@groundzero - this was always going to happen - I had my first taste of this once at a small dinner party whereto I had invited some of my kid's friends too, whom I didn't know. All of a sudden this one girl stood up and called every woman there a 'white wh.re' because - and there followed an outpouring of Women's Lib stuff, some Indigenous grudges (totally justified, but the wrong time and place) and she eventually refused to discuss, when we - and there were three married women and two of my daughters, from memory 3 men - said: 'look here, we are all in jobs, running our legs off to help our families' etc. this was back in 1980s . . . . she just went into some unintelligible jumbles and curses and left - as we always were fairly casual and I never invited 'snobby' people, I could not fathom, what had set her off.
. . . . turns out she was part-Aboriginal - but I thought she had Italian parents. So maybe simply seeing a 'normal' family behave and laugh happily, with good food etc. set her off - I don't know to this day, and then did not have the skill to make her sit down and get her to talk.
Also: look at most of our Aboriginal people in the city streets, they look angry - - and they have reason to be: whatever disadvantage a poor white young man/woman has is magnified for them 10-fold. .... and it isn't their fault, because many have been neglected by their parents etc.
I have seen pubs in country towns, with small children playing outside in the street, because both parents were inside 'having a good time' - and not only Aboriginal children, either.
I do think it is high time we made a proper treaty with the people who lived here first - and coming from me as a newcomer to this country, is probably a bit cheeky - but i did not expect this when I decided to migrate here; I expected a South Sea island paradise.
I was totally shocked when I first heard how Aboriginal people were referred to by Australians - I still remember that feeling - this has improved though, but the sentiment is still strong within certain sections of the community and I have probably taken on some of those negative attitudes, but I am aware of it and prepared to stand up and say my bit. (which isn't enough, I grant you that!)
No Reverse Apartheid will happen - but i too, felt shocked about the casual way the Rio Tinto Chairman referred to blowing up, what should be part of the entire World's heritage - that's my feeling on that one!
P.S. I am just reading some of Norman Lindsay's books on 'Childhood' 'Youth' in the late 1880-90s in country Victoria and not a mention of an Aboriginal in that, just references to the English caste system which was imported by getting ex-Indian colonials here and fill positions of Magistrates, Judges etc. - so I suspect a whole class of people, who became the dominant class brought with them prejudices from other colonised countries, and they were never questioned.
Just IMO - the books are delightful btw (and out-of-print)- I reckon Norman Lindsay is Australia's major all-round talent and genius.
Taurisk
