Always look on the bright side of life.

[roman_machine]

Anti-semitism is a very interesting form of prejudice to me. And, yeah, I'm referring to Mel Gibson shoving his foot down his drunken throat. What's interesting to me, though, is how quickly people rise to his defence. I'm sure a lot of this has to do with his celebrity status, but I can't believe that's the only reason. I think it has to do with

Comments

[makethemmakeout]

I know what you mean... Crikey, Macchers, who would have guessed that Jodie was in denial? That's not like her. Usually she is so open and willing to share.

One of the difficulties though, I reckon, Macchers, is that we somehow think its okay to say 'the Jews' instead of Jewish people. If someone called my ethnic group, The Aboriginals, I would kick them a mile and so would the rest of the world. I think you are dead-on about acceptable prejudice... I was just thinking about it in the context of something I'm writing. It's a piece that in part examines the UN's Permanenet Forum Indigenous Issues - and one of the things that's so startling about it... is that Indigenous identity is conflated with disadvantage... to the point where in fact about 99% of the Indigenous population of the world are not eligible to be considered Indigenous under their charter (i.e Indian people living in India, Chinese people living in China, etc). So that the fight against prejudice that the permanent forum takes on (and this is where I was thinking about what you wrote, Macchers) is a fight about identifying disadvantage...and the support that is forthcoming of - in this case - Indigenous communities, is to a point of equality - certainly not beyond it to a point of prosperity. So if a cultural or ethnic group has the audacity to be successful (even if this is, as in the case of Jewish people, only either a minority or a racist perception - supported by some haphazard evidence), there is only support in order to create a rise to a virtual bar. Beyond that, a group has to be accountable in ways that conform to the default culture.

Bloody interesting stuff mate, thanks for the insight. Nah don't worry about disclaimers, go on, it's all good.

[roman_machine]

I know what you mean... Crikey, Macchers, who would have guessed that Jodie was in denial? That's not like her. Usually she is so open and willing to share.

Heh.

If someone called my ethnic group, The Aboriginals, I would kick them a mile and so would the rest of the world.

Why is the term "aboriginal" offensive? I ask out of pure curiosity, with no racist overtones of any kind. Plenty of ignorant ones, though.

I think the biggest problem the UN Forum faces in separating the stereotypical relationship of "indigenous=disadvantaged" is with the indigenous peoples themselves. The idea of an inherent disadvantage has taken on an almost cultural significance for some groups of people. I've been working with my Native American tribal government this summer, and I've encountered so many citizens that see their personal disadvantages as a source of ethnic pride: being unemployed or an alcoholic are things that keep them "Indian", and to give up either of those means you've become "white." Which, I suppose, relates to what you've said about a group being held "accountable in ways that conform to the default culture." Maybe the reason why many indigenous peoples embrace their disadvantages is because they're trying to avoid this, and they choose to culturally incorporate things that many of us would see as problems because it keeps them living on their own terms. So much of their actual culture has been stripped away(for indigenous Americans, anyway, and I would bet indigenous Australians, as well)that they begin to cling to what little is left and incorporate some of those disadvantages to fill in the blanks.

Or, maybe not. I'm just guessing. Cool stuff, though. I hadn't even heard of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, so thanks for mentioning it. :)

[makethemmakeout]

Hey Roman,
Sorry it took me so long to respond. I kept looking at your comment and thinking oooh I have to send something on that. Which tribal group do you belong to, Roman?

The problem with 'Aboriginals' is I think actually two separate problems. Aboriginal as a word is used a LOT here... in fact I work at Wollotuka School of Aboriginal Studies and teach some courses that have the word 'Aboriginal' in them. But there is a problem turning Aboriginal into a noun, because bluntly it isn't one, so to start to say The Aboriginals, given that Aboriginal is an adjective, isn't appropriate. It's more appropriate to say Aboriginal people - or, as some folks are doing now Aboriginal People (I think it's a bit iffy about whether it's important to bring People into the proper noun form). So that's a bit of it. But the other issue, completely separate from this is that Aboriginal is not a culturally appropriate word... it's still used, so I wouldn't say it's wrong, but it's also often either not sufficiently precise or at the worst end, excludes a bunch of people. It's appropriate for me to refer to myself as a Wiradjuri woman - because that is my country. I do not belong to all of Australia, I only belong to the Wiradjuri. The word Aboriginal was really just deployed by English people to group together 300 nations that they wanted to see as one. The analogy would be for someone to be referred to constantly as European, rather than ever being considered French, or German or whatever. This conflation of culture was the beginning of the decimation of cultural, linguistic and geographic boundaries. As well it damaged kinship relations between different nations. The other baddie is that it excludes one large group of Indigenous Australians: Torres Strait Islander people, who are not considered to be Aboriginal Australians, but are certainly Indigenous Australians. I have some Torres Strait Islander students who clearly feel disenfranchised by the exclusion.

So, all of that stuff, but the word Aborigine is trickier. It is creeping back into use, but has been demonised as a noun for a number of reasons. There are words in any lexicon that because of bad use, can never be reclaimed, and this is just always going to be one of them.

PART 2... I ran out of room.

[makethemmakeout]

PART 2
I have to say I kind of disagree about the disadvantage being projected and not lived. The reality, at least for my people, is that we are many more times likely to be disadvantaged in almost every measurable way. The example recently was the stat released on Indigenous PhDs... and although this is at the top end of the (very hierarchical) western education system, it speaks just as easily to every level of education. 38 Phds, when parity would indicate there should be more than a thousand. Indigenous people are many times more likely to have health problems, many times more likely to be incarcerated and many times more likely to never be fully employed. The social situation for Indigenous people here is getting worse again, certainly not better. Having said that, I think the problem with orgs like the United Nations is they make the mistake of misnaming heavily colonised countries, as locations of Indigenous groups... instead of recognising that colonisation and marginalisation of that group is the problem. There are tons of Indigenous issues that are not even slightly connected to colonisation, but under the charter of the Permanent Forum, they deal with nothing that is not responsive. I disagree with you that this is on the advice of Indigenous groups, I think instead the UN set their agenda, which has always been about pathologising Indigeneity.

I think that stuff that you say about incorporating disadvantage reminds me of an interesting issue that I realised recently. I'd spoken to an academic in Idaho a few years ago and she'd said that one of the problems for her in dealing with her colleagues had always been that she wasn't that she was Indigenous and that they had no understanding of Indigenous culture, but that she was working class. I was thinking about it, because the same is true for most of my colleagues in the Indigenous studies field. With the non-Indigenous faculty members, it's pretty uncommon for them to come from a working class background, it happens, but you don't see a cohort of folks with that background. But in my School, yeah, it's so. And so sometimes in that landscape, it's also significant to note that one can achieve in a non-Indigenous space, but it's almost always only by freaks like me, and we are freaks... but unfortunately we become used as examples of how if you work hard you can achieve, and that's a load of nonsense. This is particularly a problem with academics, health advisors and other somewhat western-educated people... There are still a lot of well intentioned non-Indigenous people who want to determine Indigenous paths, when in fact, rather their job is to provide resources and services to us. And inequal access to education, means that there can be some bullying of Indigenous groups by those stakeholders.