[ExI] "an aboriginal human from 70,000 B.C."

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Sun Mar 23 20:17:03 UTC 2008


Damien still dodges my question.

I had written

>> What can the government do except forcibly integrate the
>> families into separate cities as far as apart as possible?

Instead there is perhaps (or perhaps not) an answer embedded
somewhere in the PM Rudd's speech, an answer that Damien
perhaps endorses.  Starting with the paragraph (I've only skimmed
a bit the whole whining thing)

> This new partnership on 
> closing the gap will set concrete targets for the 
> future: within a decade to halve the widening gap 
> in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and 
> opportunities for Indigenous Australians, within 
> a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant 
> mortality rates between Indigenous and 
> non-Indigenous children and, within a generation, 
> to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap 
> between Indigenous and non-Indigenous in overall
> life expectancy.

and a some more a little bit further down

> Let us resolve today to begin with the little 
> children--a fitting place to start on this day of 
> apology for the stolen generations. Let us 
> resolve over the next five years to have every 
> Indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal 
> community enrolled in and attending a proper 
> early childhood education centre or opportunity 
> and engaged in proper preliteracy and prenumeracy 
> programs. Let us resolve to build new educational 
> opportunities for these little ones, year by 
> year, step by step, following the completion of 
> their crucial preschool year. Let us resolve to 
> use this systematic approach 

In other words, the government is going to go in there
and start adapting the children to "white men's culture", 
sure to be resisted by some of the aboringines as yet
more of the same interference in their affairs that caused
all the trouble in the first place.  MB is perfectly correct
in discussing the way that the American Indians resented
very much some similar approach that was used on their
children. And what are we to make of John Grigg's story
that ended

        A common attitude in the tribe at the time was that
        the young men who had worked so hard to become
        lawyers and fight successfully for their people in the
        "white man's world" had in the end lost what it was to
        be an Alaskan native of that tribe. 

But, Damien, could you please---I promise not to demand
yet again if you just ignore this--- *your* suggestions? And
can you, unlike the PM, do it in less than 25KB?  A brief
outline or summary?

Thanks,
Lee



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