4 ms·

> Its privileging a demographic with greater power under the law based on skin color. Thats apartheid It literally speaking isn’t based on skin colour. In Aust

> Its privileging a demographic with greater power under the law based on skin color. Thats apartheid It literally speaking isn’t based on skin colour. In Australia (I think the situation in NZ is similar?) indigenous status is based on descent, identification, and acceptance by the community. Unlike the “blood quantum laws” which apply for Native Americans in the US, there is no minimum percentage of indigenous ancestry required. So you have people, the majority of whose ancestors are European, and who look physically indistinguishable from other European-descended Australians, but who have some indigenous ancestry, who choose to identify with that ancestry, and whose identification is accepted by a recognised indigenous community - they are legally indigenous. An indigenous person can have any skin colour, and due to trends in intermarriage and indigenous identification (which is optional), the distribution of skin colours is changing over time.

agentgumshoe 3y ago
Which makes it a little odd to separate out 'indigenous' as needing a separate legal or advisory entity doesn't it? What is the position of the 1% indigenous? It is referring to a culture contextualised by skin colour. It's all signalling. In Australia there are support and administrative bodies at all level of government interacting with aboriginal communities (often failing for different reasons, mostly budget). A 'Voice' (which is still vaguely defined as having influence but no power) does not magically create harmony between the past and future, it only continues the divide. We are stuck in a world of trying to simultaneously give back the 'old past' while carrying on as-is otherwise. That is impossible. We must work towards a common, prosperous and respectful future for all inhabitants that recognises and admits the things we can't undo or change. We are trying to have it both ways, and it will leave the divides strongly in place.
- freejazz 3y ago
  >Which makes it a little odd to separate out 'indigenous' as needing a separate legal or advisory entity doesn't it? What is the position of the 1% indigenous? It is referring to a culture contextualised by skin colour. Weird how you seem to recognize what culture is, yet in the same sentence it means nothing more than sharing a skin tone
  - agentgumshoe 3y ago
    That's not what I said. I said the culture (for the sake of the referendum) is contextualised by skin tone, because if they showed lots of 'white' people as those they're bringing a voice to people would be confused and it gets messy. Which is my follow-on point about how they're trying to pretend it will somehow bring back a past that can't be brought back.
    - skissane 3y ago
      I'm not sure if skin tone really plays as big a role in the referendum as you suggest. If you look at who the biggest Indigenous spokespeople on each side are, some of them have darker skin and others paler skin, but most of them look like they have varying degrees of mixed Indigenous-European descent. The idea that pale-skinned people can't be Indigenous is mainly one that exists on the political right. In 2011, conservative Murdoch newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt was found (in a civil, not criminal, proceeding) to have violated the Racial Discrimination Act by authoring a newspaper column arguing that pale-skinned people couldn't "really" be indigenous. [0] By contrast, my local federal member of parliament is Dr Gordon Reid MP [1]. He identifies as Indigenous, but his skin tone is pretty similar to my own, and (as far as I know) my own ancestry is purely European (mostly Irish, with some English and Scottish too). But, Dr Reid belongs to our main centre-left party (Labor), and the Australian Labor Party has zero objection to pale-skinned people identifying as Indigenous [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eatock_v_Bolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eatock_v_Bolt [1] https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=300126 https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?...
      - agentgumshoe 3y ago
        You can't 'identify' as indigenous. You either are or you're not. Andrew Bolt was a stupid provocateur. If getting political, the ALP has no objection to anyone so long as they support their view... same as the Liberal party.
        freejazz 3y ago
TeMPOraL 3y ago
That's even worse though, isn't it? A racist policy favoring indigenous by blood could at least be justified by saying it's correcting for past racism in the opposite direction - however weak that justification is. But what you're describing sounds like granting privileged status to a club, membership in which is dictated by whether you identify with it, and existing members identify with you. Similar to privileging a religious group, but sans religion itself. No way this could possibly go wrong.
- skissane 3y ago
  > That's even worse though, isn't it? A racist policy favoring indigenous by blood could at least be justified by saying it's correcting for past racism in the opposite direction - however weak that justification is. But what you're describing sounds like granting privileged status to a club, membership in which is dictated by whether you identify with it, and existing members identify with you. Similar to privileging a religious group, but sans religion itself. I'm not necessarily defending these policies–just attempting to describe them accurately–if one is going to criticise something, it is important to accurately describe the thing to be criticised. This is an issue on which I have mixed feelings and can see both sides of the argument. But to clarify, at least officially speaking, it is based on blood–it is not enough to simplify identify as indigenous and be accepted by a recognised indigenous community as indigenous, you also have to actually be of indigenous descent – a person with zero indigenous descent is officially speaking not indigenous, even if they identify as such, and even if a recognised indigenous community accepts them as such. The difference from American "blood quantum" laws, is there is no requirement for any minimum degree of indigenous descent – officially it doesn't matter if a person's ancestry is 100% indigenous or 1-in-256 indigenous – but officially a person with zero known indigenous ancestry can't be indigenous. In practice, people with extremely remote indigenous ancestry are unlikely to be able to find a recognised indigenous community willing to endorse their indigenous identification, but standards vary from community to community, and also change over time – sometimes it becomes a very political issue, with certain factions within a community advocating for much tougher membership standards than others, and so it can depend on the outcome of the political battle between those different factions. In practice, Australia doesn't have any central list of "who is indigenous". Every agency makes that decision for itself. For statistical purposes, the government just uses self-identification, and doesn't require any evidence of descent or acceptance by a recognised community. When it comes to "affirmative action" (reserved jobs, admission to educational institutions, scholarships, etc) and voting rights in representative bodies (such as the "land councils" through which indigenous communities own land), agencies usually require more than just self-identification: generally a letter or certificate issued by a recognised indigenous community body (often a land council), although sometimes other forms of evidence can be accepted instead. > No way this could possibly go wrong. There is a lot of controversy in the Australian indigenous community over so-called "box-tickers", who identify as indigenous, despite having only very remote indigenous ancestry, or even no such ancestry at all. The requirement for a letter/certificate issued by recognised community can be a big hurdle for such people, although given the political controversies over the standards for issuing such letters/certificates (and even occasional allegations of corruption), we can't rule out the possibility that some people with zero actual indigenous descent have successfully obtained such letters/certificates. Officially speaking, such people aren't actually indigenous, but the system will treat them as if they were. However, there was a case (in NSW) a few years ago where a woman claimed to be of indigenous descent, and had her claim endorsed by her local land council, which then accepted her as one of its members – a competing faction on the land council insisted her indigenous ancestry was bogus, gathered evidence of her genealogy, filed a formal complaint with the state government agency which manages land councils, and successfully convinced that agency to revoke her land council membership.
Forgotthepass8 3y ago
They identify as indigenous because it's an advantage to them
aydyn 3y ago
When I say skin color I obviously don't mean literal RGB value, I mean mean ethnicity/race. You wrote an entire essay on a completely irrelevant point. Don't be a pedant. It's obnoxious.
- skissane 3y ago
  If you mean ethnicity, why not just say "ethnicity"? Why call ethnicity "skin colour" if by that you actually mean ethnicity? And if by "race" you mean something which is neither ethnicity nor skin colour, then that is a concept with very unclear applicability to contemporary Australia. Finally, your needlessly hostile attitude is obnoxious.
  - aydyn 3y ago
    Are you serious? were having a convo on a internet board, not having an academic debate. People say “skin color” colloquially when they mean the general concept of race/ethnicity. Is it not used like this in Australia? The hostile attitude is because you decided to focus on a hyper-specific nuance that nobody cares about. And then write an entire essay about a non-point. Its like if I were to focus in solely on you purposely misspelling “color” using non-American and then steer the convo into an endless quagmire about semantics. Can you see how obnoxious that would be?
    - skissane 3y ago
      > were having a convo on a internet board, not having an academic debate I come to this website because it provides an opportunity for a level of discussion which is closer to an "academic debate" than a "convo on an internet board". If you find that obnoxious, maybe there is some other "internet board" out there which is more suitable for you. > People say “skin color” colloquially when they mean the general concept of race/ethnicity. Is it not used like this in Australia? You speak as if the "general concept of race/ethnicity" was identical in every country – it isn't. There are significant differences between how "race/ethnicity" is understood in Australia, and how it is understood in the US-to speak of just two countries. Do you understand those differences? > The hostile attitude is because you decided to focus on a hyper-specific nuance that nobody cares about Just because you don't care about a nuance doesn't mean nobody else does. Indeed, the comment you are complaining about was upvoted. And, I've posted many other comments just like the one you are complaining about in the 8+ years I've been here, and many of them have been upvoted as well. > Its like if I were to focus in solely on you purposely misspelling “color” using non-American There is a big difference between spelling differences between different Anglophone countries – which are trivial – and differences in how "race/ethnicity" is conceptualised in different countries – which are far from trivial.

agentgumshoe 3y ago

Which makes it a little odd to separate out 'indigenous' as needing a separate legal or advisory entity doesn't it? What is the position of the 1% indigenous? It is referring to a culture contextualised by skin colour. It's all signalling. In Australia there are support and administrative bodies at all level of government interacting with aboriginal communities (often failing for different reasons, mostly budget). A 'Voice' (which is still vaguely defined as having influence but no power) does not magically create harmony between the past and future, it only continues the divide. We are stuck in a world of trying to simultaneously give back the 'old past' while carrying on as-is otherwise. That is impossible. We must work towards a common, prosperous and respectful future for all inhabitants that recognises and admits the things we can't undo or change. We are trying to have it both ways, and it will leave the divides strongly in place.

freejazz 3y ago
>Which makes it a little odd to separate out 'indigenous' as needing a separate legal or advisory entity doesn't it? What is the position of the 1% indigenous? It is referring to a culture contextualised by skin colour. Weird how you seem to recognize what culture is, yet in the same sentence it means nothing more than sharing a skin tone
- agentgumshoe 3y ago
  That's not what I said. I said the culture (for the sake of the referendum) is contextualised by skin tone, because if they showed lots of 'white' people as those they're bringing a voice to people would be confused and it gets messy. Which is my follow-on point about how they're trying to pretend it will somehow bring back a past that can't be brought back.
  - skissane 3y ago
    I'm not sure if skin tone really plays as big a role in the referendum as you suggest. If you look at who the biggest Indigenous spokespeople on each side are, some of them have darker skin and others paler skin, but most of them look like they have varying degrees of mixed Indigenous-European descent. The idea that pale-skinned people can't be Indigenous is mainly one that exists on the political right. In 2011, conservative Murdoch newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt was found (in a civil, not criminal, proceeding) to have violated the Racial Discrimination Act by authoring a newspaper column arguing that pale-skinned people couldn't "really" be indigenous. [0] By contrast, my local federal member of parliament is Dr Gordon Reid MP [1]. He identifies as Indigenous, but his skin tone is pretty similar to my own, and (as far as I know) my own ancestry is purely European (mostly Irish, with some English and Scottish too). But, Dr Reid belongs to our main centre-left party (Labor), and the Australian Labor Party has zero objection to pale-skinned people identifying as Indigenous [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eatock_v_Bolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eatock_v_Bolt [1] https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=300126 https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?...
    - agentgumshoe 3y ago
      You can't 'identify' as indigenous. You either are or you're not. Andrew Bolt was a stupid provocateur. If getting political, the ALP has no objection to anyone so long as they support their view... same as the Liberal party.
      - freejazz 3y ago

TeMPOraL 3y ago

That's even worse though, isn't it? A racist policy favoring indigenous by blood could at least be justified by saying it's correcting for past racism in the opposite direction - however weak that justification is. But what you're describing sounds like granting privileged status to a club, membership in which is dictated by whether you identify with it, and existing members identify with you. Similar to privileging a religious group, but sans religion itself. No way this could possibly go wrong.

skissane 3y ago
> That's even worse though, isn't it? A racist policy favoring indigenous by blood could at least be justified by saying it's correcting for past racism in the opposite direction - however weak that justification is. But what you're describing sounds like granting privileged status to a club, membership in which is dictated by whether you identify with it, and existing members identify with you. Similar to privileging a religious group, but sans religion itself. I'm not necessarily defending these policies–just attempting to describe them accurately–if one is going to criticise something, it is important to accurately describe the thing to be criticised. This is an issue on which I have mixed feelings and can see both sides of the argument. But to clarify, at least officially speaking, it is based on blood–it is not enough to simplify identify as indigenous and be accepted by a recognised indigenous community as indigenous, you also have to actually be of indigenous descent – a person with zero indigenous descent is officially speaking not indigenous, even if they identify as such, and even if a recognised indigenous community accepts them as such. The difference from American "blood quantum" laws, is there is no requirement for any minimum degree of indigenous descent – officially it doesn't matter if a person's ancestry is 100% indigenous or 1-in-256 indigenous – but officially a person with zero known indigenous ancestry can't be indigenous. In practice, people with extremely remote indigenous ancestry are unlikely to be able to find a recognised indigenous community willing to endorse their indigenous identification, but standards vary from community to community, and also change over time – sometimes it becomes a very political issue, with certain factions within a community advocating for much tougher membership standards than others, and so it can depend on the outcome of the political battle between those different factions. In practice, Australia doesn't have any central list of "who is indigenous". Every agency makes that decision for itself. For statistical purposes, the government just uses self-identification, and doesn't require any evidence of descent or acceptance by a recognised community. When it comes to "affirmative action" (reserved jobs, admission to educational institutions, scholarships, etc) and voting rights in representative bodies (such as the "land councils" through which indigenous communities own land), agencies usually require more than just self-identification: generally a letter or certificate issued by a recognised indigenous community body (often a land council), although sometimes other forms of evidence can be accepted instead. > No way this could possibly go wrong. There is a lot of controversy in the Australian indigenous community over so-called "box-tickers", who identify as indigenous, despite having only very remote indigenous ancestry, or even no such ancestry at all. The requirement for a letter/certificate issued by recognised community can be a big hurdle for such people, although given the political controversies over the standards for issuing such letters/certificates (and even occasional allegations of corruption), we can't rule out the possibility that some people with zero actual indigenous descent have successfully obtained such letters/certificates. Officially speaking, such people aren't actually indigenous, but the system will treat them as if they were. However, there was a case (in NSW) a few years ago where a woman claimed to be of indigenous descent, and had her claim endorsed by her local land council, which then accepted her as one of its members – a competing faction on the land council insisted her indigenous ancestry was bogus, gathered evidence of her genealogy, filed a formal complaint with the state government agency which manages land councils, and successfully convinced that agency to revoke her land council membership.

Forgotthepass8 3y ago

They identify as indigenous because it's an advantage to them

aydyn 3y ago

When I say skin color I obviously don't mean literal RGB value, I mean mean ethnicity/race. You wrote an entire essay on a completely irrelevant point. Don't be a pedant. It's obnoxious.

skissane 3y ago
If you mean ethnicity, why not just say "ethnicity"? Why call ethnicity "skin colour" if by that you actually mean ethnicity? And if by "race" you mean something which is neither ethnicity nor skin colour, then that is a concept with very unclear applicability to contemporary Australia. Finally, your needlessly hostile attitude is obnoxious.
- aydyn 3y ago
  Are you serious? were having a convo on a internet board, not having an academic debate. People say “skin color” colloquially when they mean the general concept of race/ethnicity. Is it not used like this in Australia? The hostile attitude is because you decided to focus on a hyper-specific nuance that nobody cares about. And then write an entire essay about a non-point. Its like if I were to focus in solely on you purposely misspelling “color” using non-American and then steer the convo into an endless quagmire about semantics. Can you see how obnoxious that would be?
  - skissane 3y ago
    > were having a convo on a internet board, not having an academic debate I come to this website because it provides an opportunity for a level of discussion which is closer to an "academic debate" than a "convo on an internet board". If you find that obnoxious, maybe there is some other "internet board" out there which is more suitable for you. > People say “skin color” colloquially when they mean the general concept of race/ethnicity. Is it not used like this in Australia? You speak as if the "general concept of race/ethnicity" was identical in every country – it isn't. There are significant differences between how "race/ethnicity" is understood in Australia, and how it is understood in the US-to speak of just two countries. Do you understand those differences? > The hostile attitude is because you decided to focus on a hyper-specific nuance that nobody cares about Just because you don't care about a nuance doesn't mean nobody else does. Indeed, the comment you are complaining about was upvoted. And, I've posted many other comments just like the one you are complaining about in the 8+ years I've been here, and many of them have been upvoted as well. > Its like if I were to focus in solely on you purposely misspelling “color” using non-American There is a big difference between spelling differences between different Anglophone countries – which are trivial – and differences in how "race/ethnicity" is conceptualised in different countries – which are far from trivial.