Yeah this is true. I found the same thing on my few visits to Perth. Out east, especially Tasmania and Victoria, Aborigine populations were pretty much wiped out and you see very few. Its easy for city folk (like myself) to disregard how strained relations are in other parts of Australia. As you observed, the indigenous folks are usually the most derided.

I do get irked when I hear comments like ‘there’s NO racism in Australia’, normally followed by ‘they probably deserved what they got’. There clearly is racism, but its often more complex than simple minded bigotry (although that exists too).

When Europeans landed on the continent, the gulf between black and white cultures was so great that it was akin to aliens landing flying saucers in Central Park, much more so than even the Spanish landing in the Americas. The native folk had no real developed material culture and the idea of working ‘jobs’ was completely alien to them.

The gulf in cultures still exists today in many parts of the continent, and the so called ‘white guilt’ industry has contributed welfare and subsidies to Aborigines but little understanding or acceptance. Its not a problem you can just fling money at. Aboriginal people also have to want to invest in their own futures.

I have tried very hard to not be racist over the years, but when a friend in his early 20′s gets put into a coma for three weeks by a group (over 13) of 12 year olds because he & his girlfriend were on “their” bridge (the north Ipswich bridge this is) she probably would have been killed if he didn’t hold them off… I have MANY more stories like this about growing up with Aboriginals but my thumb is sore from iPhone typing.

I am very glad to now live in Melb, which seems to be nearly the opposite, 3yrs here and I’ve only been hit/harrassed by white folk!! Would even go so far as saying that Syd/Melbournites have no idea what the rest of Oz is like….

Oh, and f-u Darly Summers, get you and you shit show back in the box they stored you in…

Anyway if they don’t like the rules they can go and discover their own country and colonise it.

And racism is thinking a child’s race isn’t why he is being charged.

The good news: in 200 years there will be no aborigines because the bloodline will be so diluted that it doesn’t matter.

Long story short: in the future justice will have been served in the sense the issue will no longer exist.

The first thing I said was I bet the kid is a little shit and that is why he was being charged. Does that make me a racist? What has race got to do with any of this story. If a white child was charged does it change how they should be treated.

I’ll give you a hint the answer should be no!

Some Australians (i.e. humans) are racist, some are not, it is the same as everywhere else and it has a biological, evolutionary foundation (protect the tribe).

Rich people are let off by the criminal system more often than poor people, Aboriginals are generally in the lower(est) economic brackets and are also sometimes treated worse because they are Aboriginal but also because they are poor (which is sometimes due to racism).

The recent “racist” attacks in Australia were perpetrated by non-white Australians against Indian foreign-students. Indians discriminate against “lower” casts in India and have nukes pointed at Pakistan, Tutsis vs. Hutus in Rwanda, etc. endlessly. Racism is a tribal problem not an Australian problem but it is a real problem.

Australia is a fairly tolerant and egalitarian society, one of the best in my ‘white’ Irish, Spanish, Scottish, Swiss, small town then big city, Australian (apparently originally African like everyone else) opinion, but we can always do better.

And all for receiving candy, knowingly stolen or not!!!

I wonder how full prisons are going to be with this type of hyper prosecution?

W.A cops will also get so frustrated by their own crappy detective work that they will just frame you by planting evidence in your home.. then shoot you for resisting arrest! LOL

The Vic police are much nicer. They just shoot you and then cover up rather than arresting and humiliating you

I believe that this was a case of racism as well, yet im sure that these cops get so sick of kids dodging them and vandalising stuff that they just made an example out of him… poor kid!

I just get sick of other people saying that all australians are racist assholes who hate aboriginals and treat them badly(especially when americans get on the bandwagon (native indians anyone?))… Its a sad state of affairs and my heart goes out to this kid and many others who for some reason cant break the mould and who are made victims by racist australians… black or white!

By the way W.A cops are absolute bloody cowboys! The way they go about enforcing the law is brutal! No surprise this kid was so roughly treated!

Yep I’m a Melbournian and I agree with most of what you say. It very easy to sit back and judge from a big city when we really have no idea what’s happening in the bush, and not all accusations directed at aboriginal people are racist. But I’m not afraid to call out racism when I see it and hear it, and I strongly suspect this is.

first of all… you live in australia right? and in a city right?

most people in the city dont have a prejudice against aboriginal people.. compared to those in rural areas where they need to deal with the lower ends of aboriginal society..

What i am saying is that the government is not prejudice to aboriginals in fact they are very well looked after… except that alot in rural areas will spend there money on booze when they get it… i have witnessed this my whole life living in rural areas!

Maybe it is the dole system which is to blame.. as there are whites who do the same thing! Its a tough problem but racism is not as much of the problem as some people may want to think… Putting the racism badge on everything is a copout to aboriginals and white australians… there are bigger issues to deal with