Wednesday, August 01, 2012

If Aborigines are allowed to be proud...

An Aboriginal boxer, Damien Hooper, has gotten himself in trouble at the Olympics for wearing a T-shirt into the ring with an Aboriginal flag. That's against Olympic rules.

What's interesting about the story is the way it was covered in the Melbourne Herald Sun by reporter Paul Kent. The story had the subheading "Hooper fighting for culture, country" and quoted Hooper as saying in defence of his actions,
I'm an Aboriginal representing my culture - not only my country, but all my people as well. I'm very proud.

Paul Kent then observes,
Cathy Freeman had to receive authorisation before doing a lap of honour with the Aboriginal and Australian flags after winning gold in Sydney in 2000.

Much like Freeman, Hooper's action was a celebration, driven by a love.

So when it comes to Aborigines, a sense of ethnic pride and solidarity is a good thing, one that is motivated by love of one's people.

But let's say a white Australian expressed similar sentiments about his own people. Would the story be reported the same way?

It wouldn't. Such a person would be accused of being a supremacist, motivated by fear or hatred, rather than by a love of his own tradition.

Liberal modernity can at the same time view a connection to people and place as a highly significant good for one group of people and condemn the same thing as a moral outrage for another group.

11 comments:

  1. Let's say a Greek girl expressed pride in her culture and people...

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  2. Great article Mr. Richardson.

    Anonymous wrote,

    "Let's say a Greek girl expressed pride in her culture and people..."

    Haha, well done, Anon. Of course, technically it was a joke about Africans that got her booted, but over at VFR Alex Zharkov argued persuasively that the joke was a mere pretext to be rid of a Golden Dawn supporter.

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  3. Michael Phelps has overall, won 19 Olympic medals, more than anyone in Olympic history, and yet Channel 10 presenters the other day came out amd actually stated that Cathy Freeman, who one has one gold and one silver for the 400 ( a relative minor event) in two Olympics as a better choice than Phelps as the best athlete ever , is not only an absurd cringe -worthy comment, but is actually reverse racism, and one could also say anti-American.

    This media PC obsession with Freeman who is undoubtedly a very nice girl, and favouring her over more deserving Oz athletes shows the biased reality of the supposedly " fair go" Australian culture.

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  4. The issue for liberals is envy and status.

    Aboriginals can parade all day in pride of their ethnicity because they are not envied and dont have perceived high status that the liberal mindset wants to bring down.

    Now other whites who liberals either resent or envy are a different matter and cannot be allowed to have pride.

    That 'upsets' those who in reality are simply hateful and resentful of those they envy.

    Why people can't see that envy is the driving force behind so much talk of 'equality' and fairness is a surprise. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for good reason, and its prevelant in 'liberalism' and anti-racism.

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  5. KMAN SAID:
    This media PC obsession with Freeman who is undoubtedly a very nice girl, and favouring her over more deserving Oz athletes shows the biased reality of the supposedly " fair go" Australian culture.

    The favourable treatment Cathy freeman receives is readily apparent if you ever visit the national sports museum at the MCG. The hall of fame is packed with people who's list of achievements are as long as your arm....and then you have Cathy Freeman. The contrast is truly astounding. She's undeniably a great athlete, but stciks out like a sore thumb compared the to the rest of the HOF inductees. As for greatest of all time? The suggestion just cannot be taken seriously.

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  6. Cecil Henry,

    I'm not so sure. Often it's the case that liberals are amongst the more privileged whites.

    Why would, say, a middle-class, urban academic with a nice house, a wife and a family feel resentful toward a struggling rural white working-class man?

    I'm not sure I can explain adequately why white liberals treat blacks and whites so differently.

    But part of it is that left-liberals explain the relative success of whites compared to blacks in terms of whiteness being socially constructed to perpetuate an unearned privilege and power at the expense of blacks.

    If you accept this idea, then you will see whites as an exceptional group (in a negative sense).

    First, whiteness will be thought of not as a natural form of identity but as a socially constructed one.

    Second, whiteness will be morally tainted as an expression of racism and unearned privilege.

    Third, those who identify positively with whiteness will be assumed to do so as a defence of privilege over others, i.e. as a defence of "white supremacy".

    Fourth, it will be assumed that whites are in such a privileged position that they could not possibly be in a difficult and marginalised position. The most that will be allowed is that whites might have "lost a few privileges".

    Fourth, deconstructing whiteness will appear to some to be a positive step forward for humanity overall - a step on the path to equality and liberation and the end of history.

    In contrast, left-liberals are more free to accept an Aboriginal identity on its own terms, or even to see it as an act of the human spirit in resisting a white power structure.

    And as for individual, middle-class white liberals, they get to feel a moral warmth from the idea that they are the superior kind of whites, i.e. the ones who aren't motivated by wanting supremacy or privilege over others.

    All of this flows from the starting point - the way that racial differences are explained.

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  7. Again as said by "Ted" Kaczynski
    Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power.
    Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help.
    For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take
    such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

    If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss. http://cyber.eserver.org/unabom.txt

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  8. This seems to be extremely difficult to grasp for white anglophone males who are part of the world's dominating culture, but minorities are often denigrated, joked about, seen as less glorious, etc. A member of a minority (in this case an aboriginal) who achieves something great will be a source of pride for "his people", a reason to say they are not as worthless as some make them to be.

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  9. who are part of the world's dominating culture

    At least you phrased it carefully to be "dominating culture" rather than "dominating race". Because as we both know, white Anglophones are in rapid decline. Unless we get our act together, we can't expect to stay around.

    minorities are often denigrated, joked about, seen as less glorious

    First, white left-liberals have established a culture in which the focus is on whites as oppressor racists and non-whites as noble victims or resisters. There's not a lot else that gets a run.

    Second, non-whites have their own countries. It's not up to whites to provide a positive culture for non-whites in these countries. That's their job.

    Our job is to provide a positive account of ourselves and our tradition within our own historic nations, something which we have singularly failed to do.

    a reason to say they are not as worthless as some make them to be.

    Really? I don't know which country you are writing from, but that doesn't describe what happens in Australia.

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  10. "First, whiteness will be thought of not as a natural form of identity but as a socially constructed one."

    Humans are social animals. There is almost no aspect of humanity that is not to some extent a social construct.

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