must have something wrong” or how hotel staff were misunderstood by a bunch of oversensitive “Abos” with chips on their shoulders. Interestingly the racist filth will be in a hell of a quandry if it’s proven that it was Asian tourists who complained to management - we’ll be able to see which race they hate more?

So, where are the tax-money police?

 

The Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty has revealed the bungled terrorism case against Dr Mohamed Haneef cost the Australian taxpayer more than $7.5 million.

When you look at the cast of hundreds employed to prosecute the doctor on terrorism related charges, I’m amazed it didn’t cost at least twice as much. Commissioner Keelty told a senate estimates hearing in Canberra that the following law enforcement recources were employed in the case:

- 249 Federal Police officers
- 225 Queensland Police officers
- 54 WA Police officers
- 40 NSW Police officers
- 2 NT Police officers
- 1 Tasmanian Police officer
- 2 UK police posted in Australia
- 12 Federal Attorney General’s Department officers
- 6 Australian Customs officers
- 6 translators
- 4 officers from other agencies
- And a partridge in a pear tree.

Beware the Rudd haters - Part II

 

This whole “Sorry” thing has really brought out the ugly side of Australia. Despite the fact our government did say sorry and many, hopefully the majority, agreed, you can’t deny the multitudes of people who feel our country has been “destroyed” this week because we dared to formally acknowledge past injustices.

 Which begs the question. How much of this angry reaction to Sorry would have aired its ugly self if John Howard caved in and said it? I ask this because the same people who jammed the posts on news web sites and talk back radio are actually criticising Rudd for visiting East Timor, at the request of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao after the attempted assination of him and President Jose Ramos Horta.

I’m sure if Rudd did an emergency tracheomety on a four year old girl using a pen knife and biro saving her life these fuckwits will have sneering negative comment to make about it like :

What now Rudd, are you going to say sorry now you cut that girl’s throat. Are you going to pay her compo? 
Posted by Fuck Knuckle, Frankston South

So let’s see some of the missives of insightfulness posted on the Herald Sun website today in response to Rudd’s trip to East Timor to show Australia was ready to continue supporting our near neighbour.

The next step is learning more about Indigenous culture

 

Now that Sorry has been said I hope Kevin Rudd comes good on his attempts to go forward and really fix the problems that put Aboriginal Australians at such a disadvantage. What needs to be done is for better people than me decide, but I feel one thing we can do at our end is learn a bit more about Indigenous Australia.

For example I can say hello and order “two beers please” in several languages but I have never learned a basic greeting in any Aboriginal dialect. I can name a dozen native American and African tribal nations, but not the different Aboriginal ones apart from a couple that were local to the area that is now Melbourne.

A couple of years back a friend of mine who was studying Indigenous affairs and showed me a map of Australia divided into many different segments that had no relationship with our state borders. I amazed to discover it was a map of Aboriginal Australia, with the dozens of coloured “nations” showing the territories of different Indigenous peoples.

Why not say Sorry? Oh yeah, you’re an arsehole.

 

The apology to the Stolen Generations may not mean much to many white Australians, but it means a lot to the Indigenous peoples. So why begrudge them of this? If you don’t feel guilty or sorry than simply shut the fuck up and get on with life. Why be angry? How will your life change?

Some of the reader comments in the Herald Sun show a lot of anger by people who are nothing more than racist arseholes bullshitting on about the Rudd Government turning Australia into a pathetic nation of apologists.

Here’s some snippets of insightfulness. I make no apologies for giving these comments and the people making them the contempt they deserve, or for how I phrase it.

How Rudd will say ‘Sorry’

 

Kevin Rudd has admitted saying sorry to the Aboriginal stolen generation is becoming really tough. No, he hasn’t had a change of heart and gone all John Howard or The Fonz on us, he’s just having trouble choosing the right words.

Lets go forward in time to preempt how Rudd will present the apology.

After a week-long think tank involving his best speech writers and political advisors along with a string of consultants including constitutional lawyers, corporate communciations specialists, Indigenous elders and journalists, the prime minister is handed the final of more than 1oo drafts of the apology.