While the comments threads attached to mainstream media articles on the web are usually best ignored, there’s a large thread about the deaths of four young boys in Western Australia that surely tells us some bad things about ourselves as a nation, as well as some bad things about us as human beings (and presumably tells us a lot about the tabloid newspaper and radio frenzy that’s feeding those views). Four boys respectively aged 10, 11, 15 and 17 are dead. It’s true the boys had done the wrong thing, but what sort of people think it’s acceptable to suggest that the boys got what they deserved? What sort of people would express such a view when the families and friends of these boys are no doubt mired in grief? Our family lost a young man due to a car accident caused by bad behaviour. He’d just turned 19 and he and his mates were coming home from the pub in the early hours of the morning. Dying was one hell of a price to pay. The boys who died on the weekend were Aboriginal. A lot of those people commenting will say that doesn’t make a bit of difference to their views. Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know they wouldn’t be so harsh if it was their loved ones who’d died. An item on ABC News says the following:
Michael Bruijn, who knew the boys through the Mandurah and Pinjarra football clubs, says they were promising footballers.
“Very talented, very quick, could use both sides of their body, very much aware of other players around them and how they could help them, just fantastic boys,” he said.
Update: The comments thread is now up to 1070 comments (as of 9.14pm). “Congratulations” to Perth Now for having one of the ugliest comments threads ever in the history of such things on their site. One participant talks about “karma”, but I wonder what will happen to them in the future for talking so horribly about these young lives lost.
Terribly sad. But who else to possibly blame apart from those who were inside the car?
Sure if they were my relatives id be in grief, but likewise if it was my car they stole i’d think they got what they deserved.
I’ve no sympathy for criminals, sorry. I work hard and obey the law, and I expect others in society to do the same. I certainly wouldn’t actively wish them dead, but seeing as it happened regardless, I am not about to lament the loss.
I don’t know Darlene, perhaps it is just very hard to feel sympathy for any group of boys who are running wild and being total idiots, steali8ng and wrecking cars is what people think about not the fact that the mothers and families are mourning for their deaths.
It is after all far easier to feel for the loss of a young person who is a example of virtue than one who is a delinquent.
The fact that these kids were Aboriginal ( Noongar) does make a difference. You are talking about generations of kids and young adults who think that pinching cars and going to gaol is a normal part of initiation to become a man. Its a tragedy that the level of dysfunction exists.
The history of vilification of Aboriginal people (in Perth especially) has a long history exacerbated by the only daily paper here – The West Australian. Positive stories are rarely reported.
[The history of vilification of Aboriginal people (in Perth especially) has a long history exacerbated by the only daily paper here - The West Australian. Positive stories are rarely reported.]
And broadcasters like Howard Sattler.
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/CRCC/gambling/notes.html
Fortunately their skylarking did not result in any other lives being lost. That said Darlene is right they paid an awful price and so have their families. It also needs to be remembered by some that no matter how they ended up dead 4 human lives have been needlessly lost.
This conservative will leave the politics of how I would like to see these problems solved aside and just say I hope soon we find a way to make Aboriginal youth value their lives more highly so that they don’t engage in this behaviour so often.
And the revenant in the corner of the post is waiting for someone to name it. They were Indigenous: race, race, race.
You cant look at this without citing race as a factor for the harsh condemnatory remarks. As far as I have read down, about half of the posts mention race, either defensively, by way of saying its not about race (if its not, why mention it?) or directly.
And much of this commentary is therefore an example of racism wearing the cloak of indignant outrage at these kids’ crimes. If these kids were white, it would be a different response. I have seen nowhere near the level of condemnation directed at Scott Rush, who sits on death row in Indonesia and who had an extensive criminal record inc drug possession, fraud and theft, all by the age of 19 and well prior to the Bali situation. And that is a good thing. Because fraud, drug possession and theft, let alone being a drug mule does not in any sane way, require the death of Scott Rush, as an equal punishment for his crime.
Be serious. Who in their right mind would say they deserved it (as many posters are doing), under any circumstance, unless some other factor is driving this irrationality?
In order to say that death is a just punishment for car theft, you have to absent the humanity of the subject in question. You just cannot equate the two. Its about as rational as transporting people for life to these shores for stealing a loaf of bread. But dehumanise people for whatever reason and you can say it with ease. Racism can only operate with precisely such dehumanisation.
“This conservative will leave the politics of how I would like to see these problems solved aside and just say I hope soon we find a way to make Aboriginal youth value their lives more highly so that they don’t engage in this behaviour so often.”
But you didn’t, Kingsley, and spent a lot of time saying you wouldn’t.
I appreciate what you’re saying, Steve. Although two of those kids were little kids; just 10 and 11.
As I said, they did the wrong thing and in a different world the little ones would’ve been tucked up in bed. I know all that’s true. It doesn’t matter, though. You know that sometimes boys behave badly, and these boys have paid such a terrible price for it. I just can’t get my head around the comments people are leaving on the website. I guess I am asking for a little sympathy and empathy from people. That’s not too much to ask surely.
Phew, I don’t know how to respond to that, Stephen. A car is a car. And I’d be pissed off if my car got stolen, but a car is an object. These kids will never have the chance to make things right or to do the things they loved to do (e.g. play footy). They’re not just the sum total of their last few hours on earth. They were so much more than that.
Iain, thanks for your comment. I have to ask; how many kids are examples of virtue? How many people reading this blog could’ve easily ended up in the same situation thanks to bad behaviour when they were little? How many people making comments on the newspaper site have done stupid things that could have cost them their lives or other people’s lives?
Thanks, cows. Good points. How does that negative initiation behaviour change, I wonder?
Well, I wonder what Mr Sattler has had to say about it? Perhaps it’d be best not to know.
Thanks, Kingsley. True that it’s good that others also didn’t lose their lives in the process.
Incidentally, I think the behaviour of “skylarking” in such a way is common among lots of boys and young men (particularly working-class boys).
How to channel that energy that they have at that age into something safer and more productive is a big question.
Certainly that’s something that men (Aboriginal men and other men) have to discuss.
Right now, it’s a time to pay respects and be respectful. It’s just so sad.
Yes, it would and it is. Boys and men in their mid-to-late teens (and, to a lesser extent, older) are constantly atomising themselves, often two or three at a time, in drunken road crashes all through the Adelaide Hills, from the Barossa Valley right around and through to the Southern Vales. The stats for that demographic in that region are quite alarming. But nobody ever mentions how white they are, and it sure as hell never makes the interstate papers.
Nicely put, Casey, and I agree. It’s the truth that nobody wants to speak. It does matter that they were Aboriginal.
The reporting would’ve been different (I’ve seen that difference). Race and class are the two issues that nobody was to admit matter anymore, but they matter just as much as they always have. The answers are complex and, as I said, I would like to see males discussing issues surrounding how best to confront such behaviours.
I didn’t take Kingsley’s comment in a negative way, Joe.
If you want to see Sattler in Action, here are 2 clips from the Documentry “demons At Drivetime”
How the producer picks the type of stories.
http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/demons-drivetime/clip1/
And the “Rally For Justice” which involves an indiginous Car Thief.
http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/demons-drivetime/clip2/
Darlene, I’m afraid I don’t and can’t appreciate what Steve is saying. He is effectively saying that the death of these young boys (10 and 11 years old) is OK because they made a morally wrong choice. They were not of an age to judge the moral consequences of their behaviour, but even if they were, they didn’t deserve to die for stealing a car. The comments on the Perth Now site that you link to are disgusting and have left me very cold.
There are many comments from the righteous (”I didn’t do this when I was young”, “I raised three good children” etc) who fail to appreciate that different circumstances lead to different behaviour, or that some children are more difficult and rebellious than others. But the worst comments are from the wingnuts who seem to actually glorify this tragedy – and there are enough of them.
This is a community tragedy that probably reflects the bankruptcy of our wider society, not just the Mandurah Noongar community. But from the comments at Perth Now and here I despair that we will learn anything from it.
“I didn’t take Kingsley’s comment in a negative way, Joe.”
Fair enough, for you, Darlene, but I am never thrilled by avowed “conservatives” who wish to “make” other people do the “right” things, particularly when they are from disadvantaged communities.
I am an older bloke now but as a kid I did the wrong thing often. Never stole a car but I certainly drove drunk. Broke other laws too. I took the punishments, when I was caught, and gradually changed my ways. Since then I have led a pretty productive life and have contributed enough to society to have been recognised for my efforts.
The death penalty for being a kid in a car that someone has stolen is a long way over the top. How could anyone ‘deserve’ death for that? The lack of sympathy for the families of the kids expressed in some comments is sad.
Look, I would hope for civil discussion, and I want to respect the rights of people to have their say. I don’t agree with what Steve had to say. The little boys can’t be blamed. They were little boys, and the older boys, well, they’re dead. Horrible price to pay.
I’m trying to keep things civil, I guess. I’m despairing too after reading that thread, Kevin. After all the people commenting on the WA site have had their say, it’s the families and friends who’ve got to live with this for the rest of their lives. I’m actually really shocked at the comments, which is why I wrote the post. Having watched the Sattler links perhaps I shouldn’t have been shocked. Some people thrive on this sort of thing. Howard apparently likes controversy and he likes things black and white.
Fair enough as well, Joe. I’m struggling to understand this whole thing, actually. These boys had it tough right from the start and now we’ve got adults condemning them. We’ve got a woman who says she’s a mother saying that she hopes that they donated their organs so they’ll finally do something right.
Jesus wept.
“The death penalty for being a kid in a car that someone has stolen is a long way over the top. How could anyone ‘deserve’ death for that? The lack of sympathy for the families of the kids expressed in some comments is sad.”
Thanks, Mangoman. Nicely put and thanks for your honesty about what you used to get up to when you were younger. I suspect lots of others did similar things and are now leading law-abiding lives.
For even an adult, stealing a car should not result in a death sentence. For children of that age, they can be barely held responsible for their actions, especially when it concerns a serious crime like stealing a car as they would be easily lead by others and unlikely to be able to do it by themselves. If you want to fingerpoint, it should be towards the families and the community environment that they live in.
However, I think many of the comments that are being put up on that website are are a backlash resulting from frustration at what people believe are inadequate sentences being handed out – it should be remembered that people driving stolen cars not only get themselves and their passengers killed, but innocent bystanders as well.
[Having watched the Sattler links perhaps I shouldn’t have been shocked. Some people thrive on this sort of thing. Howard apparently likes controversy and he likes things black and white. =]
I should point out that Sattler currently is the Drive announcer on 6PR and nothing has changed from 1990-91.
He also writes for Farfax Media’s WA Today where his “Blog” have been lampooned
In fact one of the posters, “Skink” has been banned by WA Today for upsetting the man’s feelings for stating a few home truths
http://blogs.watoday.com.au/madashell/
“The history of vilification of Aboriginal people (in Perth especially) has a long history exacerbated by the only daily paper here – The West Australian. Positive stories are rarely reported.”
The so-called vilification might have something to do with the extraordinarily high rates of crimes against person and property committed by Aborigines. If anything, Aboriginals who succeed, like many of our indigenous footballers, are singled out for special praise.
Remember the outpouring of hate surrounding the release of the ten year old murderers of James Bolger in England? What a shame the young murderers were white and thus could not hide behind confected allegations of racism.
Racism exists but the same of luvvies insist on trotting out such allegations even when the evidence is underwhelming.
What is as disgusting as racism, and false allegations of racism, is the callousness of folk such as Stephen Lloyd above who fail to acknowledge that if they were born in different circumstances they to would most likely have a chequered past.
No, it shouldn’t result in a death sentence.
Thanks, Chris. Your comments again make me wonder just what we can do about this. How we can stop it before it happens, if possible. There must be a better way to express frustration than targetting it at four dead boys, but frustration does make people say things that probably wouldn’t usually say. Perhaps they should take a step back and just get a sense of perspective.
I wonder if most of these youngsters (and they mostly seem to be young males) mostly kill themselves and their mates. Yes, others do die as well.
Howard’s blog is quite odd, and doesn’t seem to attract many comments. It’s called “Mad as Hell”. What a healthy way to go through one’s life, being as mad as hell.
And it must be said, Con, we don’t know what Stephen’s past is. Perhaps he did get up to some mischief.
I don’t really know about the circumstances surrounding the killers of Jamie Bulger. That’s another issue altogether, of course.
“And it must be said, Con, we don’t know what Stephen’s past is.”
Aberrant behaviour is normalised in most/many Aboriginal communities. I doubt Mr Lloyd was raised in such a hopelessly dysfunctional environment.
And here is Mr Sattler’s most famopus case of Racial Vilification.
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1437612.htm
[Update: The comments thread is now up to 1070 comments (as of 9.14pm). “Congratulations” to Perth Now for having one of the ugliest comments threads ever in the history of such things on their site.]
It should be noted that whenever there is an article where someone has been charged with a Criminal Offence, the Comments are disabled, but since there have been no charges laid (there is one survivour who has allegedly claimed on Ch 7 New Perth tonight that they were “Rammed”, so they sped up to get away from the ramming car) Perth Now in their iinfinate wisdom have encouraged comments.
Mmmm, I don’t think things are so clear cut as that. I don’t presume what Mr Lloyd’s past is. Perhaps his lack of sensitivity is a defence mechanism. Who knows? Abuse is a problem in Indigenous communities, I’m not going to b/s and say that’s not the case. Abuse is also common in other communities. And driving fast and killing yourself, as I mentioned earlier, isn’t unpopular among many males of all hues and colours. As I said earlier, I would like to see Aboriginal men play a role in guiding the boys in their communities.
Howard’s all class. And just so full of positive solutions. That kind of hatred is so tiring to listen to or read.
Perth Now should hang their head in shame, but they are probably rubbing their hands in glee at all the comments they received.
I’m going to say that we need to stay on-topic. This post is absolutely about an outrageous comments thread. It’s about the views expressed. It’s not about other things. There’s always (so many) opportunties to talk about the other issues (they are talked about and talked about, but how oddly some people react when the gaze is on “us” for a change).
“One participant talks about “karma”,…”…
Karma for being Aboriginal, I think you’ll find is the sentiment behind that remark…
There’s a repellent gloating quality to some of the comments on Perth Now, definitely.
When I was growing up in Newcastle there were plenty of lads who did “joy-riding” on the weekends. I remember that most of the boys at my school who went up in front of a magistrate for that came from families where the other brothers did not go “joy-riding”: although a minority did get caught while out with their big brothers it seemed to be something that certain boys did to differentiate themselves from their siblings rather than to copy them.
Of course, because the boys concerned were all Anglos (we had plenty of immigrant families, but their sons didn’t tend to go joyriding for their adolescent rebellious thrills) none of this sort of speculation about “those people” being inherently criminal or vandalous was ever indulged. They were just “black sheep” (yes, I do note the irony of that cliched phrase in the context of this particular discussion).
There is definitely a double standard in play here.
Compare the PerthNow reaction with the widespread outpouring of shock and grief over the 6 young people killed in Sydney’s boat joyride a couple months ago. They had alcohol, they were overcrowded, they were speeding on the water, they didn’t have lights on, they were of age. What have you got to say about their “karma”, PerthNow readers?
But since the young people who died weren’t Abos, I guess the boat joyride counts as a tragedy.
[Compare the PerthNow reaction with the widespread outpouring of shock and grief over the 6 young people killed in Sydney’s boat joyride a couple months ago. They had alcohol, they were overcrowded, they were speeding on the water, they didn’t have lights on, they were of age. What have you got to say about their “karma”, PerthNow
readers?]
And I’m pretty sure the boat was stolen as well.
Yep, don’t you love double standards in the Meeja, and what about those in the “posh” suburbs who get up to mischief ?
Hypocrites.
I’m not sure the comments have a lot to do with the dead boys’ Aboriginality because I’ve seen so many similar responses in situations where race was not a factor. Endless complaints about ‘light’ sentences such as five years in prison. Regular posts expressing disappointment that Schapelle Corby wasn’t executed (for a drug that is less harmful than alcohol, nicotine or panadol). Or the Bali Nine who while being stupid and greedy had no intention to kill anybody. And of course the regular bleating for the death penalty to be brought back and used as penalty for murder, drug trafficking, peadophilia, rape, drink driving and more.
Some of the extreme commentary is probably nothing more than ‘little’ people trying to get a reaction – a group who tend to be over represented on comments threads. And some will be the understandable reaction of former victims of crime. But some of it seems to reflect commenters’ rising panic that their world is becoming less safe. A pity since crime statistics indicate Australia is a very safe place and becoming more so. I blame the media which unfotunately thrives on bad news. But I am convinced there’s a much stronger basis for the comments than racism.
I live in Perth the same as Frank,but I have also lived in Sydney and Brisbane,I have heard the same sentiments expressed to me many times over about the Aboriginals,a lot of white Australians have little or no time for them at all.
Some one once said there’s no votes in boongs, in WA that is very very true, I have also heard that it was the second car they stole that night,how true or false that is I am not sure.
I knocked around with an Aboriginal kid when I went to school back in the 50s, that was not met with overwhelming approval,I suppose I,m a bit callous bit nobody made them steal the car,harsh but true,I don’t give a stuff if they were black, brown,brindle or white,having had some one attempt to steal my car out of my drive I think if I had had a gun I would have shot them,you may not like it but its the way a lot feel
Legally, someone 10 or under is doli incapax (not capable of intent). In between 10-14, doli incapax is a rebuttable presumption. The mother who pointed out that her two young lads were lad astray by older boys (well within the age for criminal responsibility) is the one I feel for most.
Just on another (tangential) legal point, someone pointed out above that because all the relevant parties are dead, no-one has been charged, which means the uglies are being given free reign to vent their spleen. The normal situation is that when someone is charged, the media ‘comment’ (as opposed to simple reportage, with judicious use of the word ‘alleged’) has to stop. This horrible venting explains more clearly than anything else why the common law evolved that rule…
And why many lawyers would like to muzzle our media friends even further out from trial in high-profile cases.
Do you honestly beleive they would’ve wanted or even considered ‘making it right’ if they hadn’t crashed and weren’t caught?
Last hours aside, my assumption (and most other peoples’) is that this isn’t the first time they’ve broken the law. People don’t go from playing hopscotch to stealing cars. They graduate over time, and I beleive had they lived they’d have graduated further. I’ve no evidence of that, I’m just prejudiced and unsympathetic.
Darlene said
Most kids are seen as OK if they don’t steal and run amok, normal everyday kids, But i have to ask you have you ever been burgled or had your car stolen? Because some of the commenters say that they have directly and I bet that many of those who are being less than sympathetic, have also had a car stolen or their houses broken into. When you have been violated like that it becomes easy to wish death upon the perps themselves, or to be happy when others doing similar crimes meet a nasty end. It may be crude, but the emotional response is to feel that it is an example of divine justice.
But despite what Sceptic Lawyer says about the legal age of responsibility is most people consider that a child of ten is old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong. When three boys were hit by a train west of Brisbane were hit by a train I suggested in my blog that that was the way the gene pool is purged but I did balance that by thinking about how I would feel if it was my child who was dead. What I am getting to is that people who comment on the story are in most cases not heartless racists as some commentators here are very keen to claim but they are just ordinary folks who are angry about being victims of criminals who do not see the legal system work for them and think that these boys are criminals first and foremost and someone’s sons a very poor second.
Finally I ask the same question now that I asked at my own blog where were the parents who allowed such young children to run amok? Personally I think they should be charged with neglect…
Things may have changed a lot since I was a teen, but to kids back then taking a car for a joyride was very much entry-level only-just-crime, the sort of thing that young lads got up to not long after they started sneakily drinking beer. Drive it around for an hour or so, leave it in the parking lot at the beach.
The family of a good friend were hugely embarrassed when one of their sons was caught doing joy-riding, but no-one thought it meant that he was going to become a career criminal. Was that only because it wasn’t a poor family? Or is there perhaps not such an established progression as you imply?
Obviously it’s different if the car is burnt out after being stolen, or if the car is stolen to be sold, but are simple joy-rides so much a thing of the past?
Mother stabbers … father rapers!
My brother was in a stolen van at the age of, maybe, 13. He gave all that up at 17, and has never returned to it. But according to Stephen he would never have considered making it right, and apparently he deserved to die. Amusing.
And all for stealing a car. I suppose that puts the value of a 13 year old life at a couple of thousand dollars. I wonder what separates Stephen from the criminals he hates, if he values human life that cheaply?
I have been burgled several times, I have been assaulted, my partner was mugged and robbed near our house and I have prevented a couple of serious crimes in my life. But funny, I’m not banging on about how some 10 year old who stole a car deserved to die. Your particular experience of crime doesn’t get to make you special.
And big kudos to you for “balancing” your fine blog-work by thinking about how you would feel if it was your kids dead on a train line. You’re a modern miracle of empathy.
Thanks, Chav, succinct and to the point. Yes, tigtog, I think that’s what many have noticed over the years. The bad behaviour of the few doesn’t condemn the lot (unless perhaps they’re from a poor white neighbourhood or something like that).
Yes, the boat tragedy provides some evidence from not so long ago.
Frank, anyone would think all those people commenting were as pure as the driven snow. Never done anything wrong, none of ‘em. Yeah, right.
Jenny, I have also seen those comments threads: death to this and kill them for that and in my day this and in my day that, string ‘em up, if I could get a hold of them etc. Mind you, I’ve never seen such a long comments thread. This thread is probably an example of that and the added extra of racism. A toxic mix no doubt.
John, so that’s the way you feel, but what do you think about it? Lots of people say that they would do this and that to law-breakers, but I’m not sure how one would live with shooting kids from the age of 10 to 17 (seeing that movie on Sunday night about Abu Ghraib lets us know that some people expect soldiers to torture and humiliate “enemies”, but I wonder if those people are willing to pay for the medical bills when those soldiers return as highly-damaged human beings because of their actions)? The legal system mightn’t be perfect, but I trust it far more than mob rule. Your comment about “no votes for boongs in WA” says a hell of a lot.
Beautifully put, skepticlawyer, and thanks for clarifying the way law determines responsibility in relation to age. The horrible venting has to stop, but as has been pointed out it’s not always the case. Of course, media intrusion at a time of great grief must be horrible.
So Stephen, if these kids were already in tons of trouble, what do we do about it? I bet when you were growing up you were aware of kids who got into strife. Most of them I presume got out the other end okay, I presume some of the didn’t. As I said, I’m not talking about that at this moment (although it’s a topic that needs to be addressed), I’m talking about the reactions. What those reactions say about people and human nature. They don’t say much good from what I can tell. Not living far away from several blocks of housing commission units, I note that there are some good services available for the kids. Some of the kids allow children the opportunity to spend time away from what can be very difficult circumstances. That’s one positive step people are taking to try and keep kids on-track. There must be so many more.
Iain, but they’ll always been sons first and foremost to their parents. Legal responsibility at ten? To what end? To send them to institutions where they can become further criminalised. I think I said in the post that the boys had done the wrong thing. I think I said in a comment that the little fellows should’ve been home tucked up in bed. I don’t think all of those people commenting have been the victims of crime, and I suspect some of the people commenting in a sensitive way have. People respond in different ways. Yeah, we all have emotional respones, and sometimes those responses aren’t pretty (we all can admit to that, surely). There should certainly be better support services for the victims of crime. And I can certainly understand when people are appalled at seemingly sentences for certain crimes. I just looked at your post. You’re obviously a father who cares. The gene pool bit is harsh, but the rest of the post touched my heart. It’s a horrible feeling when that happens. Scares the life out of you.
SG provides an example of someone who has been a victim of crime who takes a different tack. And, as I mentioned in my post, a family member of mine (my nephew) was killed after his mate ploughed into a power pole. The article that appeared in the paper the next day was kind; quoted his mate saying what a good worker he was and how he was an old-fashioned battler. Yes, they did wrong speeding and drinking and driving. And yes, they would’ve stopped doing that.
Before or after someone was killed? Oh wait…
Putting people lives at risk is never tolerable even if ‘one day’ it’ll stop.
South Africa’s first democratic election, with Nelson Mandela winning the Presidency, was in 1994. Around that date there was a flood of Seth Efricaans who did not like uppity blacks, leaving the country.
Many of them fled to Perth WA, because as I was told, Aussies know how to deal with blecks. When I was in Johannesburg at the time the newspapers were reporting this migration as “taking the rat run to Perth”.
Just thought I would mention this, because it might help explain why Perth…
tigtog said:
The news reports are now saying that there was a burnt-out car nearby to the car crash and the police are sure the same group were responsible for that car earlier in the night.
grace said:
Even before that time period I’d heard from asians that they found Perth to be the one city in Australia where they encountered overt racist behaviour, so perhaps there has been an underlying problem for a while?
Of course it’s not, Depsis. Yes, they put lives at risk, they put their lives at risk and they put other lives at risk. My nephew died three days before Christmas 2005 because of that risk. He died on impact. Thanks for pointing that out, though.
I have said that I’d like to see positive solutions. Young men (sorry if this is going to sound gendered) need to find positive ways to channel that energy that they have. Older people need to be part of the solution and not just be whining and whinging like they were never young people themselves.
Thanks, Grace. I suspect the problem has been around for longer, but interesting analysis.
The last time I checked, no jurisdiction in Australia still uses the death penalty. Nor had the death penalty been given for a crime involving loss of property in over 150 years. To state that anyone, juvenile or adult, black or white, “deserves” to die in such circumstances, can I then assume that they also believe that the death penalty ought to be re-introduced for crimes against property?
Grace If your white in Perth your OK racism has always existed in Perth,they will watch Aboriginals play AFL and cheer but let one move into their street,they accept KIWIs, Maoris,ect I will watch with interest to see how the Sudanese get on.
Perth was like this long before the South Africans arrived,I think Frank can tell you that, I think Perth is different,I worked up north in the 60s and the Aboriginals were confined to one bar in the pub, one entered another bar and was beaten up and removed,that’s the way it was and maybe still is
JOE2 _ I was merely, perhaps somewhat clumisly and perhaps even unnecessarily trying to just record on the broader issues of aboriginal policy I would disagree with many here but that Darlene’s fundamental point still stands that 4 human lives have been tragically lost.
The unfortunate answer to your question, Bernice, is probably yes. This is how they’d express that on Perth Now:
“Riddence to rabbbish. I gort my . All the dogooders can get lost. Death to the person who stole my bike. Jst cause it was my twp yesr old son, dent’. Doen;t matter. String him up”.
Sorry, that’s harsh, but I just had another look at the Perth Now thread and my blood is boiling. I’ve always loathed it when people go on about being ashamed to be an Australian, but I feel a bit that way this morning.
“South Africa’s first democratic election, with Nelson Mandela winning the Presidency, was in 1994. Around that date there was a flood of Seth Efricaans who did not like uppity blacks, leaving the country.”
Oy vey.
I know many many Perthling South Efricans who would appreciate some more qualifiers on that statement. It’s certainly true enough, but let’s not forget the shitload of immigrants already there priior to the 90s, many of whom moved because they couldn’t bear to be part of apartheid any more.
I find it hard to let this go. It is very distubing to me not that these attitudes exist – I guess I always knew they did – but that they are so widely prevalent. There seems to be a lack of ability to see ‘grey’ in alot of the debate on the Perth Now site (and I will try to avoid targetting anyone or attack anyone’s point of view). It seems their only option, aside from being ’soft’ on criminals, is to have people (including very young children) killed. No nuance, no relativities, no compassion, no extenuating circumstances – simply a desire to see people killed.
Two things:
Firstly, this comment : “If these kids were white, it would be a different response.”
When I first heard the story I must have missed the bit about the identity of the boys because I had no idea whether they were Aboriginal or white – it didn’t cross my mind, I guess I just assumed they were white. And my feelings at the time were that they were criminals, regardless of their age and that I generally don’t feel sympathetic to criminals who die or injure themselves in the course of committing a criminal act. They were old enough to know what they were doing was a crime. End of story. Of course I don’t believe they ‘got what they deserved’ or any of that rubbish, but at the same time I don’t fell a whole lot of sympathy for them.
Secondly, the comment made about South African’s somehow moving to Perth because it was a racist city or something is just utter claptrap. A lot of South Africans ended up in Perth because the language, climate, and lifestyle of Australia as a whole is much the same as that of South Africa. Perth ended up with more South African immigrants simply because it was closer to South Africa – it was easier to move to Perth for those South Africans who still had family back in South Africa.
Yes, Kevin, I am shocked that they are so widely prevalent. That’s why I wonder what it says about us as people. I really don’t know. My mind is boggling that anyone could sit there and type away such words about these kids. These dead kids: 10, 11, 15 and 17. These dead kids who are probably lying in a morgue right now as preparations for their funerals are undertaken.
Is it that they can’t appreciate that these kids were human? Is it that there distance from the kids allows them to be so cruel? Is it that they are so damaged themselves they can’t feel for others?
Jenny’s earlier point was a good one. The one about little people etc. Of course, surely people know that feeling big by making other people small is a pretty crap way of feeling good about yourself.
Thanks for your views, Justin. And thanks for letting us know about the fact that you initially didn’t know about their racial identity. Of course, everybody knows now.
Is it ever “end of story”? It’s never that simple, surely. Being labelled a criminal at the age of 10 seems like a sure way of spending your life as one. People’s life circumstances can vary greatly. I think we are asking kids to behave in ways that many many adults don’t. Go to the pub on a Friday night, for example. On average most of us live about 75 years (that’s different for Aboriginal people), which means that those boys are going to miss out on a lot of living. No sympathy for all that they’re going to miss? At any rate, criminals aren’t just “criminals” (deliberate use of scare quotes), they’re people. They’re often people we know. Perhaps they are us at an earlier stage of life.
If you are going to bring race into a debate on crime (especialy in WA) then be prepared for some ugliness to come out. The fact is a massively disproportionate amount of property crime in WA is committed by Aboriginals. This unfortunately leads to an assumption by some people that any unsolved property crime was “a bloody boong”, futher stigmatising this group.
My family has had 3 cars stolen over the years (1 mine), in every case the offenders were Aboriginal. Ive also had the pleasure of being burgled during a cyclone in Port Hedland, again the offenders were Aboriginal.
The WA government has an avowed policy of attempting to keep Aboriginal offenders out of prison (deaths in custody report and all that), but the numbers are still disproportionaly high.
The Town of Geraldton might be a good place to start as an example of why some whites will villify Aboriginals before they even know if they are scum or law abiding decent citizens.
The local nightclub area is impossible to walk home from, apart from the (overwhelmingly white) idiots who want a fight there is a group of Aboriginals who have carried out repeated assaults and robberies on pissed patrons who try to walk home from the clubs.
The government tried to experiment with the idea the problem was the state housing area they were in (rangeway), and sold off most of the state housing and spread the population among a couple of other lower end but reasonable neighberhoods. They are now valueless sinkholes.
If you attend the local court it will be majority Aboriginals as defendants. the local magistrate is notorious for bending the law to release Aboriginal offenders as opposed to white offenders on similar charges.
Offences like the Christmas bashing and killing of a local Grazier (who BTW was well kown in Yalgoo as a supporter and friend of local Aboriginals) playing cricket on the beach with his family really set off the hate…
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22972332-948,00.html
My opinion is that the attempt to keep offenders out of prison has backfired on the whole Aboriginal community (as opposed to the individuals committing the crimes). The overwhelming majority of the crime is stupid, easily policed property crime. However by not jailing the minority of Aboriginals who commit (and continue to commit) these crimes they allow the whole community to be tarred with the criminal brush.
Not to mention for every assault or robbery reported by a white by an Aboriginal there are probably 3 or 4 by black on black, futher whecking their community. If you refuse to remove offenders from a community it shouldnt be a suprise when those communities become disfunctional.
Equally importantly, we all have the capacity to be criminals. There are not the “criminals” and “the rest of us”. Criminal behaviour is contextual and based on circumstance.
I have a particular aversion to people who say ‘end of story’ after making some outrageous comment, as though that statement itself renders an end to discussion – well it didn’t and it will not. I don’t know if you have children, Justin, but if you do you should know that anyone can ‘go off the rails’ and do things that they would otherwise not do when older and more mature. And these kids were 10 years old for god’s sake.
When I lived in a large country town, we were burgled five times over the course of a couple of years, forced to get an alarm, increase insurance premiums etc etc. It turned out that it was the same person each time – the son of some neighbours a couple of ks away (it was out of town so they were literally neighbours) who was a heroin addict. This was a decidedly middle class area and they appeared to be caring, responsible parents. None of us wished any harm on this person, although we were pretty pissed of at the time, so I for one have no idea where this malignant hatred comes from.
Criminality – I’ve often wondered about this claim of more criminality in the Aboriginal community. It seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon – say in the last twenty years, maximum. In all the time I was living in King’s Cross, I never met any Aboriginal crims. They were all white and I met and got to know a lot of them. When I went bush in the mid 70s, all the petty crims I met, bar one, were white.Again, I met a lot. Put it down to my moon in Scorpio.
Sure, there are cultural factors impelling Aboriginals towards crime. The same cultural factors, (white collar crime aside) impel whites towards crime. Just as there are cultural factors impelling Aborigines towards participation in sport, the arts, and more recently, universities.
There is a large criminal underclass in Australia, there always has been,and, guess what, its colour blind, mostly lower middle class/working class, and except for the professionals, most of them are dirt poor. If we had a lot more social equality, we’d probably have a lot less property crime.
And the observation that we don’t have the death penalty in Australia is spot on.
Ever since Hanson, I’ve realised we have to live with various kinds of racism in Australia, but that doesn’t mean you stop fighting it. This kind of racist filth has to be exposed, the way Darlene has exposed it. If you don’t see it you can’t fight it.
G’day Darlene, I’m not surprised about the comments thread, tho i couldn’t read too much of it. this is i think the dark hypocritical face of this population.
If any one of these kids lived through this experience and learned a lesson and then went on to help others from making similar mistakes they would be lauded. not now, and maybe not for years but it would happen. From CJ Dennis to Nick Cave, from Gorton to Hawke australians have celebrated ratbags that have survived their self destructive periods and come out the otherside and contributed something back to the rest of the population.
i find it sad that we as a population who celebrate risk taking in so many of its forms; on the sporting field, in business, science and politics cannot simply pause and recognise that that impulse, in one of it’s baser forms, has lead to a tragedy that has done no one any good.
Oh, so proud to an Aussie!
Some criminals died as a result of their actions in the course of committing a crime.
I resent, object to, and sneer at implications that I somehow lack heart, or anything of the sort. I hold contempt for anyone who makes a suggestion that I am wrong, or should possess any guilt, by my acknowledgement of this fact.
Direct blame cannot be apportioned outside of the occupants of the car.
Indirect blame can be apportioned to the parents/guardians of the minors, to the judges (personally) and the court system who teach offenders there are little to no negative consequences for crime, and to the politicians who allow this to happen.
If indirect blame is being dished out, remember to include those older relatives who cajole/force juveniles to commit crimes, for the reason that the law will not touch juveniles.
SATP – it’s possible to acknowledge that they were ultimately responsible for the consequences of their actions without resorting to “they deserved everything they got”. It’s the latter mentality which I see as the issue here.
Sympathy is not merely a function of blame-laying, where only the blameless deserve it.
I suspect, SATP, that your contempt is for me and comments that I made at the start of this thread. If so, I accept your contempt with some pride. I also suspect that your comments are intended as a hand grenade to create a fight. Normally I would just let it roll, however this issue, as I have said above, has left me cold.
I was not looking to blame for this – although it seems that blame is easy to apportion, as I suppose it always is in human relations.
If we are, though, looking for “indirect blame”, what about the attitudes that say it is acceptable for young Aboriginal youths to die in a car crash?
Because finally, as Mercurius has suggested above, this is ultimately about race.
Let’s go further – who else should accept blame? What about those people who refuse to employ Aboriginal people in their business? Refuse to sit next to them on public transport? Refuse to try to understand the basis for their culture and their lived experience?
I sat in a Mandurah service station once and watched a white woman berate an Aboriginal mother for the way she was dealing with her children, in a manner that I’m sure she wouldn’t have employed on other mothers. There is endemic racism in that town, but the extent and nature of the venom that this accident has aroused has surprised me. SATP, despite the distinct possiblity of incuring your resentment, I think you have no heart.
I’d just like to point out that it is well known that sending Aborigines (or should I say “Aboriginals”?) to prison for stealing cars is not the cause of their high death rates in custody, was not identified by the inquiry into deaths in custody as a remediable feature, and probably does not play very heavily on the minds of police and judges.
Deaths in custody happened for Aborigines at the same rate as whites, but they were incarcerated at vastly higher rates in watchhouses and police stations, using the “trifecta” of drunk and disorderly,abusive language, and resisting arrest. It was in the police stations that they died and the most important recommendation of the inquiry was to change this needless arrest and imprisonment in police stations.
It really shits me when idiots give a sensible response to the ongoing tragedy of black deaths in custody as their justification for attempts to keep Aborigines out of jail. It’s a different issue, and it shows a remarkable ignorance of a serious issue.
steve at the pub, what does “blame” have to do with some kids being dead? If being to blame means we can gloat over it, does that mean you gloat every time a pedestrian gets knocked over jay-walking?
And you worry some people think you lack heart…
“And I’m pretty sure the boat was stolen as well.”
The owners’ originally claimed that the boat was stolen but there was later some questions raised about whether it was or not. At the time everyone was expressing sympathy for the victims it was being claimed it was stolen. I don’t remember any comments suggesting they ‘deserved what they got’.
“Some criminals died as a result of their actions in the course of committing a crime.”
Ah, that’s okay then. They weren’t four boys, aged 10, 11, 15 and 17, they were just ‘criminals’.
[“And I’m pretty sure the boat was stolen as well.”
The owners’ originally claimed that the boat was stolen but there was later some questions raised about whether it was or not. At the time everyone was expressing sympathy for the victims it was being claimed it was stolen. I don’t remember any comments suggesting they ‘deserved what they got’.]
Exactly my point – when the perpatrators are of Anglo origin, they are “wayward youths”, when they are of non anglo such as indiginous and Mslim, they are classed as “scum” and rubbish”.
I’m sure that I’m well to the left of SATP in my views about most issues. Nevertheless I always enjoy his concise and thought-provoking contributions.
So my only reaction to his “terribly sad. But who else to possibly blame apart from those who were inside the car?” is disappointment that for once he’s pointed out no more than the bleeding obvious. And I’m curious as to how his “terribly sad” can be interpreted to demonstrate lack of heart.
Er read post #59, Jenny. Sort of places the ‘terribly sad’ quote in context.
I can’t see your point Adrian. #59 provides clarification about ‘blame’ but doesn’t reinterpret or resile from ‘terribly sad’.
To forget about the other issues (e.g. racism), it’s simply bad manners to be so callous about other people. I wonder if many of the people commenting would say they hold traditional values. Those values surely include courtesy and respect. There’s a time to button one’s lips (I’m sure their mums taught them that).
RIP to the boys. Short lives they had. Possibly very difficult lives.
“No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
Adrian, in WHAT context, exactly?
Schadenfreude = the emotion experienced by almost the entire population at hearing the news of perpetrators who kill themselves during the commission of a crime.
Why is this case any different?
The far from heroic last actions and circumstances of the demise of their loved ones can only exacerbate the grief of those left behind.
I don’t think assigning blame at this time is particularly useful. But it is a process that does need to be gone through – to identify the causes and to then look for ways to reduce the probability of this happening in the future.
But if the community continues to just write these incidents off as “boys being boys” and part of the process of growing up then we’ll continue to see these horrific accidents.
I totally agree Darlene.
Re. the people who pointed out the many white-Australian car joyriding deaths, the “boat tragedy”, et al – this post by Ashley at Feministe springs to mind.
Money quote:
As long as the descendents of the white colonisers of this country (and other more recent arrivals all too eager to adopt this mode of psychic accommodation) do not come to terms with the fact that they actually have a problem with their history and the violence they inflicted on Indigenous people in the occupation of this land and the treatment of its peoples, they will be trapped in an endless cycle of melancholic displacement whereby they cite the crimes of 1% of the population of 21 million people as somehow statistically greater, deeper and wider than the other 99% of the population that is non Indigenous. On numbers alone, its just not feasible to make this claim. In this country, based on numbers of non Indigenous (99%) vs Indigenous (1%), we have to say that there would be more white criminals than indigenous, more white car thiefs than Indigenous, more white alcoholics than indigenous, more white child abusers than indigenous. Except that when it comes to whites, its not known as a white problem, its just a social one. But crime is a Black problem isnt it? So why are crime and social ills raced when they are Black and social when they are white?
The level of race based condemnation on the Perth Now thread and the justifications for it on this thread makes me wonder how close we came to not getting that national apology through. But thank God we gave presence to our historic crimes against Black people by saying sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Speaking of, for a lucid and intelligent exposition of the therapeutics in unrepressing a repressed past you cant go past Gail Jones’ Sorry. I know you did Pavlov. Nice review.
I find it rather laughable that people are saying they deserved what they got. Now put that standard to all the white crime against black people in this country since 1788 and all the white people should be dead cause they deserve it for what they did. Is that right? No of course not. Mostly cause the initial theft on this continent, perpetrated by whites against Blacks, was the property crime against Aboriginal peoples en masse. A crime so enormous that it must be forever denied and repressed, and then displaced by disparaging and stereotyping Indigenous peoples forever more.
Shorter Casey: So they stole a car? Hey we stole a continent, get over it.
But for the present, here is a bit from the Crime Stats for WA in 2006 and surprise, surprise – its Indigenous people and in particular, Indigenous women who are the biggest victims of crime.
“The level of victimisation for Indigenous persons can be estimated from offences where the Indigenous status of the victim was recorded. After excluding 13,813 offences against the person with unknown Indigenous status (45.9%)15, Indigenous people accounted for 28.1 percent of victims of offences against the
person in 2006. The rates of victimisation (where Indigenous status was recorded) are estimated to be 6,323.1 per 100,000 persons for Indigenous people, and 589.6 per 100,000 for non-Indigenous people. Thus, based on these estimates, Indigenous people were over ten times more likely to be victims of violence
than non-Indigenous people in 2006 (where Indigenous status was known). It should be noted that 67.4 percent of Indigenous victims in 2006 were female, compared with 45.0 percent of non-Indigenous victims who were female (excluding cases of unknown victim sex).”
http://www.crc.law.uwa.edu.au/__data/page/38151/Crimes_Reported_to_Police,_Western_Australia_2006.pdf
So all the white folks upset about getting things nicked should relax. They are in the minority where victim status of crime in WA is concerned.
This whole post is a fine example of the invisibility of whiteness in any argument about crime and the total visibility of Indigeneity in matters of crime and anti social behaviour.
Just such a beautiful post Darlene. And yes it would be nice if race could be put aside and we could allow ourselves to mourn for the loss of young lives. But unfortunately the melancholic entrapments of history do not allow such humanity as we all possess to interrupt these racial condemnations and will not do so until the discourse of whiteness is outed with all its investments, privileges and fragilities.
Anyways, thats my opinion and I am sticking to it.
Casey -
No doubt there would be a racial aspect to the commentary. There is animosity against Aboriginies out there. However this assertion of yours is baseless. It is entirely possible for people to be pissed off at these kids for their crimes and nothing else.
You should get out more. There’s a heaps of people declaring just desserts.
I’m sorry but can’t you see the fuzziness?
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You make this grand, sweeping statement, which has factual basis, regarding the injustice of colonial occupation and dispossesion. The economic and social fragmentation of Aboriginal people is known the world over: alcoholism, crime, marginalization result. Along with lower than average life expentencies, higher rates of violent death, higher rates on incarceration etc.
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This is why ‘crime is a black problem’ btw.
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Instead of looking at the issue of indigenous social ills from the perspective of a problem-solver we do so as either a sweeper who brushes it under the rug or we go on a John-the-Baptist tirade. Repent! Repent say I. Admit ye unworthiness: mea culpa, mea culpa.
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Do I think that Aboriginal peiople got fucked over? Yes. Do I think they had their rights violated? Yes. And recently. And it continues still. Do I think that the starting point of the solution is a non-indigenous round of clothes-tearing flagelation expressing our guilt and despair? Of course not. That’s just daft.
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How are you supposed to stop some 17 year old lad who thinks “I don’ give a fuck’ is a motto to live life by, who’s experience of life has made this ridiculously nihilistic philsophy of self-waste seemingly sensible; how do you improve things by teaching them that they’re a victim with the monopoly on the High Moral Ground.
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Let’s stow the broom and the Baptist and treat it like, y’know, those problems we actually take seriously because we have to solve them.
Further to my post, Gillian Cowlishaw, in “Blackfellas, Whitefellas and the Hidden Injuries of Race” explores these issues in the localised setting of Bourke. It really is a complex and nuanced analysis of racial injuries experienced by both Black and white in this country. On matters such as the one Darlene has raised on this post, Cowlishaw argues: “Is not the white claim to injury simply fraudulent or trivial, at least when it strays outside specific examples of theft or breakage? An historical framing would say that local social injuries were experienced by black residents at the hands of white settlers, but whites contest this history or discount its relevance to current conditions…In psychoanalytic terms, whites today could be seen as projecting their own injurious actions onto Aborigines. But the conversation about blackfellas, with their varied levels of concern, dismay and anger, are also, as we have seen, conversations among those of like kind whose claim to be the innocent and powerless victims of anti-social Aboriginals operatues to unify the injured into a righteous force which protects and reproduces the groups identity and interests….(61).
So to conclude, I am more interested in examining how whiteness reinvests its own power through the moral force produced by these outpourings. A moral force, which Cowlishaw goes on to suggest, connects with white insitutions of power across the nation.
I would really recommend the book to anyone interested in how the production of national white privilege comes about, as well as a comprehensive analysis of racial agency. Its quite unique, I would suggest.
There’s a brilliant sequence in Alan Moore’s and Eddie Campbell’s graphic novel “From Hell” just after Jack The Ripper’s first communiqué has been published in the penny dreadfuls. Across London, under its slatey smokey rooftops, responsible, middle-aged and/or family men, pillars of the community all, rise from the dinner table to attend to their correspondence in their studies.
There, with the heavy door shut and bolted behind them, they ogle erotica while penning splenetic and pornographic letters to “The Editor”, vomiting out all their bottled up rage, sexual frustration and need to hate and blame someone, anyone except themselves for the lives they don’t like living. Rampaging Id with soundtrack by hissing gaslight and scratching pen. And all signing themselves as “Jack.” Few of these letters were posted and none published.
But that was of course in the day before blogs.
Thanks, Helen. That quote sums up things so well. You know, just because that man allegedly attacked his family with an axe, doesn’t mean that all white men get tarnished as murderers.
A lot to chew on in Casey’s contributions. Great stuff. Will be printing out and taking a closer look at today. Yes, we can’t ignore race. Just can’t. Just hoping for something that we all can understand: good manners. This post was such an immediate response to reading the article and the comments attached. And I absolutely stand by the thought that that thread reveals lots.
Wow, just wow (and I mean that in a good way), Nabakov. Yep, sums things up so well. The desire has always existed, but we didn’t always see these thoughts written down. That we now can is both a good and a bad thing, I guess.
“I would really recommend the book to anyone interested in how the production of national white privilege comes about, as well as a comprehensive analysis of racial agency. Its quite unique, I would suggest.”
Indeed, Cowlishaw’s work in this area is excellent and without parallel. She really is an independent thinker: her critique of ‘Aboriginal’ history is particularly enlightening.
Speak for yourself SATP.
Actually it means “taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.” Whatever the kids did, the idea of taking pleasure from their death – or anyone’s death, criminal or not – is not one that I find attractive.
73.Casey
The vast majority of the crime experienced by Aboriginal women is from other Aboriginals.
According to WA department of justice Aboriginals make up about 3% of the population and about 40% of prisoners.
From the time Ive spent in the Kalgoorlie courts (JP training) I would estimate around 40-50% of custodial sentences are being handed down on traffic matters. Most are driving without a license, DD or both.
I myself dont consider a victimless crime worth 3-5 months of a persons life, however there is no discresion in the sentencing for people pulled up for the 5-6 time.
Id be intrested to know what a couple of our more legaly trained people think of this, it strikes me that unless the State Government wants to reduce road penalties they will never reach their stated goal of reducing the number of Aboriginals in WA jails.
62.SG
Have to disagree with you there, the WA government has released a number of statements re-affirming their wish to reduce the number of Aboriginals in jail.
Heres the Aboriginal community court webpage.
http://www.justice.wa.gov.au/A/aboriginal_court.aspx?uid=6986-7860-4445-5582
Good if it works.
And the DOJ Aboriginal justice agreement
http://www.justice.wa.gov.au/W/wa_aboriginal_justice_agreement.aspx?uid=4342-1114-3498-1551
PDF links at the bottom of the page.
It states “imprisonment recognised as the sanction of last resort as a matter of practice”
Thats not mincing words.
I have no problem with trying to keep people out of jail, but not if it is at the expense of their own, and the wider community.
A long, hard road ahead for the moms of those kids.
Blessings to them from one who has done the same.
Mole – I don’t agree that drink driving is a victimless crime because of the significantly increased probability that the driver will kill someone else. One of the reasons that we imprison people is to protect other members of society from their actions – if someone (black or white) has been caught 5 or 6 times drink driving then its pretty clear that they do not intend to change their behaviour and I think its reasonable to imprison them to prevent them from harming others.
Nice thoughts, Kim. Thanks for your comment.
A long road it will be indeed.
Thanks Darlene
It’s called the Aboriginal deficit. It starts at the dispossession of land and ends in Indigenous people being blamed for their ills. I am not saying blame or responsibility is not necessary, and may at times may even be needed. However, it must always be accompanied by the acknowledgement that by and large these problems have been created by colonisation and how mainstream Australia now views Indigenous people as somehow less.
The point about problems in mainstream Australia being a problem in society, but when with a minority its a chance to blame race is a particularly good expression of the Aboriginal deficit.
Con E Little at post 20 is an example of this where he argues that because Aboriginal people are celebrated as good footballers it’s reverse racism. That really white people are the victims. The fact that it could be celebrating people who come from disadvantage succeeding is not considered.
There are numerous examples of the double standard the Sydney boating one an excellent example. A few off the top of my head are:
Indigenous leaders and non-Indigenous leaders have been responsible for Indigenous disadvantage in the last 30 years. The obvious answer to to blame those Indigenous leaders and give more power to the mainstream leaders. Warren Mundine has been very vocal in this nonsensical argument.
The Xstrata mine expansion at the McArthur River, which was recently challenged by the traditional owners who won. The answer is for the NT Government to change the law so that the mine can go ahead anyway because jobs and money are that important. When the owners of the land of the Kokoda Track want to develop the site for money and jobs there is a big enough outcry that there is a possibility that the Australian Government will try to stop the mine in another country.
Perhaps not such a good example due to the differences in their places in politics but, I see parallels between ATSIC a representative body being shut down because its leaders are perhaps criminals, it wastes money and does not really help its constituents and the National Party with its role in AWB and blatant pork barreling.
Personally I do not believe many of the problems in the Indigenous setting will be solved until the majority of Australians can see this racism the belief of the Aboriginal deficit and deal with it.
Disclaimer: This does not mean that at the individual level Indigenous people are not responsible for their actions.
If the youths had crashed, unscathed, into a juvenile detention centre, I’d start talking about Karma perhaps. But for a country that doesn’t even consider death to be a just punishment for serial killers, any suggestion that these kids got what they deserved are bloody thugs at heart.
“any suggestion that these kids got what they deserved are bloody thugs at heart.”
I think I’d better work on my concentration when writing!
“Personally I do not believe many of the problems in the Indigenous setting will be solved until the majority of Australians can see this racism the belief of the Aboriginal deficit and deal with it.”
Thanks, Yuwalk. You’re right. Long way to go. It’s amazing how readily the double standard comes into play. So easy, too easy. Says heaps, I think.
I hope it’s cause they’re just not thinking rather than that their thugs, Cliff, but what they’ve given the families of these dead boys is horrible. No sympathy, no understanding. That comments thread will stay up there for a long time. Charming words for the families to have to live with.
That’s okay, Cliff, I do that all the time.
Gillian Cowlishaw writes:
And murder.
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Consider the murder of Darren Jones by Corey Acuna. Fuelled by amphetamine psychosis (and too much hydro). Recently rejected by his mother again; having entertained thoughts about random murder, attempted to talk them thru with a counsellor to no avail. He buys a hunting knife and kills someone on a train.
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He’s professed remorse. He’s shocked he did it. His victim makes it worse. By all reports the victim – Darren Jones – was a wonderful person. Much loved. A musician. A student and teacher of music from a long line of musicians. He leaves behind his wife and young son.
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Where does the guilt lie?
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Would Acuna’ve committed the crime if he wasn’t Aboriginal? You could argue that he wouldn’t and few could rule that out without ignoring certain pertinent facts. Acuna submitted to arrest without resistance and told the cops on the ride to the station that Jones”d said something racist. This was challenged by Jones’ friends who’d remarked that Jones respected and sympathized with Aboriginal people. He refused to climb Uluru for example.
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It was also refuted by video and witnesses.
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Acuna had the fidgits. Everyone noticed but Jones. Jones was stuck in his books and headphones and didn’t see it coming. Acuna can’t remember the incident.
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Where does the guilt lie? In a legal sense it lies with Acuna no question. In a social sense it gets more complex because Acuna’s condition is an historical result of the conquest of his ancestors by those of Jones.
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So how do you proceed? Do you take Acuna’s ethnicity as an extenuating circumstance? Or do you treat him like everyone else? To do so would take into account his broken home, his violence, his use of drugs; all these things are problems in other communities as well.
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But they are a bigger problem proprtionally in Aboriginal communities. And this is common to conquered indigenous peoples. Their economy is removed and renders their culture cracked. Cracked culture: cracked people. The descent of indigenous peoples into this sort of malaise seems a consequence of colonialisation. So it would seem as a post-colonial country we – Australian Society – bear Responsibility.
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However to make Acuna’s ethnicity an extenuating circumstance the law must be racist. It is saying that Acuna is not responsible the way non-Aborigines are. Well, some say, it’s not racist it’s just recognizing the injustices of history. “That’s all very well and good,” I’d respond. “But how does it make things better?”
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Does Jones deserve to die because of the injustices whites have wrought on blacks? There are still tribal zones in the world where there the law says: Yes! No question. But in modern society justice is tempered by mercy and reason.
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Most would agree I’d say that Jones was not to blame individually for Acuna’s fucked-up life. But many would say that Acuna was somehow bound by the fate of his people. Their oppression is cast as a fate. Does this help?
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It’s a very difficult situation. One that will not be solved by a reliance solely on relativism and moralization I don’t think. It likewise won’t be solved if there’s a blanket assumption of racial animosity if someone disapproves of an Aboriginal Australian committing a crime.
I just checked in on the thread again. It’s still going. I never realised so many ockers were Buddhists, or Buddhists of a particular heartless variety.
Complaints about the state possibly paying for the funerals. My great grandma (who died in 1957) lies in an umarked grave in the Ararat Cemetery. Wonder if anyone whinged about the cost of paying to bury her, after all nobody else paid for it. Of course bloody not.
Anyway, I think that I’ve said all that I can say about this topic. If the thread goes on I hope people will respect the earlier wish to stay on-topic. That is, to discuss what the thread says about human nature etc I think the media has touched on Aboriginal crime many many many many times.
Honestly, its funny how many stories we can pull from online sources of crime which is situated as a racialised problem, a Black problem. I couldnt find this on line so I quote it here. Anna Haebich, in her beautifuly wrought work “Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000″ recounts this painful story in her opening:
“Warren Braedon, renamed Louis Saint John Johnson, [was] an Aboriginal boy taken from his mother in Alice Springs in 1973 and fostered to a white couple living in Darwin. Louis’s mother did not consent to the adoption, nor were the Johnsons informed. Louis was murdered in a specifically racist crime in Perth, in 1992, on the night of his 19th birthday. He was bashed and then run over repeatedly with a car. The perpetrators were five white middle class youths, affluent and privately educated. Louis’s adoptive parents, stricken by the ghastly details of the murder and dismayed by the persistent racism of media reports decided to seek out Louis’s lost Indigenous family. They returned the body to the surviving relatives…Pauline Johnson, the mother declared: “I felt personaly ashamed because I had returned Louis to his own people dead. They had waited for years for their son to come back. How can you look a hundred relatives in the face and say, Ive got five photo albums to show you of your son”
There are many many stories like this. They dont make the news generally and if they do, they are as Louis’s parents discovered, situated to be read within a racist framework which seeks to absent the whiteness of the perpetrators while essentialising and stereoptyping Indigeneity. Alternatively, crimes committed by Indigenous people, are situated within well worn tropes of the broken down native, anti social native, fucked up native and this gets plenteous circulation. Then there are the assertions of benign white discourse, assertions which are all for reconciliation and helping Aboriginals as long as it doesnt cost white privilege one iota and as long as white hegemony is retained. The question is who and what is being served by the continued reproduction of these Indigenous stereotypes and what is being bolstered by the culture of white complaint? Its a question that begs an answer, but always goes unanswered.
Here is a link to all the racist actions and assumptions which lead to Louis’s death, and the utter lack of reporting in the media, following his death. Now had a white boy been targetted racially in this way, it would have made national headlines. If all the mistakes made in treating him based on stereotyped assumptions had been made with a white boy head would have rolled. The utter incongruence when compared to the rage on the Perth Now thread again highlights the real nature of the voice of white complaint against’Aboriginal’ crime when compared to is utter silences and erasures where a victim of a racist murder by whites occurs.
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/CRCC/gambling/intro.html
“Corby’s day out at salon
7:43pm | Schapelle Corby spent several hours in a Denpasar beauty salon beside the hospital where she is being treated for depression.”
This is the lead story on SMH online. The most important news of the day. What kind of a country do we live in when we can apparently glorify a convicted drug dealer, yet many of us seemingly gloat at the deaths of four Aboriginal youths?
Corby is white, ‘pretty’, one of us and has been convicted in a foriegn land, a victim that we are happy to identify with.
These Aboriginal boys on the other hand are victims that many of us are willing to discard as if they were less than human.
There’s the usual range of view expressed in the comments. I haven’t (and won’t) read all 1500 odd of ‘em but they tend to range from the usual sympathy to lack thereof for criminal behaviour. Race is not the pervasive topic. At least not explicitly. There does seem to be the entrenched hostility to crime usually expressed by people who’ve had to live with a lot of it. I’m not sure what the story in Perth is but I can say I’ve met people from Perth – Anglo-Celt and Oonga who hate each other – seriously.
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The entries of the relatives are very stirring. This one in particular:
I haven’t however found example of an overtly racist message. Maybe there aren’t any. It’s a moderated site after all. The specific references to Aboriginal social problems and crime are usually expressed with a view to future prevention. The heartless comments just say they had it coming – because they stole a car.
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But that’s going off-topic isn’t it? I am sorry for doing that. But unfortunately in left-wing circles it’s always off-topic and that’s a problem ’cause the Right aren’t interested generally speaking. And truth is neither are the Left – not really.
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Still pursuing Better Living Through Newspeak. Good luck with that one.
Meanwhile Howard Sattler’s take has been deconstructed here
http://howardsattlerisanidiot.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/howard-sattler-fisked/
Altho’ the media do display racial bias I’m not certain anyone has gone so far as to either glorify Corby or gloat on the deaths of these four boys. There is more nuance out there. Someone above mentioned Scott Rush. His campaign for sympathy has actually largely fallen on deaf ears. There were a few stories and such but no-one cares.
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On the other hand when Van Nguyen was awaiting execution in Singapore there was a quite a bit of grass-roots support for him. The media however did not supply magaizne stories as it did with Rush.
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Race wasn’t a factor. Nguyen was seen as worthy. He did it to get his worthless brother out of trouble.
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I’m not saying there’s no racism in Australia. I just think it’s important to be aware of the spectrum of views. And also of facts. There are a racists out there. There are also a lot of people who are not racist. Expressing disapproval of criminal behaviour, even harsh disapproval, doesn’t necessarilly mean that one is racist.
Casey – by white do you mean not aboriginal? Because from your writings a person would be led to believe there are only white or black people in Australia, whereas in reality there are many non-white, non-black people who have prospered in this country in spite of any white hegemony which may exist.
white hegemony which may exist.
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What’s the White Hegemony?
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Anglo-Saxon Protestant? Does that exclude the Micks? It used to. And, um, if you wanna do business, go clubbing, sing karaoke or eat in Lt Bourke St you’ll be dealing with folks who’ve been shakin’ the hedge-a-money fer a lot longer n’ any paleface I kin tell ya.
No, it’s isn’t off the agenda, I just didn’t want this thread to be about it, Adrien. Out of respect for the dead boys. Frankly, I think the outrageous utterances deserve to be looked at, as I’ve said, because they tell us a lot. And if they just tell us that some people are thoughtless and rude, well, that’s enough to be looked at as far as I’m concerned. I suspect it’s telling us something more, but I think there have been dissenting views expressed on this site. There is a section of the population who seem to spend time getting on comments threads so they can express extreme views (e.g. “hang ‘em high” and “good riddance to bad rubbish” – how disgusting to describe children as “rubbish”). Issues to do with crime deserve to be looked at, and the intent of this thread was to look at a response to the tragic consequence of a criminal act. The sheer weight of comments and the different emphasis of the story of the boys (as, for example, compared to the story of the boat tragedy) suggest something more is at work.
Oh and most people aren’t “overt” about racism because people would just dismiss them as a racist if they were. Doesn’t mean that what they’re saying isn’t racist.
Just heard a radio ad for Howard Sattler’s show which mentions he’ll be “interviewing” the mother of the 3 children and it mentioned something about her “defending them” (paraphrasing) as if it were a crime to do so.
You can listen to the interview from 3pm WST via http://www.6pr.com.au and click on “Listen Live”
Thanks, Frank. I’m dreading it just reading it. I hope he is kind to her. I hope. If someone gets the chance to listen, please report back. I won’t be able to listen to it live, but I will try to catch up with it later (if you’re able to do that on the 6PR website).
It is not “wrong” to defend them, it is just not possible. Their actions are indefensible.
Nicking a car ain’t defensible, Steve, but they are defensible as kids and as human beings and as sons and nephews and brothers etc
None of us are the sum total of a small amount of our lives. Anyway, let’s see what she says on the show (and what Sattler says).
This is VERY Dodgy, Perth Now place this comment on their front page.
[THE MOTHER of three boys killed in Friday's horror car car crash pulled out a planned press conference planned for this afternoon.]
But when you click on the link, it goes to the original article and makes no reference to why she’s cancelled the Press Conference at all.
Actually, to be fair they have since updated the story to include this.
[THE MOTHER of three boys killed in Friday's horror car crash has pulled out of a press conference planned for this afternoon.
Natalie Clarke was due to make a statement outside Mandurah Police Station at 1pm but the planned conference was cancelled at the 11th hour.
Police said Ms Clarke was too distraught to speak and was not physically able to stand. ]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23935821-2761,00.html
I kinda sense anger at me Darlene I’m just calling what I see. I am priviledged to’ve grown up in multi-cultural, multi-racial surrounds and not to’ve even realised there was racism or that one could be racist until I was 9. Then I received a very rude introduction to it. I was brought up to think racism immoral and still do.
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However I’ve learned by wide experience with people who were not brought up so, to whom the idea may even be preposterously fanciful; people who have very different experiences to me – I have learned that always subjecting to them to judgement does not work.
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Sure there’s heaps of schadenfreude and resentiment on that thread. There’s lots of people who’re probably filled with nothin but hate. There’s porbably much worse that didn’t get thru.
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But… there’s also condolences. In fact the thread seems to be an oscillation between those with the sterner view of crime and punishment and those with a more liberal tendency to consider extenuating circumstance. There’s not much by those who want to consider, say, history or social policy. As I said most people don’t give a damn.
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The Left do. But their tactic is to form some Calvinistic circle of moralization. And anyone, even somebody like myself who believes this is a national shame and that we must do something – that works – about it. Even I am treated like some kind of catalogue of moral errors because I might consider the commentary with a cold mind. I believe that a great deal can be done when one gets down from one’s favourite ideological pedestals and looks at facts. That’s all.
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As a person who is currently seeking great power has said:
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Easier said then done? Yes. Worthwhile if done right. I think so.
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As for that selection of the populace that need to get on and voice their contempt for ‘the low’ with an ugly hysteria – well I’m not sure that’s worthy of consideration for intelligent discussion. What can we do? There will probably be arseholes for some time to come.
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Will it continue to be typical for Aboriginal kids to die in stolen vehicles? I certainly hope not. I really don’t know how to solve the problem of course. No-one does. But I do think that such as Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Noel Pearson might have a point when they say the Victim Trip ain’t the one to go on.
Im not talking about white and black people in isolation. Im not even really referring to individual people but to cultural sites of national white privilege explored in critical whiteness studies. Whiteness is a discursive site of power, albeit a hidden site, which orders and regulates that which is not itself in the nation. The academic Eileen Moreton Robinson has written a lot about it and again, you also cant go past Gillian Cowlishaw as quoted up thread. Im quite aware there are non white , non black people but perhaps in citing the hybrid construct, you are of Homi Bhaba’s inclination, all ready to enunciate the third space? heh, with threads like the Perth Now thread, er, how did the song go? I dont think so!..
Casey @108 – Short of going back to uni to do another degree, I think I’d need a much simpler explanation to understand what you’re saying.
Sorry Chris.
here is wiki on whiteness studies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteness_studies
Casey – thanks!
No worries!
Another text that might be of interest, though I don’t think is mentioned in wikipedia, is ‘White’ by cinema scholar Richard Dyer. There’s also a lot of historical whiteness stuff in the area of labor history. A lot of the US-centric stuff in the wikipedia entry is broadly applicable, although I would be careful about direct, reductive importation of US models.
In an Australian context, an important (though idiosyncratic) text would be Ghassan Hage’s ‘White Nation’: Hage’s model is instructive even if you don’t agree with it. His reading of Aboriginality is a bit limited, but that relates to the limits of his project. I would also suggest Warwick Anderson’s ‘The Cultivation of Whiteness’ which looks at the history of race and tropical medicine in Australia. As Casey has mentioned, Moreton-Robinson is also a good place to start when examining the Australian context. There’s also a recent AHR issue that might serve as an up to date introduction to the field, edited by Anne Brewster and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey:
Approaching Whiteness
In fact, Anne Brewster is generally a great person to read on this. There’s also a piece there by my favourite Australian director, Rolf de Heer.
A question: in “whiteness” studies, is “white” a shorthand for “non-marginalized ethnic groups”? If so, it seems an unfortunate name for that discipline.
White people used to be just Anglo-Saxons. Then the Irish were included. Then the Italians and Greeks. Would Chinese-Australians be “white” be under the definition, even if their racial and cultural background is different from the Anglos?
Sorry if my questions sound naive, but the subject sounds fascinating.
I was reminded of this thread today when reading John Hirst’s piece in the latest issue of The Monthly, “An Oddity From the Start,” in which he looks at the streak of anti-authoritarianism in the Australian character. Here’s his take on 19th century larrikins:
Down and Out, I have to recommend Ghassan Hage’s work for an interesting account of the relationship between immigration, whiteness and the nation in Australia. He has an accumulative model of whiteness, linked to citizenship, which relates to the question you ask about expansion of the category. He also has a very interesting critique of multiculturalism that emphasises the way that certain ‘progressive’ models of incorporation maintain the privilege of whiteness as a ‘manager’ of diversity.
From what I understand, the introduction of the category ‘white’ in critical whiteness studies is about challenging privilege rather than examining disadvantage. It means recognising that apparently neutral subject-positions – like that of the default Australian citizen – are also racialised positions, with privileges attached. It’s like the inverse of assessing Aboriginality (for example) in terms of the disadvantages attached to that subject-position. It’s a way of moving away from the constant scrutiny in social scientific and humanistic inquiry of marginalised ‘Others’, scrutiny which tends to mean that those marginalised are constantly asked to explain themselves. In fact, one of the privileges associated with whiteness is that you are rarely in a position where you are asked to speak for your entire race. In some ways, critical whiteness studies parallels the sociological move towards ’studying up’.
All hail this whiteness study
And glory Apology
It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy
And about those peoples’ lives? Well gee.
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If I immerse myself in Chomsky
And plow thru Ed Said
The ‘ternal Israel quest I’ll stompski
Bringing love to all the Creeds
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If only they would listen, those
Out in the battlelands
To my pristine, audacious prose
And follow my best-laid plans
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Well Heaven would descend on us
United by my stance
And nothin’ now left now to discuss
Just roundabout the angels dance
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I am the Way and Light, and yay;
The font of Truth and Good
If only nations would display
The thoughts I think they should
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‘Tis been writ since Plato lived
The Happy No Place Song
And true it be if those’d been shived
Would stop explaining why we’re wrong.
“It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy”
Not really the kind of affect I’d associate with most of the critical whiteness stuff.
I like the poem, BTW. What is the definition of ’shived’ in this context? As in sliced or fragmented?
Adrien, do I get the sense that you have fallen into the “asians are more racist than we are” trope somewhere in all this? I think your defense of whatever you’re defending (I can’t quite tell) may have gone off track in this instance.
My understanding was that Adrien was taking a glib shot at what he sees as the inherent utopianism of certain forms of knowledge and certain implied political positions. I’m not sure whether he thinks he’s scored any points with that. Maybe he has for those who don’t know any better. For my part, I liked that it was in verse.
Chris, you quoted my use of “benign white discourse”, a version of which can be found in John Howard’s consistent pronouncements on Aboriginals over the years. Im just reading Judith Brett’s Hugo Wolfsohn Memorial Lecture which she gave in 2000, where she said:
“Settler liberalism has progressed since the nineteenth century. It can now accept individual Aboriginal people as citizens of the modern state, though it took a while. It is struggling however, to find an acceptable place for Aboriginality. This, it seems to me, is the latent meaning of Howard’s continual stress on Aboriginal disadvantage. Again and again, Howard says ‘Nobody can deny the disadvantage still experienced by many Aboriginal Australians.’ The word disadvantage tolls like a bell through his statements – insistently repeated in such a way, that it seems to me, to carry two meanings. The ostensible reference is always to health, housing, employment…But in its insistent repetition one can hear, I think, another meaning – that Aboriginal people were and are a disadvantaged backward people who need help to be brought up to our standards and take their place in the modern world.”
Judith Brett exposes the ideology concerning the hierarchy of races which was threaded through Howard’s (and some people’s on this thread) calls for practical solutions. Here is the unexamined, perhaps for some, unconscious racism which underpins benign white discourse which presents itself as a beneficient force for Aboriginal improvement. It is all for improving the ‘Aboriginal’s lot’, but not at the expense of acknowledging the strength of the Other. Even as it calls for the improvement of Aboriginal conditions, it always frames Aboriginality in terms of disadvantage. To acknowledge Aboriginal cultural strength might fracture white privilege, something that Brett noticed was missing in Howard’s own benevolent discourse:
“He does not balance such statements without an acknowledgement of the strengths and richness of Aboriginal culture, with the suggestion that Aboriginal culture has much to contribute to contemporary Australia as a whole, or with the acknowledgement that the traditional cultures are not locked in a stone age past but have [always had] within themselves capacities to adapt and grow.”
Klaus -
Cheers Klaus. ‘Shivved’ is from American prison slang. A shiv is a homemade knife. It was a glib shot by way of a provocational operation. My point will be elucidated shortly…
SG -
I’m not defending anyone SG. My point is that those on the Left who are concerned with racism have certain tendencies and that these tendencies may be counter-productive. When I booted up Darlene’s link I saw a lot of hard-nosed ‘they’re crims, they deserve it’ schpiels. I saw one or two comments trying to raise the point of Aboriginal social problems and crime. At least one of these people wrote it in an apologetic mode.
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I didn’t see any overt racism or even much by way of covert racism. I didn’t read all 1500 comments more like 40 grabbed at random places on the thread.
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I was informed of course that many racists don’t express their views openly. This is true. However I don’t think that because this is true it’s therefore true that anyone who criticizes a criminal who happens to be Aboriginal is a racist.
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Now I’ve made it clear above that I regard high proportional Aboriginal crime rate as a social problem. But it also an individual problem. That however wasn’t what I was getting at.
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The topic is the spectrum of views expressed in the link. There’s no acknowledgement here that there even is a spectrum. But to me the question is do we discuss this spectrum or simply express disgust. Generally we’ve chosen the latter. I think this does the debate a great disservice.
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Now I’m not saying that the problems of Aboriginal people are entirely of their own doing and that the injustices attendant to the conquering of hunter-gatherer societies by imperial ones have nothing to do with it. They do. However that isn’t the entire story. And more importantly it’s not the solution.
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If an Aboriginal person feels entitled to wreak havoc because their life is fubar then does that do them or anyone any good? No. If a non-Aboriginal person is a victim of Aboriginal crime is it racist to do anything else save resign themselves to ‘we had it coming’? Well it would be a very Christ like noble countenance to do so.
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Naturally the idea that Aboriginals commit crimes against non-Aboriginals and not the reverse is total nonsense.
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However I do feel that, amongst the Left – the main site of concern for indigenous people – a certain tendency remains. This was expressed quite well by the Polish poet Czelaw Milosz in his essay “Speaking of a Mammal”. After the war Milosz wrote a film scenario dealing with a man trying to survive in the wreckage of Warsaw. The by-then Communist authorities did not like the fact that here was a guy by himself surviving in the apocalyptic ruins. To them it was bourgeois – smacking of Robinson Crusoe. They changed it from one man to several and included some heroic Russian para-trooper bring down the New Faith from the skies. This was historically ridiculous and of course destroyed Milosz’s theme.
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Of the ensuing discussion with the studio heads Milosz wrote:
Friends and enemies. This is the game of politics. When discussing the plite of Aboriginal people we are all inclined to simply extend this game without discussing whether or no it is relevant to the subject at hand. Some friends of mine (lefties) worked in Aboriginal communities in the NT. They told a few horror stories. They actually thought Pauline Hanson’s appearance was a good thing! Not because they liked her or agreed with what she said. They did not. But because it presented an opportunity to speak frankly about things that were being unsaid.
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As one of these friends said to me: “Adrien the thing is that we’re assuming that Aboriginal people are living their lives the way they did before we got here, or trying to. But they’re not. They watch TV, they see advertising. They want what we want.”
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There is a certain preciousness about Aboriginal culture amongst inner-city people that’ve never camped with a Koori. There is a dismissal of Aboriginal people as lazy amongst others. I have camped with Kooris and Murris and Oongas and I can tell you two things. The first is that ‘their culture’ has some attributes that left-liberals would find offensive if bespoke by non-Aboriginals. The second is that the hardest working person I ever met was a Koori guy – hard as nails. And a classic Bush entrepreneur to boot.
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But I’m not saying I know. I don’t. No-one does. I can’t help but feeling tho’ that the game of the Left which seems to me often to be about assessing whether someone is ideologically sound viz race is useless. It’s easy to speak correctly. That has nothing to do with who you are underneath. And it has nothing to do with your virtue. There are many places in this world where ethnic conflict is a nightmare reality and ‘racism’ is simply common sense. Judging those people doesn’t get you anywhere.
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Is the man a friend or an enemy? Perhaps neither? Perhaps just a person? For the studio heads this question was paramount. “Is he a friend or an enemy?” they ask. Milosz replies: “He is a victim.”.
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There are many victims. Because those lads who stole that car were victims doesn’t make those upon whom they exact vengeance any less so.
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And uttering something on this issue which isn’t easily classified into this or that side of the political fence doesn’t make one a racist.
too many straw men, Adrien. I think you’re missing the point of the left’s view of Aboriginal crime (though I grant you it isn’t well expressed).
I don’t know what the technical term is for the view that most leftists have about Aboriginal crime, but it is neither the kind of hopeless desire to reform crime through reversing the past, or the saintly “we had it coming” view you describe here. It’s far more practical than that. Of course, as a hyper-individualist (dare I say libertarian) it’s important for you to ignore the role of social structures in determining peoples’ criminal activities, and to boil as much as possible down to individual decision-making before you then castigate the left for suggesting we can all play a role. But that’s not what the left is doing.
Generally the view of most on the left is very simple – committing crime is bad, and criminals need to be punished, but punishment in an individualistic vacuum will never prevent crime, and will encourage it to the extent that the punishment forces individuals capable of reform (like my brother was) towards the edges of society, where crime is the only structurally viable choice. You can pretend as much as you want, fingers-in-your-ears-lalala-i’m-not-listening (like Steve in the Toilet) that a 10 year old rural Aboriginal boy is a morally competent and rational agent – but you’ll never reduce crime rates that way, and any social response based on that idea will simply push up crime rates for the 16 year old boys that these 10 year olds become. Saying these things doesn’t constitute a denial of individual responsibility or the need for punishment as deterrent/justice, but there’s more than one injustice in society which those who value society (unlike most libertarians) need to balance. That 10 year old boy’s mother is also suffering an injustice at the moment, and while it might be nice to just blame her for her son’s death (which is kind of incompatible anyway with the claim that he is a morally competent individual), we could consider that maybe, somewhere out there, there is some kind of structural reform we could implement that would enable all three people involved – the 10 year old boy, the car-owner and the mother – to have a better life.
You’re kidding yourself if you think that the reform required to do this is based on individual responsibility. And suggesting that redressing past injustice towards Aborigines is not a part of the solution is very glib. I put it to you that this glibness is driven more by your hyper-individualist viewpoint than any clear analysis of the social problems Aborigines face.
I read Darlene’s post as a comment on the ugliness of the “let ‘em burn” comments generally, not the racist comments particularly. I read her mention of race as a side point. Perhaps there are some sensitive readers out there?
SG -
SG I would suggest reading my comments further above. I have not ignored the role of social structures altho’ I believe that there are limits to the extent that they determine our behaviour. I don’t ignore the role of social structures.
One of the stereotypes attendant to those Americans call ‘liberals’ is of people who treat criminals as victims. This makes those who’re the victims of crime quite angry. I experienced this myself when a particularly stereotypical lefty of my acquaintance had the temerity to suggest I was responsible for an incident wherein a teenager attacked me without provocation or warning in an attempt to get my money. The assumption was that the kid was ‘oppressed’. Actually he wasn’t he was just an arsehole. But my friend kept insisting it was my fault somehow. To back this up, he brought up my middle-class background and my status (as he sees it) as a ‘cool inner city dude’ (his words) as if these were crimes.
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Now this sort of thing gets repeated quite a lot. Even liberals send up this quality. Please see Everyone Says I Love You for a wittier lampoon of this phenomena.
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So with respect SG your citation of the Left’s attitude to crime might be the official story but it ain’t the whole one.
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As for the rest of your comment it’s simply untrue in respect to what I am saying. You talk about the plight of the mother. Goodio. Please see above where I quote a friend of the family who, tho’ acknowledging that lads were a handful, points out that their sisters are lovely and tells everyone judging their mother to bugger off.
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But anyway the following:
Shows that you really haven’t taken in what I’ve said in entirety. I have not suggested that redressing history is not part of the solution. And I have not boiled down the solution to individual responsibility entirely. In fact I have not offered a solution. I have stated that I don’t have one. I have stated I don’t know enough, in fact, most of us don’t know enough. This country ignores the problem until it’s shoved in our faces and then band-aids it.
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Still individual responsibility is part of a free society. It has been since at least Pericles. Search the annals of democratic theory and you will always find the same formula: self-mastery + limits on State power = Democracy.
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But that’s not the issue here. The issue that I’m trying to address is that the Left has a blanket attitude to this issue. Let’s find the racists and Damn Them. Who are the racists? Anyone who says anything that is not a dirge for the injustices of the past and the present.
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I say: Dirges don’t help.
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What might help is if the Left decided to actually look at what is said and what is done from a detached vantage. Cold mindedness solves problems, hot minds start wars. But as my commentary above is summed up as ‘hyper-individualist’ dogma I really don’t see much hope there. In fact who am I kidding forget it. Y’know where progress lies? It lies in the Aboriginal Malcolm X wherever s/he may be.
There’s an underlying need to demonstrate toughness & survivalism in a sunburnt country by way of thoughtless comments, knee-jerk meanness. To demonstrate like sheep how shrivelled your heart can be, how distant your desire for love & kindness can be from that which vomits from your gob.
Furthermore, there’s & constant demonstration of bitterness, envy & “chip on the shoulder” stuff that just doesn’t fit with how well off most Aussies are these days. Learned behaviours I guess, handed down proudly like biscuit & damper recipes.
It’s probably these atiitudes/reactions and so on that motivated the poor lads to JOY RIDE in the first place…based partially on genetic memory & stories told of how callous & mean some of their more privileged &/or whiter peers can be. The focus of films & journos on car racing, taking risks, taking to the wide open road to be free & idolising VILLAINS probably doesn’t help either.
In the long run they were a bunch of “out of it” frustrated kids lettin’ off steam. Angering if it was your car…or if they got close to hittin’ someone you love…but upon realising that the result is a great loss for them…& their families…any normal, compassionate, rational individual would feel sorrow, give their condolences…& look for ways to mend fences…give youngsters HOPE.
Good points Darlene, in fact well said & felt. Nabs, that retelling of the time when gentleman retired to the study to have cathartic acts by way of the “penny dreadfuls” is insightful. Some media moguls cater to their like even now, as tho it were an addiction. Or a profiteering venture. Perhaps both.
Adrien, most of your comments here are about attacking a particular straw man, which appears to be largely based on a few conversations you’ve had with some mates. For example:
This is a classic right-wing talking-point, Adrien, in case you hadn’t noticed – any kind of awareness of one group’s historical responsibility for another’s situation, and any attempt to redress it, is presented this way by the Blairs and Bolts of the world. And attempts to redress it are always presented as dangerous personal sacrifice by the “oppressor”, as you suggest your liberal archetype mate told you.
Comment 117 is clearly scornful of attempts to improve things, presenting those with an opinion on the matter as ivory tower elitists. Which I can assure you I, at least, am not – I have (as I mentioned) a reasonable experience of crime. My brother has a criminal history, I have been a victim of crime, I worked with criminals, and I have lived in high-crime suburbs.
Then you add, “Still pursuing Better Living Through Newspeak. Good luck with that one” because you disagree that the comments were racist. Where have we all read this faux Orwellian analysis before, Adrien?
At comment 90 you cite an example of a murder where the killer (falsely) accuses his victim of racism. Convenient choice of example. And finally after your convenient example, and a bit of straight talk about dispossession etc., you go back to the straw man:
Moral relativism – here’s a hint, Adrien, when you cite the “moral relativism” of the left you have a 99% chance of having degenerated into a right-wing rant. I shouldn’t even have to explain this.
You did the same thing in that animal rights conversation we had – attacked your imaginary animal libber and his imaginary ideas, not the actual theory of animal liberationists (which is like, you know, written down and stuff – just as are left wing views on crime and justice). You’re doing it here too, and presenting the whole thing in terms of this silly idea that we inner city dudettes don’t know anything about reality and are just being guilty white kids.
And at 98 you made an off little comment about asians and their hedge-a-money – asians are racist too, don’t you know? Gee where have I read that sort of thing before…? (The last time was Pauline Hanson, I do believe).
And riddle me this about what your “stereotypical lefty” mate told you… How is it that an individual aborigine committing a crime is in your mind, first and foremost, an individual who should be judged as a dickhead first and a representative of his racial history second; but your liberal mate, telling you you deserved to get bashed, is first and foremost a representative of a putative liberal movement, and only in the second instance an individual who should be judged as a dickhead?
So?
I don’t think that considering solutions entirely in terms of the guilt of the oppressor has anything to do with dangerous sacrifice SG. I believe it is a pose. It’s not a sacrifice. It’s not even much of an effort.
No it is scornful of the current mode by which things are supposedly changed. It doesn’t work. It is also scornful of Utopia.
Are you really that witless? Hedge-a-money is a play on hegemony. Lt Bourke St is Chinatown in Melbourne. The Chinese have had a longer continuous dominant civilization than anywhere else on Earth. I’m not referring to their racism. I didn’t mention their racism. You live in Japan don’t you? Well you’d well know that ethnic chauvanism is not something monopolized by Western Europeans. But I didn’t say anything about that. I’m referring to the fact that ‘white people’ aren’t the only ones capable of producing dominant culture. This has nothing to do with Hanson’s xenophobia.
My anecdote viz my friend’s commentary was an example of an attitude widely associated with what Americans call liberalism. He is only representative anecdotely. Similarly when I brought up the Jones murder I’m trying to cite an example where, in an individual sense, there is a tragic and senseless killing where the responsible party is clearly identifiable and culpable. However I then ask the question: would he have committed murder if he wasn’t aboriginal? And concluded: probably not. I’m trying to illustrate that their is a relationship between individual choice and social determinism but that they don’t quite fit together. This contradiction is at the heart of modern ethics. Your summary bears no relationship to my comment.
You accuse me of erecting strawmen, neglect to define exactly what they are, and yet more than once you’re telling me that I shouldn’t be saying this stuff because it’s the sort of stuff Hanson says. Criticism of extreme cultural relativism is not solely the province of the Right. The Left do it to. What I said was that the problem won’t be solved by cultural relativism. How this is erecting strawmen I don’t know. But please feel free to explain to me how cultural relativism does solve these problems.
It isn’t analysis, faux or otherwise. It’s a quip. And it’s apt. The strategy of certain elements of the Left, effective in institutional discourse, has been to banish the expression of utterances that fit within the standard sets of ‘oppression’: racism, sexism, homophobia etc. Anti-vilification laws being the strongest example.
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One of the results of this is that people who are racist now deliver their messages covertly thereby making it both difficult to identify their actual arguments and assisting them in producing non-racist lines to back their position up. The other result is that we can no longer have frank discussions about the reality of ethnicity because people are too intimidated to discuss it openly. Please feel free to locate a racist comment in the link provided at the top. I couldn’t find one.
The thing is there’s a spectrum of views of ethnicity. It doesn’t just fit into two discreet, mutually exclusive boxes: racist and not racist. But in order to have any conversation about race one must first provide a preamble of stated opposition to racism (which many racists can actually do well enough) and then proceed to a sanitized dialogue.
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In Von Rezzori’s great book Memoirs of an Anti-Semite he states that ‘thanks to those idiots, the Nazis’ we can no longer discuss ethnicity openly and because we cannot let the poisons hatch out we are doomed to having them fester inside until they once more will.
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The Left often makes the mistake of assuming that the progressive ethos of their immediate experience is that of society at large. It isn’t. In the wide world many people are just as sexist and racist as they ever were. Banishing the expression of this sentiments does not rid the world of them. It simply drives them underground.
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In the link above there’s a range of views. Mostly they come in three camps. You have the stern ‘good riddance’ or ‘it’s the mother’s fault’ types, you have those arguing for understanding and you have members of the family intersecting. Race isn’t mentioned much. However there’s an assumption that covert racism is at play. Now it may well be. But to simply assume it and then indulge in a bile festival is useless. You need to understand phenomena.
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There are a range of feelings viz ethnicity. There is ethnocentricty which may or may not be regarded as racist. Do you, for example, consider Woody Allen’s mother racist when she asks her son: “Why don’t you marry a nice Jewish girl?”? Then there’s ethnic chauvinism. There are ethnic fetishes. These are all forms of racialism, properly: feelings or ideas attached to ethnicity – the Scots are cheapwads, the Chinese are degenerate gamblers, the Italians are all in the Mafia. Often this is mistaken for racism. For example: the notion that the Maori of New Zealand’s north island being quicker-tempered than their south island kin.
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Such talk is not polite as it’s perceived as racist. But ‘racism’ is not simply notions or general likes/dislikes about a people. It is, in Haile Selassie’s words:, “the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior”. There are many variations on this. The Nation of Islam which taught that white people are blue-eyed devils incapable of good was such. When Malcolm X rejected them he said: “I am not a racist”.
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Your points miss my point which I’ll state again. We spend too much time trying to divide people into ‘friends’ (ie not-racist) and ‘enemies (ie racist). In our zealous efforts to do so we make the mistake of labeling as racist anything that does not fit within the narrow perimeter of acceptable thought. Meantime most people go on thinking what they will regardless.
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I do not think that the dire situation of many Aboriginal people is simply a matter of their individual bad choices. That would be in contradiction of the facts as I understand them, the facts as they obviously glare out. To say such a thing would be racist or at least ignorant. But I have not said this. I have simply said that the neo-puritan strategy of whitewashing discourse does little to actually improve matters. It does not eliminate racism nor does it bring progress to Aboriginal life.
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The problem with your line is that it’s almost entirely based on the notion that because I may see errors that the Right see that I’m ‘one of them’ hence to be disregarded. Hence wrong by categorical default. This is nonsense. One isn’t right by virtue of one’s place on the political spectrum one is right because the facts and the reasoning bear this out.
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There are psychological tests that prove that many people who claim to not harbour racial prejudices are actually full-of-shit. Similarly there is a growing body of scientific study augmenting millenia of moral philosophy that demonstrates that human beings tend to extend moral systems only to ‘their own’ and not ‘those outside’. To combat racism truly we must deal in the facts as we know them but unfortunately both sides of the political spectrum reserve the right to ignore those facts inconvenient to them. It would be better if we moved to a situation where one considers the arguments coldly before making a response. As it is one reacts emotionally and uses the intellectual reserves to justify this reaction. It does not make for solutions.
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My essential point is that we group myriad views into one box: racist. That you are conflating me with Ms Hanson and Messrs Bolt and Blair is evidence submitted on my behalf.
BTW If you mean by ‘right-wing rant’ the sort of chauvinistic tripe that one usually means I have a 0% chance of doing that. I think racism is immoral and backward everyone’s racism. I also think it’s probably part of who we unfortunately still are. But I am not a racist and’ve never capitulated to it.
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Also I didn’t erect strawmen viz animal lib. I simply said that animals cannot have rights in the way that term is used in the world as it is now.
You make some valid points Adrien.
“any kind of awareness of one group’s historical responsibility for another’s situation, and any attempt to redress it, is presented this way by the Blairs and Bolts of the world.”
Not so, SG.
If it were, say, the Japanese parliament passing a motion to apologise for their treatment of Aussie POWs, the hand-wringing would be “perfectly appropriate and well overdue”.
FDB – On that last point I would like to direct SG’s attention to the following from #90:
This, I think clearly differentiates me from those Whitewash View of History types who say the plight of Aboriginal people is not our fault and not our problem. It is.