5 ms·

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 th

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
    I don't think you are getting the point, which is how it is analyzed whether someone "is or isn't" 'indigenous' and a necessary element of that was the requirement that they have indigenous blood. So I don't get where you are coming from when you say you can't "identify" as indigenous - in the law, you needed to do both.
    - agentgumshoe 3y ago
      Ok I get what you're saying now. Still though, you can't exactly identify as such without the blood... But this is the whole ludicrous thing; what are they actually identifying as?. Traditional landowners? Cultural martyrs? 'Aussie?' 'Neglected outsiders? It gets really tricky if they start to actually really dig into the problem. It's like the argument is saying they're disadvantaged because they're not living their 'full modern Western life' while also supposing somehow 'we' will give back the old ways and apologise. Which is it? Hence I've been saying we need to work out what future 'Australian' is and all head towards that, as best we can. I don't even know what Australian culture is now, it's a mess of trying to be all cultures to everyone.
      - freejazz 3y ago
        I don't think anything you asked follows logically. They seem like your personal political grievances, and I don't see why they are necessary questions to ask at all
        agentgumshoe 3y ago
        How so?
        freejazz 3y ago
        It's literally just a list of politically pointed things that have nothing to do with whether or not someone is indigenous.

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
  I don't think you are getting the point, which is how it is analyzed whether someone "is or isn't" 'indigenous' and a necessary element of that was the requirement that they have indigenous blood. So I don't get where you are coming from when you say you can't "identify" as indigenous - in the law, you needed to do both.
  - agentgumshoe 3y ago
    Ok I get what you're saying now. Still though, you can't exactly identify as such without the blood... But this is the whole ludicrous thing; what are they actually identifying as?. Traditional landowners? Cultural martyrs? 'Aussie?' 'Neglected outsiders? It gets really tricky if they start to actually really dig into the problem. It's like the argument is saying they're disadvantaged because they're not living their 'full modern Western life' while also supposing somehow 'we' will give back the old ways and apologise. Which is it? Hence I've been saying we need to work out what future 'Australian' is and all head towards that, as best we can. I don't even know what Australian culture is now, it's a mess of trying to be all cultures to everyone.
    - freejazz 3y ago
      I don't think anything you asked follows logically. They seem like your personal political grievances, and I don't see why they are necessary questions to ask at all
      - agentgumshoe 3y ago
        How so?
        freejazz 3y ago
        It's literally just a list of politically pointed things that have nothing to do with whether or not someone is indigenous.