It’s all your fault! We were never taught “no”, so offering us anything is tantamount to forcing us!
December 13th, 2009 at 02:58pm
Ernie Dingo, clearly as upset as I am that The Great Outdoors was axed, and yet abysmal rival travel show Getaway is still on the air, has worked out why Aboriginal society, especially in rural communities, is portrayed as having a drinking problem…it’s all the white man’s fault.
INDIGENOUS icon Ernie Dingo has hit out at hypocritical “white people” who lecture Aborigines about alcohol consumption.
“What you should be worrying about is who is giving them access … who sells alcohol? Not black people,” Dingo said.
“We (indigenous people) don’t have a problem. Our problem is to say ‘no’ to you blokes, to white people … ‘no’ is not really part of our cultural background.
“There are more white alcoholics than there are black people in this country, so don’t come at us with restrictions and Aboriginal laws about alcohol.”
Mmm, perhaps…but there are more drunk or drugged Aborigines on a per-capita basis…and Ernie, mate, you’re not the only one being restricted. We have RSA, and more importantly, if you had bothered to check the news this week, the Police are cracking down on alcohol-fuelled violence with “Operation Unite” at the moment.
There is still a big difference though. As a percentage of population, alcohol-fuelled violence isn’t a massive problem in white society…or even in urban mixed society. The whole reason for the 2007 Northern Territory Intervention was that entire settlements were being overrun by alcohol-fuelled violence, child abuse, and child neglect.
As for that ridiculous argument that you don’t know how to say “no”. We gave your people school so that they could learn the word “no”, along with the rest of the language…but who has the higher truancy rate, white people, or Aboriginal people…yes, that’s right, the latter.
If you insist on running with the “we can’t say no to anything you offer” line, well perhaps we shouldn’t be offering Centrelink benefits to you…or maybe we shouldn’t be offering you citizenship. We could just build a big fence and give you the Northern Territory.
More seriously though…if it as all the fault of white men as Ernie claims, isn’t it therefore also our responsibility to intervene?
Ernie, I appreciate that you were using the bizarre statement to promote your musical which nobody has ever heard of…but for you, one of the leading examples of an Aboriginal bloke who is decent, to come out and make one of these stupid “all white men are evil” statements, does nothing to promote harmony between white and black people…if anything, it hinders it drastically.
And I really shouldn’t have to say this…but anybody who complains about my use of “white” and “black” in this article, will have their comments deleted. I see no reason why it should be OK for Ernie Dingo to use that language, and not OK for me to do the same.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Bizarreness,Samuel's Editorials
