Australia Through American Eyes

In America, women of color are treated better than men of color. Racism destroys families by underpaying those of color with jobs and stigmatizing those who have made slight mistakes.

Why for some reason, the powers that be believe that because one is of color, they deserve more severe punishment than a Caucasian committing the identical same offense? Just as racism makes no sense so too does how people of color are treated totally crazy. Apparently, Australia and a few other places feel they have the right to behave as they do, simply because the ruling folks are Caucasian. Australia sounds a bit like genocide via suicide secondary to the weight of racism.

Think President Obama versus Donald Trump. Imagine if former President Obama adopted a DJT approach to running this country. Mr. Obama would have been impeached in a New York minute. BTW, how fast is a New York minute, anyway?

As an 80 year old Australian who has lived and worked in every State of Australia, and in some of the remotest areas and in frequent contact with many different Aborigine communities, I can confirm that Australia is basically a racist nation. It certainly was back in the 1900's when the British Act was drawn up by 50 politicians and lawyers of the day. Most Australians were appalled to discover how racist the British Act was when asked to change it in the 1967 referendum. That was Australia's most "successful" referendum
ever. However, Australia's racism isn't so much deliberate, but more the result of a lack of contact with the Aborigine people, especially amongst the city folk. As for the Aborigine people, they are basically caught between a rock and a hard place. How to preserve their culture within the overpowering dominance of the "Australian culture"? Does this mean they have to assimilate and become more like that "Australian culture", whatever it is these days, or do they carve out their own identity independent of the rest of Australia? As a person with a tremendous lot of respect for the outback Aborigine, I honestly can't see any easy answers to resolving the multitude of issues, both we and they must face. Modern communication, such as the stories in this article, are certainly helping to close the gap, but what lies in the future is still very much an unknown.

I'd suggest a first step would be to reclaim their aboriginal names, although I've read in the NYT how certain names on job applications can lead to the form going straight to the garbage. Nakkiah seems like it might be authentic, Jessie and Bobby most certainly are not. Lord knows we have plenty of institutionalized racism here, but one of the first steps in countering it is to stand up proudly and say this is who I am/we are.
Speaking of our institutionalized racism, the NYT could surely do a story about our own indigenous, mistakenly called Indians, aka native Americans. They have staggering rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, suicide, . . . basically everything this article mentioned. Leads one to wonder why they'd focus on the Aussies' original inhabitants first?

Lucky me, I went to Australia thrice for work - and would love to go again, on my own. I was struck by contrasts in the promoted view of indigenous peoples, such as the beautiful historical display - I think permanent - in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, and the reality of living in cities in Australia. Alice Springs, the biggest town in the Red Centre of Australia, had many apparently purposeless indigenous people wandering around, including one that I nearly hit as he wandered onto the highway south of town.
I look forward to more articles from the Times on Australia, our distant neighbor, our ally in war and peace, and on how its people - including the indigenous - are coming along. I sincerely wish them all good look - and G'day.

It seems this type of negative experiences of conquest and colonialism, are popular around the entire world. In Argentina where the Spaniard brutally killed hundreds of thousands indigenous/original inhabitants of the region, appeared carbon copy from similar land. Text books only mentioned The Desert Conquest, although they don't provide details of the killings. The Spaniard took the land from the original inhabitants, fencing the vast Pampas and the wild cattle and horses also inhabiting the land. This brutal takeover gave the origin of fortunes and Argentine "aristocracy" interestingly the story has repeated itself over and over all over the world.

These stories are heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time.

Sad but a reality for these folks. I've lived in Australia in the 60's, my older brother was routinely called a "nigger', we are Indian. Dermatologists predict that the white settlers/immigrants will eventually turn black, an adaptation to a very hot climate. Skin cancer rates for whites are some of the highest in the world. That would be ironical.

As a young child I lived in Darwin, a one street town. I had many great mates some were aborigines. we were all friends. I didn't know the word aboriginal. At school someone called one of my friends 'darkie". I asked my Mum why are there black and white people? She replied "God ran out of black paint". As 10 year old that made perfect sense. I have lived all over this wonderful world meeting exciting fun people. I despair of racism everywhere. As an Australian I am ashamed of my governments treatment of aborigines.

Having spent 3 weeks in Australia (Cairns, Coolangatta and Sydney) 20 yrs. ago, I found Ms. Lui's story very interesting. Would love to read more of the Aboriginal struggles and successes in their society.

An interesting but narrow article. I'm curious why the author focused only on Aboriginal Australians (3% of the total population) and not other people of color. Until at least the mid-twentieth century Australia had a "whites only" population. In the 1940s and 50s Italian and Greek immigrants first challenged this racial order!