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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 6:27:58 GMT 10
I think this Board is capable of discussing this subject without demands for censorship and accusations of racism.
Kerryn Pholi describes herself as a former professional aborigine. Amazingly, it was the ABC's The Drum which published her story yesterday. So far, it has attracted over 500 comments, most of them favourable. What does everyone here think?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 6:35:25 GMT 10
This is an extract from Kerryn's article.
I am a person of Aboriginal descent...I used to identify as Aboriginal, and I have worked in ‘identified’ government positions only open to Aboriginal people. As a professional Aborigine, I could harangue a room full of people with real qualifications and decades of experience with whatever self-serving, uninformed drivel that happened to pop into my head. For this nonsense I would be rapturously applauded, never questioned, and paid well above my qualifications and experience.
I worked in excellent organisations that devoted resources to recruiting, elevating and generally indulging people like me, simply because other people like me told these organisations that’s what they needed to do to ‘overcome Indigenous disadvantage’.
In these organisations I worked alongside dedicated, talented and highly skilled people - and there may have been room for one more dedicated, talented and highly skilled person if I hadn’t been there occupying a position designated for someone of my ‘race’.
In my years of working as a professional Aborigine, I don’t think I did anything that really helped anybody much at all, and I know that I was a party to unfairness, abuses of power, wastefulness and plain silliness in the name of ‘reconciliation’ and ‘cultural sensitivity’.
Aside from a nagging sense of feeling like a complete fraud, things were reasonably OK until I made the mistake of reading works by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Amartya Sen’s Identity and Violence and Thomas Sowell’s Affirmative action around the world: an empirical study....
After that, I could no longer ignore the fact that my career was built on racism. Not ‘reverse racism’ or ‘positive discrimination’ - just plain racism, of benefit to nobody except a select gang of privileged people with the right genes and a piece of paper to prove it. In other words, of benefit only to people like me.
About 18 months ago I burned my ‘proof of Aboriginality’ documentation… I walked away from the Aboriginal industry for good.
It hasn’t been easy, and I am still working out what to do with myself from here, but it has been rewarding. It feels great to simply identify as a human being…
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Post by jody on Sept 28, 2012 8:39:37 GMT 10
First and foremost I think she needs to be congratulated for her honesty. Takes an impressive person to admit to what she has.
I don't know anything about Aborigines working in government positions but will say this....if they are qualified for the job, great, if they're not, then they shouldn't have it.....same as anyone.
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anon
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Post by anon on Sept 28, 2012 8:45:04 GMT 10
Good on her. Imagine if evil whitey had said this though. He'd have been howled down mercilessly by the MSM and the inner city latte set. She will largely be ignored though as "the industry" is too powerful now.
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Post by pim on Sept 28, 2012 9:11:51 GMT 10
I don't think so anon - that she will be "ignored". There will be an answer and there probably ought to be an answer. It's called "debate". She isn't denying the discrimination and the disadvantage but what she is doing is challenging the methodologies that had been developed to address the discrimination and the disadvantage. That's fair enough. The way I read her, she alleges that it had led to an "industry" in which a "carpetbagger" culture had been allowed to develop and I think she has a point. What's more I think people like Noel Pearson would agree with her, and not only Noel Pearson. If you look at the recent election result in the NT what stands out is that the CLP or whatever the non-Labor side of politics up there calls itself made its greatest gains among Aborigines. There's an attitudinal shift going on. As for your inner city latte set, I think you overstate their importance. That demographic so far has managed to return just one member to Federal Parliament. Just one! And that's the Member for Melbourne, the Green, Adam Bandt. If anyone owes his position to the inner city latte set, it has to be Adam Bandt. Or does he?? Because the truth is Adam Bandt owes his position to the inner city latte swillers who would have given him their primary votes, leavened by Liberal voters who gave Adam Bandt their preferences in response to a call by the Abbott Liberals to do just that. Seems to me that this presents the Liberals with a simple solution to what to do about an MP who represents inner city latte swillers. It seems to me that in 2013 Liberal voters in the seat of Melbourne should direct their preferences away from Adam Bandt. Don't you??  |
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anon
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Post by anon on Sept 28, 2012 9:20:04 GMT 10
Good on the aboriginals of the NT if there is an attitudinal shift going on there. Self sufficiency will always lead to better outcomes than a life lived on welfare and handouts, regardless of the color of a persons skin.
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Post by pim on Sept 28, 2012 9:20:34 GMT 10
I think this Board is capable of discussing this subject without demands for censorship and accusations of racism. I agree, but only because the racists haven't joined the discussion at this point so it still qualifies as a "discussion" rather than as a sledging match. This is the "carpetbagger" allegation which is the basis of her argument. So far so good, but the next part of your post puzzles me, david: Why "amazingly"? The use of that adverb tells us more about your views of the ABC than it sheds light on the op ed piece. Sp much for anon's cynicism about it being "ignored"! |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 9:21:09 GMT 10
The Drum's site is now up to 685 comments, and this on its second day.
The comments are mosly from ABC types, whom one might identify with the latte set.
Ms Pholi has certainly struck a note.
(Good comments on this board too. Off to a good start.)
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Post by sonex on Sept 28, 2012 11:17:09 GMT 10
A quote from her article in The Drum. "As a person of Aboriginal descent, and a female at that, I am grateful that I had the good fortune to be born here in Australia in 1975, and not here in say, 1775." I believe all women are grateful they were not living in 1775. "Life was quite difficult for Convict women. Most were sentenced in England for minor crimes such as pick pocketing or theft. As punishment, not only were they exported from their country, many were forced to endure of a life of sexual exploitation. On the ships to Australia, the prettiest were rumoured to have been shared amongst the military officers. Upon arrival in Australia, the women were lined up like cattle to be selected as servants or wives. If they didn’t become either, a life of prostitution was their only real hope for survival." www.convictcreations.com/history/femalefact.htmIt seems that Kerryn Pholi has had the benefit of modern education and another plus for her seems that she is not a black skinned Aborigine, so she is equipped to operate on a level playing field, unlike many Aborigines who have little education, live in remote areas and can barely speak English. |
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Post by pim on Sept 28, 2012 11:26:30 GMT 10
The Drum's site is now up to 685 comments, and this on its second day.
The comments are mosly from ABC types, whom one might identify with the latte set.
Ms Pholi has certainly struck a note.
(Good comments on this board too. Off to a good start.) Your thread seems to be about two topics, david: firstly how the aboriginal "industry" offers opportunities for carpetbaggers, and secondly the sort of people who listen to or watch the ABC, or who write for and read its Drum op ed pieces. Whch one is it? You sound reasonable at first, but given that these tell us more about your own predispositions, assumptions and prejudices than they do about Aborigines or the ABC, isn't it reasonable to conclude that you don't exactly come to the thread with clean hands yourself? |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 11:37:22 GMT 10
Pim, you'll notice that I haven't used the words "carpetbaggers" or "industry."
I am always concerned at the ABC's groupthink in covering most issues and I was delighted that the new management of the Drum is opening up that forum.
My dealings with aborigines though tutoring them in the prison system have left me very suspicious of their support organizations, which seem mostly concerned with their own interests.
I don't think that leaves me with unclean hands.
Prejudices? More like experiences.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2012 9:08:19 GMT 10
I think this Board is capable of discussing this subject without demands for censorship and accusations of racism. I agree, but only because the racists haven't joined the discussion at this point so it still qualifies as a "discussion" rather than as a sledging match. And the "racists" are those who disagree with you, apparently?? The "racists" are those who come at this topic from a different point of view - namely a pragmatic and realistic point of view also channelled by Aboriginals themselves like Bess Price, for instance. I wonder if Larissa Bernhardt and other "white blackfellas" who have prospered on the Aboriginal gravy-train are also going to burn their certificates? I don't think so. As one pragmatic blackfella said, "I am sick of these white blackfellas living off our pain and suffering." Absolutely! |
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Post by pim on Oct 8, 2012 10:42:32 GMT 10
You obviously haven't read my posts on Larissa Behrendt. No, david, I'm not going to bandy words with you about "morality". You blew it with your shabby tabloid stuff regarding the perfectly proper domestic arrangements of this country's legally sworn-in prime minister.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2012 10:54:25 GMT 10
I think that might have been directed to me and not David?? Actually no, I haven't read your posts. However I have written extensively on Larissa Behrendt and I cannot remember anyone from the left agreeing. The only response was the usual vitriol and accusations of racism. Same old, same old.   Who do you think suffered deprivation and discrimination in their upbringing? White "blackfellas" living in urban cities - or those living black in outback communities?? |
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Post by pim on Oct 8, 2012 10:56:27 GMT 10
You're right. It should have been directed to you and not to David. My mistake. Apologies to david.
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