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Hi SSB, you have provided more stuff here than I can respond to at present, so I hope you won't mind if I pick out what I think is the single most important comment you make.
I mildly disagree with your first comment because I think it is not so much a right/wrong picture as a both/and picture. I think modern Western society is obviously a key issue, but its impact is magnified by racism and discrimination. I can still remember the football game (RL) I played in a Randwick school team and got soundly trounced by the boys from La Perouse. Our headmaster, a decent practising Catholic and outstanding teacher, told my mother that it was good for the boys to be able to excel at the game because their brains were differently structured from ours. There was little or no conscious racism or discrimination in the comment, it was just the way things were. But we needed to change.
And I accept that much of what you say about the "stolen generation" is true, and that the flawed process in fact made some lives better. But the problem arises when we consider that one of the reasons why children were taken from their parents was that they were Aboriginal, an action based on the notion that few or no Aborigines could raise children properly. I think we have moved on to some extent from this sort of position, but it remains a vexed issue simply because parental inadequacy is not derived exclusively from race.
Finally I respect the work of the GO Foundation because they seem to be clear about the both/and issues of modern society. We could say, using an old distinction, that what they are seeking to make possible is what might be called an indigenous middle class. And in my humble opinion, a strong and stable middle class is the backbone of an open society, and to see more Aboriginal people in this category is for me an encouraging experience. I feel you might agree with that level of change?
I mildly disagree with your first comment because I think it is not so much a right/wrong picture as a both/and picture. I think modern Western society is obviously a key issue, but its impact is magnified by racism and discrimination. I can still remember the football game (RL) I played in a Randwick school team and got soundly trounced by the boys from La Perouse. Our headmaster, a decent practising Catholic and outstanding teacher, told my mother that it was good for the boys to be able to excel at the game because their brains were differently structured from ours. There was little or no conscious racism or discrimination in the comment, it was just the way things were. But we needed to change.
And I accept that much of what you say about the "stolen generation" is true, and that the flawed process in fact made some lives better. But the problem arises when we consider that one of the reasons why children were taken from their parents was that they were Aboriginal, an action based on the notion that few or no Aborigines could raise children properly. I think we have moved on to some extent from this sort of position, but it remains a vexed issue simply because parental inadequacy is not derived exclusively from race.
Finally I respect the work of the GO Foundation because they seem to be clear about the both/and issues of modern society. We could say, using an old distinction, that what they are seeking to make possible is what might be called an indigenous middle class. And in my humble opinion, a strong and stable middle class is the backbone of an open society, and to see more Aboriginal people in this category is for me an encouraging experience. I feel you might agree with that level of change?
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