Andrew Bolt ... Free speech goes down.

[Fifth]

One thing that amazes me how any criticism of white anglo saxon traditions is perfectly OK but if there is any criticism or lampooning of other races, religions, attire, traditions then all hell breaks loose.

A very simple example: On St Patricks day a local talk back radio asked for Irish jokes, people rang up with all the old Irish idiot jokes. Then an Irish tourist rang up and asked is it OK if I tell some Aboriginal jokes ? Ummm ............... NO !

Though I'm sure the jokes were tasteless (and downright offensive to some), they were most likely intended as something of a comradely roast in celebration of Saint Patrick's Day. It was a blunder on the radio station's behalf but were the intentions behind it mean-spirited? A malicious joke is malicious regardless of the target (whether they be Irish, Aborigine or any other nation/ethnicity/peoples) but we need to be able to distinguish between malice and a botched attempt at good-naturedly taking the mickey. It boils down to tone and intent. A faux pas is easier to forgive than malice.

Also, a fair few Irishmen (and women) would find being labelled Anglo-Saxon quite offensive.

 

[jaycee]

You're correct; it's not right.

But the double standard with this issue really pizzes me off ; it's ok for certain ones to openly in public (and often very loudly) call out the term I previously mentioned, and nothing is ever done about that, but the first inkling of a hint at a skin tone in their direction, and it's world war 3.

I lived in an area where this was commonplace, so I'm not talking through my hat.

All was asking is do you really need & wnat to stoop down to that level and use the terms like back c__t youself ?

I think it's reminiscent of the type of person and behaviour I chose purposely try not to imitate & exhibit

So it confuses me when people say "Why can;t I say black c__t"

You're doing th e same you're complaining about the other guy doing it

Yes I know "they started it"

how stupid can people be and still insist they are smart

 

[Macca]

Though I'm sure the jokes were tasteless (and downright offensive to some), they were most likely intended as something of a comradely roast in celebration of Saint Patrick's Day. It was a blunder on the radio station's behalf but were the intentions behind it mean-spirited? A malicious joke is malicious regardless of the target (whether they be Irish, Aborigine or any other nation/ethnicity/peoples) but we need to be able to distinguish between malice and a botched attempt at good-naturedly taking the mickey. It boils down to tone and intent. A faux pas is easier to forgive than malice.

Also, a fair few Irishmen (and women) would find being labelled Anglo-Saxon quite offensive.

I think with most racial jokes the nationality could be changed at whim, I have read that in USA they don't tell Irish jokes they substitute Polish instead. I wonder if we simply substitute Aboriginal for Irish can we tell jokes on the radio ?

I guess what I am trying to say ( which is probably off topic) is that some people seem very quick to take offense, where as others laugh it off and make some witty remark in return.

 

[Aaron_C]

I think with most racial jokes the nationality could be changed at whim, I have read that in USA they don't tell Irish jokes they substitute Polish instead. I wonder if we simply substitute Aboriginal for Irish can we tell jokes on the radio ?

I guess what I am trying to say ( which is probably off topic) is that some people seem very quick to take offense, where as others laugh it off and make some witty remark in return.

While people like to think that we are all the same - the fact is that we are not. There's nothing racist about acknowledging that fact. To pretend that there is no skin colour, that there is no different eye colours is just ridiculous.

 

[Fifth]

I think with most racial jokes the nationality could be changed at whim, I have read that in USA they don't tell Irish jokes they substitute Polish instead. I wonder if we simply substitute Aboriginal for Irish can we tell jokes on the radio ?

I guess what I am trying to say ( which is probably off topic) is that some people seem very quick to take offense, where as others laugh it off and make some witty remark in return.

I suspect you're being a tad disingenuous.

Almost every joke I've heard about Aborigines has been exceptionally mean and nasty. I won't give examples because this is a family-friendly forum but I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. These jokes are not told good-naturedly or with any sense of 'mateship'. Like I said, a malicious joke about Europeans is equally unacceptable. Truthfully, the jokes I hear about Europeans are usually quite tame and good-natured in comparison.

And, yes, jokes are often tweaked to apply to various peoples. Some of the jokes about Aborigines are corruptions of jokes told about African-Americans. Once again, these are exceptionally nasty jokes. Very few Europeans (or European descents) would simply laugh off these kinds of jokes if they were at the butt of them.

I feel uncomfortable at the thought of jokes about Aborigines simply because we've set a precedent of such nastiness. If 'white' Australians see that as hypocritical and want to get their panties in a twist, that's fine. You can join Bolt at his 'poor persecuted me' pity party.

 

[Macca]

I suppose the truth of the matter is that a nasty joke is not really a joke, no matter who it is aimed at.

Perhaps I best leave it at that as we are moving away from the topic of the thread

 

[evand]

No one is ever saying we are all the same, it's obvious we Aren't. But we should be treated all the same.

While people like to think that we are all the same - the fact is that we are not. There's nothing racist about acknowledging that fact. To pretend that there is no skin colour, that there is no different eye colours is just ridiculous.

 

[StefanA]

all hail King of Stupid.

Hail Julia.

 

[evand]

Is it a coincidence that right wing "journalists" Like Bolt, Alan Jones in Sydney and their like are always in court defending something or other.

I dont have time now but i'll do a bit of research and post it up.

 

[StefanA]

No one is ever saying we are all the same, it's obvious we Aren't. But we should be treated all the same.

Precisely, so the govt should stop singling out aboriginals for additional free money. It isn't as if they've had to travel here in a leaky boat to escape murderous rapists.

 

[BayView]

All was asking is do you really need & wnat to stoop down to that level and use the terms like back c__t youself ?

I think it's reminiscent of the type of person and behaviour I chose purposely try not to imitate & exhibit

So it confuses me when people say "Why can;t I say black c__t"

You're doing th e same you're complaining about the other guy doing it

Yes I know "they started it"

how stupid can people be and still insist they are smart

Sorry if my post was a bit confusing; I wasn't complaining that I'm not allowed to say all that stuff...

I don't go around saying it to 'em, and never will.

Only pointing out that they are oft first to trot out the disrespect, and then whine the loudest when it is returned serve, and this is all the while when the whole Country now is trying to help out and improve...they just keep going on, and on, and on.

And mostly the serve is never returned; but they just keep on serving up aces that most ignore and move on, shaking their heads.

 

[BayView]

Umm, did you read his article yesterday? Didn't sound like someone taking it on the chin.

Haven't seen the article yet, but I'll watch The Bolt Report tomorrow and see what he has to say in response.

 

[Sunfish]

Has someone been telling porkies?

AB wrote that Aboriginal lawyer and academic Larissa Behrendt "looked as German as her father" - yet she posited her father was Aboriginal and dark-skinned.

This is her father (or so we are told)

He apparently had a German father and an aboriginal mother. His mother died when he was young and was raised in an orphanage as white and not told of his mother's aboriginality but suspected it.

Once he found out the truth "Paul Behrendt became a proud Eualarayi man. His totem was the echidna, or biggibilla in Eualarayi. He would warn never to rub an echidna the wrong way."

So was AB wrong when made the above comment? Clearly he thought of himself as aboriginal. I wonder why? it wouldn't have been for the money back then.

 

[evand]

Mike Carlton article:

Bolt's parents were from Holland. If he believes that freedom of speech carries a licence to spear people for their ethnicity, he will not then object to me suggesting he would do better to quit the media and take up growing tulips and making cheese. Wearing clogs. Ah, the Lying Dutchman.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, Mynheer.



http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/socie...fter-the-truth-has-bolted-20110930-1l1al.html

 

[topcropper]

Has someone been telling porkies?

He apparently had a German father and an aboriginal mother. .

Yeah, maybe his mother was one sixteenth? So he'd be one thirty second? That'd make her one sixty fourth?

Yep, that's enough. No porkies.



A special warning just for evand.
This is all speculation. Everything I post on here is speculation. I'm a waffleing speculator.


See ya's.

 

[our obsession]

Sunfish:

So was AB wrong when made the above comment? Clearly he thought of himself as aboriginal. I wonder why? it wouldn't have been for the money back then.

There is an importance to people, (yes, some more than others perhaps) of identity, a sense of knowing your roots. Cultural, even gender, locality, ie I am part Scottish, Irish, English and French. My parents, my grandparents,(so on), each have had an influence upon me, they bring to my family their various influences/cultural bits and pieces, identities too...I am the sum of many things, yes I am an Ozzy born and bred, but I have influences, sense of identity, I am colored with much from my past. And I've been fortunate enough to have had that to draw from, that sense of relationship, belonging...I am fortunate to have been blessed with family, not an orphan.

AB has questioned these folks very core of humanity, their sense of self. And he did poor research in coming up to the part of judging them. He also has history of similar patterns of judgements, he has had potshots at our indigenous peoples before, he has faced defamation before..AND because he has a captive, somewhat impressionable audience offollowers many take him as St Gospel of the Bolt.

Identity is very important, Indigenous identity may even be more powerful, from my observations of working and living with Indigenous communities relationships and identity is rated very highly..

Who am I to judge Sunfish's sense of identity, what makes and shapes you...least of all some guy with a powerful access of a platform (media), which is part of life, but he got it terribly wrong, he downplays his responsibility and errors, but it is he to blame, not free speech, not color, pigment, or lack of pigment in people's skin...just Andrew's **** up. I think he was attempting to make a point on something that means 'something' to him, but he pooped inhis own nest, refuses to clean it up and wants to blame 'anything/one really' rather than accept his part in the mistakes..

Amber Jamieson did a good representation of this concept ages ago, worth a read:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/04/08/aboriginal-identity-i-never-had-a-choice/

How do you define someone’s identity?

That question is a key issue in the Andrew Bolt racial discrimination case that has raged furiously in court over the last two weeks, as nine light-skinned Aborigines battled Bolt over a series of Herald Sun columns he wrote insinuating that they had ‘chosen’ to be Aboriginal and deliberately ignored other cultural heritages for the career advantages that being Aboriginal brings.

 

[BayView]

While people like to think that we are all the same - the fact is that we are not. There's nothing racist about acknowledging that fact. To pretend that there is no skin colour, that there is no different eye colours is just ridiculous.

The other really, really dangerous thing is that even when a conversation where (justified) criticism is involved, or a (non-racist) statement is made that offends one of the parties, and there are also more than one or two races involved in the conversation, often times one of these races will trot out the "race card" as a tool to use against those who are levelling the criticism, even if it is justified.

Chip on the shoulder and all that.

Incidentally, I watched The Bolt Report this morning to get Andrew's take on this whole disastrous climate, and sure enough; his beef is about the impingement on free speech and the dangers that these sorts of ridiculous cases cause, and not about the fact that he lost the case; he is a much bigger man than one lost battle thankfully..

It is getting to a stage where any sort of discussion, debate or argument where someone gets offended (or claims to be offended) will invoke a law suit and they will win. Race or no race involved.

Now, are these people a bunch of 5 year olds sooks, or adults?

Personally, I am just counting the days until the shoe is on the other foot, because these people are going to get what they wish for.

 

[Sunfish]

Even in straight forward cases of the law, they expect (demand!) a different interpretation than for the community at large.

 

[StefanA]

Identity is very important, Indigenous identity may even be more powerful, from my observations of working and living with Indigenous communities relationships and identity is rated very highly..

Really? Then how proud of her Aboriginal identity is this "blonde"?

and who is she to dictate to this "blonde" what's best for rural Aboriginals?

Obviously, the greater enemy of traditional Aboriginal culture are those so grossly naive as to delude themselves they best represent aboriginal culture and interests, but dissociate themselves from it in most ways.

Andrew Bolt calls it how it is - the former is exactly as he described.

The likes of the latter should be celebrated and respected - career builders like the former should know this better than most.

 

[our obsession]

Let's have a look at Andrew Bolt's credibility then...



BOLT: ''For many of these fair Aborigines, the choice to be Aboriginal can be considered almost arbitrary and intensely political, given how many of their ancestors are in fact Caucasian.''

BROMBERG: ''In relation to most of the individuals concerned, the assertion in the newspaper articles that the people dealt with chose to identify as Aboriginal have been substantially proven to be untrue. Nine of the 18 named … gave evidence. Each of them had been raised to identify as Aboriginal and had identified as such since childhood. None of them made a conscious or deliberate choice to identify as Aboriginal.''


Bindi Cole:

BOLT: ''Acclaimed St Kilda artist Bindi Cole… was raised by her English-Jewish mother yet calls herself 'Aboriginal but white'.''

BROMBERG: ''That statement is factually inaccurate because Ms Cole's Aboriginal grandmother also raised Ms Cole and was highly influential in Ms Cole's identification as an Aboriginal.''

BOLT: ''[Ms Cole] rarely saw her part-Aboriginal father.''

BROMBERG : ''That statement is factually incorrect. Ms Cole's father was Aboriginal and had been a part of her life until she was six years old. Ms Cole later lived with her father for a year whilst growing up.''