Last year Paul Norton wrote with some sadness and much asperity “Is David Burchell brain-dead?”
Referring to the particular column which prompted the post, Paul contrasted ex-communist Burchell’s stance with the positions taken by anti-communist Robert Manne thusly:
David Burchell’s column, by contrast, repeatedly trivialises left-liberal positions on those issues and complacently denigrates those who hold such views.
Well, Burchell appears to be at it again, holding up as if it is an entirely new concept that the panoply of social ills afflicting many indigenous communities are more a product of poverty than of racism per se, because many of the same problems afflict the non-indigenous urban poor.
It’s true that some remote Aboriginal communities, caught in a morass of isolation, neglect and joblessness, have sunk to levels of dysfunction unknown to white Australians.
Yet dysfunction is remarkably colour-blind. If, as we did until relatively recently, you put white families, preselected for their turbulent family histories, into welfare ghettoes on the fringes of the main cities, they will struggle to hold their lives together, too. And then, exactly like indigenous families, they will weave narratives of defeat and despair to console them for their marginality.
Unlike Burchell, I’m not a literary academic writing in the area of public policy, and have only a few undergraduate course credits in social studies from the early 80s under my belt, yet I’d be amazed if he could point to one, single, solitary social studies course which did not identify poverty as the primary component of social disadvantage in blackfella communities here in Australia (as well as in communities of colour amongst our immigrant population and in other nations as well). That correlation with poverty, and particularly de facto ghettoised poverty, has never been in contention. The question he studiously avoids is – why is there such a strong correlation in so many countries between socioeconomic class and the melanin content of one’s skin?
Of course, the reason he frames his column in this manner is to avoid addressing racism while tossing some sparkle over the idea that social welfare programs should treat all poverty equally i.e. don’t give indigenous Australians any more aid than any other poor Australian receives. In doing so Burchell’s doing exactly the same two-step that Paul identified above: trivialising the poverty effect on indigenous people (paying lip-service to the long-standing anthropological observation that racism intersects with poverty to generate extra layers of discrimination and lost opportunity), while simultaneously denigrating those views as holding up Aboriginal communities as suffering “mysterious spiritual ailments”.
There’s nothing mysterious about the notion that living surrounded by a miasma of racist socialisation is a special emotional burden that affects the mental health of indigenous Australians more than any other group in our country. There’s also nothing inherently unequal with spending extra public money targeting a social group with the poorest health outcomes and the lowest levels of literacy in the country: surely the whole idea of a social security program is that the neediest get the most, not that everyone gets the same.
The question of whether the non-indigenous poor should get more than they currently do is separate. The question of whether any initiatives that are successful in addressing certain indigenous community dysfunctions should be extended to non-indigenous communities is also separate (and certainly should be kept so until we see whether mooted programs like sequestering welfare payments actually do effectively address dysfunctions in any indigenous communities, leaving aside the ethics of trialling these untested approaches in the most vulnerable communities as irrelevant in the face of a fait accompli).
At least Burchell acknowledges that there might just be a problem in evaluating the effectiveness of such measures (what factors will be measured, exactly?) to see whether they are “working” or not. But then, just in case anyone was in any doubt about the wafting fug of brain-deadness, he goes for this pearler:
Until relatively recently, social policy professionals liked to maintain a fiction that white and black communities lived in different moral universes. At its worst this approach became, to borrow a phrase from French essayist Bernard-Henri Levy, the “racism of the anti-racists”.
White communities, it was said, had a thing called domestic violence, which sprang from the determination of white men to keep their wives subservient to them.
Black communities, on the other hand, had something called family violence. This, according to the official narrative, sprang out of a heritage of white racism and colonial dispossession, and was no reflection on Aboriginal men themselves.
As a result, black domestic violence was rarely talked about, or even acknowledged, until recently. Indeed, the main statistical report on violence against women in Australia, published back in 1996, does not even contain the words Aboriginal or indigenous.
In reality, as is now haltingly being acknowledged, domestic violence is much the same phenomenon in black and white communities. In both cases a sense of powerlessness on the part of individual men is often perversely allied to a need to impose power on their families.
Apart from many blank assertions in the quoted section above about the alleged “official narrative”, note the huge ambit claim: apparently only poor people have domestically abusive relationships on David Burchell’s planet. Domestic violence initiated by anyone other than socially powerless men is seemingly non-existent. Apart from the many women who have escaped abusive relationships with men holding status positions in our society, I suspect a few Male Rights advocates would object to male victims of domestic violence being made invisible as well. Isolation in manicured suburbia can hide just as many nasty secrets from the Average Australian Urban Voter as remoteness in regional districts has done.
The claim that black domestic violence against women has been hardly acknowledged until recently is a flat out untruth if he is still speaking of social policy professionals. That domestic and sexual violence in some indigenous communities has not previously been widely publicised in the mainstream media is not the same thing at all as it not being acknowledged by social policy professionals (note the predecessors to the Little Children Are Sacred report and how little public ripple they had), and Burchell must know this full well.
Burchell says that a 1996 report does not contain the words Aboriginal or indigenous – why does that make me wonder whether he actually read the report instead of just doing a word search on it? I can’t find the full report online myself, only a summary, so I can’t check Burchell’s claim. Still, seeing that the study was performed in 1996 and released in 1997 on the watch of the government that responded to Paul Memmott’s Violence in Indigenous Communitiesreport (submitted in 1999) with a 2001 press release and a subsequent announcement by John Howard personally of $1 million plan to address “petrol sniffing in the NT” without using the words indigenous or Aboriginal once, perhaps it’s not actually the social policy professionals’ fault that those words aren’t in the published version of the 1996 Women’s Safety Australia report.
However, it’s trivially easy to note that more recent reports refer to indigenous communities when discussing intimate partner violence and violence against children all the time: perhaps rather than left-liberals being blind to these figures indicating higher-risk, they are in fact the people who first brought attention to them, maybe to the point where an even more arguable scenario than Burchell’s blind left-liberals is one where the Howard government decided that if it couldn’t bury the figures any longer they might as well make political capital from them?
Of course, the same social-policy academics also produced this report in 2000 (building on plenty of earlier work) noting that domestic violence in all rural and remote communities, whether indigenous or not, is significantly higher than the Australian norm, which Burchell fails to mention either.
In his eagerness to dismiss the importance of racial identity and resultant discrimination as an integral part of the dysfunction of certain indigenous communities, and thus the crucial importance of accounting for racial identity in any process purported to address that dysfunction, Burchell has significantly trivialised every issue he’s highlighted in this column. Shame on him.
It depends on how you define the social group. If you’re going to contend that race (or other divisive mechanism) has no practical impact on ones potential as a human being, then it makes no sense to arbitrarily assign funding on that basis. By assigning resources on the basis of current situation, you will achieve appropriate levels of funding within the worse off social groups (regardless of what caused the situation) without allocating funding to those within the arbitrary social group who are not in need of it, and without denying the funding to those who do need it yet fall outside the arbitrary social group.
Have any social researchers in Australia tried to quantify the impacts of racism on indigenous Australians? I believe it is “statistically significant” but not as important as either poverty or cultural dysfunction. I think all three things feed into each other but cultural dysfunction is much more important than the other two. Let’s remember that Jews have historically been subject to appalling racism yet wherever they have had a sniff of an opportunity to pull themselves out of poverty they have used it. The same with the Chinese, whose businesses were subject to racist laws during Australia’s gold rush era because they were doing too well.
Indigenous culture obviously lacks certain attributes such as a determination on the part of parents to ensure children receive the best possible education. Cultural dysfunction such as this, in my opinion, is what does most to hold indigenous Australians back. Nonetheless, racism undoubtedly also plays some role.
There has always been a difference between the racism expressed towards immigrant populations (Jews/Chinese) and that expressed towards a conquered indigenous population. Dispossession through colonialism is a very different intergenerational heritage than the heritage of a choice to emigrate and assimiliate to a new culture.
You have also chosen two populations who have been literate & mercantile cultures for millennia to contrast with an indigenous population who were neither before colonisation, and who were actively discouraged from becoming either unless they gave up their people’s culture entirely until 40 years ago. Funnily enough, people who learn literacy and commerce literally at the grandparents’ knees DO have a rather strong advantage over people whose families have no heritage of either of those skillsets.
I am dissapointed that Tigtog or another L.P.er has not challenged Mel’s comment, so I will.
“Indigenous culture obviously lacks certain attributes such as a determination on the part of parents to ensure children receive the best possible education.” – this is clearly racist.
Also, Tigtog. You are very wrong when you to say that Aboriginal culture was not mercantile. This Terra Nullius economics not only denies the sophisticated economy and market of pre-colonial society but it places blame on deficiencies in Aboriginal culture rather than the excesses of colonial culture. The reason there is no economic base in Aboriginal society is not because the concept is culturally foreign but because of the massacres, small pox and land clearing of the 19th century and the mass internments for most of the 20th century. Aboriginal dispossession is a consequence of Imperial war, not Aboriginal cultural naivity or dysfunctionality.
What John said about Mel’s expression of avoidable ignorance.
As for whether the pre-colonial Aboriginal economy and society was mercantile, I’ll bow to the authority of someone with greater anthropological knowledge than myself, and also wait for tigtog and John to clarify what they each intended to convey by the use of this term.
You’re quite right that the statement is clearly racist. My intent was to challenge everything Mel said with my response about intergenerational accumulation of advantages, but obviously what I wrote was inadequate.
To clarify my use of “mercantile” – I have no doubt that there were sophisticated systems of barter operating to distribute surplus food and goods amongst Aboriginal groups before the colonial invasion. To me a market is not mercantile until it develops accounting systems which allow for the creation & inheritance of actual wealth as measured by the medium of exchange. This may not accord with accepted jargon usage – if it doesn’t, then what’s a better term?
Tigtog,
I agree with your definition of market economy but you are still blinded by Terra Nullius consciousness. Your primitive notion of barter for surplus foods and goods is a colonial reduction of Aboriginality in the mold of the uncivilised savage.
This is a big complex field and a quick google is inadequate to deal with it, but here is a couple of glimpses.
from the S.A. museum
http://www.atlas.sa.gov.au/go/resources/atlas-of-south-australia-1986/the-course-of-settlement/aboriginal-occupation
“Aboriginal people were extensive traders, and with various media of exchange or money equivalents, they traded goods over long distances. ‘Roads’ or trade routes have existed for probably thousands of years, with centres of exchange growing up at key locations long before Europeans arrived.”
from Tyson Yunkaporta
http://aboriginalrights.suite101.com/article.cfm/aboriginal_drug__pituri
“Pituri, not only an Aboriginal drug, but also Aboriginal currency. Pictured is a pre-colonial order form for Pituri, from the days when we had our own sophisticated forms of print literacy and written numeracy for business documents (message sticks), prior to European invasion.”
I’ll also take a moment to address Desipis’ weird phrasing above:
Asserting that race SHOULD have no practical impact on one’s potential as a human being does not mean pretending that community attitudes to race actually do not have any practical impact on one’s opportunities to realise one’s potential as a human being. People advocating a “colourblind” approach are simply obscuring systemic racism and covert discrimination.
p.s
The inheritance of actual wealth is the essence of land rights and traditional ownership.
John, thanks for the information. I knew something of the extensive trade systems, but didn’t realise they involved forms of currency as much as they appear to have done.
So, to adjust my rebuttal to Mel: Mel is contrasting two populations (Jewish and Chinese) which have uninterrupted traditions of literate and mercantile cultures with an indigenous population in which all traces of pre-existing literacy and mercantile systems were actively suppressed since colonisation until 40 years ago.
Exactly. European colonisation all over the globe has stripped indigenous people of their inherited wealth and then blames the indigenous for not building the advantages that inherited wealth confers for themselves from scratch.
Great summary of the situation in that last sentence, tigtog. Mel should also be ashamed of her/him self.
My comment indigenous Australian behaviour as it pertains to education is merely a statement of fact. Tigtog at #3 appears to acknowledge it is a fact then provide a sound explanation for why it is so but then goes on to label me racist at #6 anyway.
Candid explanations of indigenous disadvantage are not possible within today’s left-liberal mainstream and this will hinder the development of solutions.
adrian at 9, “mel” is our old friend Steve Munn/melaleuca, back with a new nickname but the same old views.
Don’t forget that aborigines were denied access to higher education until fairly recently. In SA and no doubt other states, the melanin content of one’s skin precluded training to be a nurse or for other professions or trades.
The same discrimination has been experienced by other indigenous groups in places such as the Americas and Africa, along with the systematic destruction of their respective cultures.
It makes it pretty hard to maintain a determination to get you and your children an education designed to get out of the ghetto, under those circumstances.
tigtog @8, I agree with what you’re saying. And they seem to be judged by a higher standard than we apply to ourselves. eg the assumption that all black Australians are lazy, dole bludging, criminal alcoholics, when that is clearly not the case.
There was an article published by an American journo some time ago, where she itemised the unconscious racism white people subscribed to in relation to African Americans. For the life of me I can’t list a single one, but I’m sure there are others who don’t seem to have Alzheimer’s on this thread, who will probably remember the article.
I certainly do not acknowledge as a fact that the education gap for indigenous Australians is due to anything as simply reductive and morally judgemental as some sort of “lack of determination” on the part of parents with respect to their children’s education.
“European colonisation all over the globe has stripped indigenous people of their inherited wealth and then blames the indigenous for not building the advantages that inherited wealth confers for themselves from scratch.”
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t indigenous Australians on native title holdings have worse outcomes in areas like poverty, health, suicide etc than indigenous Australians in major cities?
I’ve said all along that indigenous disadvantage is primarily a structural problem- it is what happens time and time again when a primitive society (hunter-gatherer) is colonised by a more advanced society. The problem is when I point out certain cultural dysfunctions the luvvies interpret it as me allocating blame. I’m not- it has nothing to do with any innate quality of indigenous peoples themselves.
Tigtog (and Paul),
Thanks, I can now agree with you on that point. I couldn’t find a convenient link to stone axes and knives as currency but they were important too – they had a trading value not connected to the cost of production or demand for that particular tool. They were currency. Ceremonial use of the tool was value adding to its tradable value too. There is a lot of talk about pituri as a currency because of the shock value of the drug trade being a central pillar of Aboriginal economy, but the tools were a central currency too (and probably many other things I am not aware of).
One of the major disruptions to the traditional economy was the introduction of steel axes, shovels and picks which, because of their high value in the Aboriginal economy, were a common item for cross cultural trade. The John Batman treaty for Melbourne consisted mainly of a yearly supply of tools.
However, the introduction of steel tools affected the economy the same as if a foreign country today built a mint in Australia, or a factory that produced gold bullion from coal, dual powering our present currency system. Because of the availability of the new tools the old currency subsided as did the trading value of the new tools.
Similarly, credit plays a very big role in the traditional economy but it is very complex and overlaps with non-market forces and structures so I wont begin to try and explain here.
As for Jews and Chinese, a big difference is that Aboriginal people were incarcerated for over 70 years – several generations. Unlike the Jews, who were released within one generation, surviving Aboriginal people did not have a homeland to return to upon release from internment.
Through the much publicised predicaments of a number of detained refugees in Australia we are aware of the mental health consequences of internment for several years. Many refugess have needed intensive medical care as a consequence of their detention for a few years. Intergenerational trauma in Aboriginal society has to be understood in terms of the socialising effect of 3 or 4 generations within concentration camps such as the missions and reserves.
The mental health needs, above and beyond market experience, of Aboriginal Australia puts it in a distinctly different category to Jews, Chinese or even white homeless people in our city streets.
Where I tend to disagree with Tigtog is on the colour blindness of dysfunction. I have refered to Aileen Moreton Robinson on another thread, her assertion that white people do not see our own whiteness is valid. The white ethic is “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – an inherently assimilationist ethic that places the (white) observer as the definer of reality and anything that is white and familiar to the white person is “normal” or even universal. In this sense colour blindness to our own culture is indeed a big part of dysfunction.
An example – Aboriginal deaths in custody.
The prison system is, according to deaths in custody statistics, colourblind. There is approximately the same per capita rate of deaths in custody for Aboriginal prisoners as for non-Aboriginal prisoners. The dysfunction lies in the prison, not in the culture of the prisoner. Prison kills indiscriminately.
However, an Aboriginal person is between 12 and 27 times (from memory) more likely to be arrested than a white person, depending on where they live. The high Aboriginal arrest rate and consequent high imprisonment rate and consequent high death in custody rate is a direct result of police culture and practice, not any cultural dysfunction of Aboriginal people.
While there are many racist dogs amongst the police force they are not all like that. The greater racism (from a Queensland perspective) is the Beattie/Bligh government who maintain genocidal policies such as grog restrictions. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody asserted, perhaps more emphatically than any other point, that alcoholim should be decriminalised as the criminalisation of drunkenness was the prime cause of deaths in custody. The commission reccomended a broad health and healing paradigm for alcoholism. However for the last 5 years the single Aboriginal policy of the Qld, government has been the imposition of grog prohibition and the primary agency of Aboriginal policy has been the police force. The government knows, through the RCIADIC that their policies will lead to many more Aboriginal deaths but they persist with their genocide because, in their white colour blindness such a genocidal policy appears normal to white society.
It is colourblindness to look at Aboriginal communities to see how deaths in custody might reduce. When the scales fall from our eyes we will refocus our attention on the white culture of the police, prisons, governments and public servants. But at present all these agencies are not even on our radar in terms of public policy.
Tigtog,
How then do you explain indigenous student absenteeism rates? http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/iae/analysis/learning/1/absenteeism.htm
What would you’re parents have done if you wagged school? I never dared as it would’ve meant being beaten from breakfast to bedtime.
A persons race may result in them being unfairly discriminated against and I have no problem with systems that address this. The issue I have is the assumption that a person has been discriminated against solely on the basis of their race.
Just as its unfair to judge indigenous peoples by the values of western culture, I think its unfair to judge those from colonial times in the context of modern culture and values.
It worries me how often observations of trends in a culture or race are demonised with terms such as ‘racist’.
It’s still not as simplistic as just a “lack of determination” from the parents, Mel. Indigenous families who consciously reject the utility of education for their children due to a disengagement from mainstream culture are actually showing a great deal of determination, even if you judge it to be mis-applied.
I’m not claiming that there are no indigenous parents who are simply apathetic about education, just as there are many poor non-indigenous parents who are simply apathetic about education. Apathetic parents tend to be the substance abusers and /or suffering depression or other mental illnesses, which have a higher rate of occurrence amongst the poor. To say that the reaction of apathy is somehow unique to indigenous people rather than a reflection of their over-representation amongst the poor is to miss the point rather badly.
Well I agree with everything you write there and I’m not quite sure how it in any way contradicts what I said about how those advocating “colourblindness” have the effect of OBSCURING systemic racism and covert discrimination.
Some of the classic work in sociology of education in Britain and Australia in the 70s and 80s found “disengagement” from school was more likely to be a choice made by the child (we’re talking about high school kids here) than their parents and was strongly correlated with class. When factory and labouring jobs were what was on offer for boys (and secretarial jobs or marriage for girls) most of the curriculum was perceived as irrelevant, and the “hidden curriculum” was experienced as an assertion of middle class privilege and power by teachers whose background was very different from the kids and their parents. It’s argued that in light of the actual prospects for social mobility, this can be seen as a rational choice.
“To say that the reaction of apathy is somehow unique to indigenous people rather than a reflection of their over-representation amongst the poor is to miss the point rather badly.”
Ummm. I never said it was unique. Nor do I dismiss the causal factors you cite as being behind the lack of determination. I pinpoint the “lack of determination” because it needs to be addressed in itself- whether this means addressing the underlying causal factors you identify is beside the point.
That’s what I’m arguing against, mel. It may be that the focus on parents’ determination or otherwise to send kids to school is the wrong way around. It may also be that the kids don’t perceive what they’re being taught as relevant, and there’s too large a gap between the teachers’ expectations and culture and the kids’ lived experience.
Obviously health, housing and nutritional factors (among others) also contribute to poor education outcomes. But it’s quite wrong to ascribe all these to some lack of “determination” on the part of parents rather than to stronger and mutually reinforcing structural causes.
“What would you’re parents have done if you wagged school? I never dared as it would’ve meant being beaten from breakfast to bedtime.”
Mel, that is really sad. It is just extraordinary that after such an authoritarian upbringing you would wish to perpetrate the same cruel treatment on others.
Did you try therapy?
“It worries me how often observations of trends in a culture or race are demonised with terms such as ‘racist’.”
I would agree with that absolutely, although when someone makes blanket statements about any group, well…..
Education wasn’t highly valued in the community I grew up in. You were expected to leave school at 15 and get a job. The apathy came from a belief that one had a “place” and that education wasn’t as important as doing real work (i.e. manual labour). In recent years, things have changed for the better and for the worse in said community. That is, some have fallen through the net and become part of the “underclass” (a class not known for pushing education) and some have experienced upward mobility (and embraced education).
How can a person think about education when they are barely getting by?
“When factory and labouring jobs were what was on offer for boys…”
If the children believe these are the only jobs on offer it is because they have had that idea inculcated into them by their parents. Wave after wave of immigrant parents have worked in factories but inculcated into their children the belief that they could be doctors, lawyers or whatever and it has worked.
I read some of those “classic works” by RW Connell etc and I was never convinced, being a product of the anglo-saxon rural lumpenproletariat myself.
How many of those immigrants actually *were* doctors and lawyers before they came to Australia and couldn’t find work in that field? Or at least came from families where they had relatives who were doctors & lawyers? When they go to worship, how many of their community actually are doctors & lawyers?
That’s still a very different acculturation to education than coming from generations of people who have no such professionals hanging around anywhere on any branch of the family tree. It’s extremely difficult to adequately guide your kids in their educational path and elective choices etc without knowing people who’ve already done it who are also people you trust to advise you well.
“Education wasn’t highly valued in the community I grew up in. You were expected to leave school at 15 and get a job. The apathy came from a belief that one had a “place” and that education wasn’t as important as doing real work (i.e. manual labour). In recent years, things have changed for the better and for the worse in said community. That is, some have fallen through the net and become part of the “underclass” (a class not known for pushing education) and some have experienced upward mobility (and embraced education).”
That was my experience of the rural anglo-saxon lumpenproletariat. It was a lugubrious and self-defeating place. But then you say:
“How can a person think about education when they are barely getting by?”
I disagree with that. Parents with a strong education ethic will do extraordinary things to ensure their children get ahead. They’ll skip meals and wear second hand clothes if that’s what it takes- I’ve seen it happen.
But back onto “structural matters”, some kids will never be high paid professionals and society needs its street cleaners and ditch diggers as much as it needs its doctors and lawyers. Folks in those occupations deserve respect and should never be dismissed as failures.
Tigtog @ 22,
Well we have a strange paradox then because I generally agree with the Burchell article for the reasons that you agree with.
Racism has nothing to do with melanin, it is a matter of imperialism and colonisation – historical and economic forces. The Irish Aborigines are white and the most imperialist nation on earth is about to elect a black president.”
I believe those who focus on personal racism are those who obscure the true nature of the situation for it ignores the historical and structural issues. A clear example of this is the ANTAR “racism makes me sick” campaign which is encouraging white homes and workplaces to watch their language so they dont stress out any Aborigines and exascerbate their health problems – white, self serving bullshit! http://www.antar.org.au/racism
I strongly agree with Burchells parting comment….”White liberals like to wax lyrical about how much there is for us to learn from traditional Aboriginal culture. Maybe we can learn from the contemporary disasters of Aboriginal society, too.” I think this was the point of his article.
Christ no, of course they shouldn’t, mel. And some people get a lot of satisfaction out of manual and/or low-skilled employment.
The problem is when people are denied opportunities or are subject to structural disadvantage due to things like race (or are so excluded from society that can’t comprehend going to uni or whatever). This is something that’s deeply internalised. If a kid is talented (and I believe all kids are gifted, contrary to the rantings of some over-indulgent middle-class parents) but has no support systems and no enouragement and no sense of being part of the community, it’d be a hard road indeed to transcend that.
“I disagree with that. Parents with a strong education ethic will do extraordinary things to ensure their children get ahead. They’ll skip meals and wear second hand clothes if that’s what it takes- I’ve seen it happen.”
It’s true, of course it’s true, but what about the kids who don’t have parents like that? What about when structural disadvantage and racism and economic privation etc have left people unable to provide a strong education ethic?
Commenting on culture, which is inherently about trends not perfect assimilation, can hardly be called a blanket statement. Suggesting that there was a racist culture in the colonial age isn’t a blanket statement that all people in that time were racist.
Do children have the right to enjoy the fruits of their parents labor? Is it fair that one suffers because one’s parents were less effective (for whatever reason)?
I think you’re confusing opportunity with aspiration. I think a better question would be: How does one teach the value of education to a person or people that are not interested in learning? Further, if formal education does not form a part of a people’s culture is it right to enforce our value of education onto such people?
“What about when structural disadvantage and racism and economic privation etc have left people unable to provide a strong education ethic?”
That attitude robs people of hope, Darlene. I think it is entirely possible to have successful interventions in communities that are suffering those types of privations. Of course it would be better if you could wave a magic wand and provide adequate housing etc first but the problem is too urgent to wait for that.