Guest Aldo Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 "We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians," the apology says. "We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country. "For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. "To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. "And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry." The apology says a new page in Australia's history can now be written. "We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians," it says. "A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. "A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity. "A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed. "A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. "A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia." The opposition on Tuesday accused the Rudd government of being incompetent for not releasing the wording of the apology sooner. "This is a government which hasn't really done its homework properly," coalition indigenous affairs spokesman Tony Abbott told reporters. "For months if not years, they said they wanted our country to apologise," he said. "They've been consulting for weeks if not months. A competent government would have finalised at least draft words before now." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fatpom Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Its seriously overdue in my opinion. Hey Aldo! is it wet enough for you now? :twitcy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aldo Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Its seriously overdue in my opinion. Hey Aldo! is it wet enough for you now? :twitcy: at least its "warm rain" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fatpom Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Well Aldo? It looks like no-one else is interested in the most important cultural and social justice development in Australia for at least a decade? :smile: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Angelcake Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Well Aldo? It looks like no-one else is interested in the most important cultural and social justice development in Australia for at least a decade? :smile: No social conscience these Poms:cute: ha ha! I agree with you fatpom, I think this apology is long overdue. Just reading the apology is enough to bring tears to my eyes as a parent. Maybe alot of us Poms don't know the extent to which the aboriginals suffered, watching the film "Rabbit proof fence" was an education for me. Angelcake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Hi Aldo I completely agree with Fatpom. This apologyis WAY overdue. However, grovelling words for past events will not help the situation that Abos face today. Are they proposing to DO anything concrete, or are thse just weasel words, I wonder? Cheers Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest chloew Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 It's a start...........from acorns giant oak trees grow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John Sydney Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 I have to disagree as far as I am concerned this idea of saying "Sorry" to the Aborigines was dreamed up by the left wing basket weavers of Balmain to make the average Australia feel sorry for living the good life. They took the kids away from parents for the same reason they took the kids away from white families Don't believe me ? Check the History books - Ask your self one other question Right now I mean 2007 -2008 in this PC correct world What is the Ratio of Aborigine children being removed from their families compared to white families? Guess 1 to 1 No its 8 to 1 in forty years time are we going to say sorry again? Don't get me wrong we are killing the Aborigines not with a gun but Booze ! 40 years ago if I sold booze to an Aborigine I got an an automatic 9 months in jail along side the Aborigine who drank it Anyone who traveled the outback and seen the way they live in the grip of the Booze will realize we are killing them but I don't know the answer I know the problem how to fix it ?? John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kdal Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 So Aldo, did you agree or disagree ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Hi John They took the kids away from parents for the same reason they took the kids away from white families I agree and I think they should apologise to the white families as well in every case where the removal of the children has since been proven to be misguided, even if it was well-intentioned at the time.. Ask your self one other question Right now I mean 2007 -2008 in this PC correct world What is the Ratio of Aborigine children being removed from their families compared to white families? Probably fewer, but one would have to be careful about how one does the relative population statistics because otherwise the resulting figures would be very misleading, I suspect. Also, your question does not ask why the white children are being removed from their families in the first place? In the historical case of the Abos, the reason was nothing but Social Engineering. You need to be careful not to confuse genuine cases where the children have been removed from their Parents because the children were genuinely at risk from those where the removal was wholescale and not done for purposes that we would not approve of nowadays. Again, this could distort the results of your proposed ratio unless one is careful to ensure that it cannot happen. Don't get me wrong we are killing the Aborigines not with a gun but Booze ! 40 years ago if I sold booze to an Aborigine I got an an automatic 9 months in jail along side the Aborigine who drank it Anyone who traveled the outback and seen the way they live in the grip of the Booze will realize we are killing them but I don't know the answer I know the problem how to fix it ?? Errm. Were you around in the Outback in the days before the White Settlers decided to do away with the traditional hunter-gather society which the Abos had been 60,000 years before White Interference? I reckon that the the archaeology - if it is ever discovered - will actually push the dates back to earlier than 60,000 years but that is speculation. It has simply happened in so many other places, beginning with the Rift Valley in Kenya, that I don't trust the dates any more. The Bushmen of the Kalahari are also a hunter-gather society. The Bushmen's traditional way of life, however, was still intact back in the 1920s when Malinovski and Co were strutting their stuff at Cambridge University. I did a year of Arch & Anth there in the 1970s, prior to doing the two year Law Tripos. Anyway, one of the others went and studied the Bushmen and what has happened to them has been followed and recorded regularly ever since. The clear evidence is that hunter-gatherers simply don't have the socio-economic tools needed to thrive in a money-economy and that no amount of well-intentioned interference will help because the people simply want to return to their traditional ways of life. A generation of Abos has been created who are unlikely to possess the know-how needed to survive in the bush any more because so many of them have been walled up in white-imposed settlements since birth. They are given hand-outs of cash with which to buy goods that they wouldn't have needed if they had been left to their own devices in the first place. And with sod-all else to do, I don't find it surprising that they just blow the cash on the booze. The oblivion will at least ease the boredom of an utterly futile way of life that has been forced upon them by people who should have left them alone in the first place, in my view. Plus their whole way of life has been destroyed because all the settlers stole every patch of seriously viable land from them. How come the First Fleet found Abos in what is now Sydney Harbour had it not been for the fact that it offered such rich natural resources in terms of water, salt and fish? So could they move back to their own territory? Could they, hell! If you destroy a group's dignity and traditional way of life, as happened, who are you and I to demand that these people should adapt to an alien way of life that our forbears saw fit to thrust upon them and our own generation has seen fit to perpetuate, and then to heap further coals on their heads for failing to fulfil our entirely arbitrary demands of them ever since? The Abos are not planting carbon footprints and greenhouse gases all over the planet, are they? So how come our own way of life is better than theirs when they are not the ones destroying the environment in which all of us live? We are not "killing them with booze" as you claim so simplistically. We killed them when we stole both their land and their way of life from them, I firmly suggest. We can never undo all of the damage, no matter how hard we try, because even if Sydney were to be destroyed completely by fire and then returned to the Abos, it would not be in its original virgin state and nothing but inedible weeds would actually grow in the ash for centuries to come. The very best thing that could ever have happened to Australia would have been if the White Man had never stumbled across it in the first place, in my view. Sorry, John, but I believe that your arguments contain more holes than the average colander. Best wishes Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aldo Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 So Aldo, did you agree or disagree ? for once i'm still on the fence. Its a very complicated issue and as a father its hard not to let the heart dictate to the brain. I hve also watched he news lately and seen he reports of child abuse that goes on in Aboriginal communities, and it seems to me that to sit back in your nice houses, (possibly built on Aboriginal land) and do nothing is copping out.There is also he issue of a government who takes it upon themselves to apologise on behalf of the people, of which most have absolutely nothing to apologise for. I just seem hat poor old whitey has, yet again to bear the burden of guilt. I wonder how the younger white generation feel about reading in history books everywhere how ashamed they should be of thier evil history. I've got to get ready for work now but I will ponder this topic today and hopefully contribute more later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynandsean Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Firmly with Gill on this one and can only hope that the apology is followed up with some action on their behalf. Our friend works in a young offenders institution in Oz. He says the vast majority of young people in there are Abo's who are torn between 2 societies - their forefathers one (not sure if I've spelt that right!) and the 'white' one, neither of which they feel they truly belong to anymore. 'White' society doesn't really want them and their original ways are alien to them now therefore they end up going off the rails. However what he has said is that, when asked if they would prefer for justice to be handed out in our normal white manner or aboriginal manner they choose 'White' every time. Aboriginal society is brutal in many ways to the white man because we 'moved on' from that way of life many thousands of thousands of years ago but Australia was THEIR land and ultimately we had no right to it and what we did in the following years was hideous beyond belief so the apology is way overdue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fatpom Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 I have to disagree as far as I am concerned this idea of saying "Sorry" to the Aborigines was dreamed up by the left wing basket weavers of Balmain to make the average Australia feel sorry for living the good life. Whether its been dreamed up by the "left wing basket weaver" I couldn't say but it seems that the left, the centre and right of centre are largely in agreement with the 'rightness' of this apology. They took the kids away from parents for the same reason they took the kids away from white families Yes they did. An ex colleague of mine was 'a stolen white generation' born in Newcastle UK. He was put into foster care as a very young child whilst his mother went into hospital for a routine operation. His older siblings were deemed capable of looking after themselves for the duration. He was shipped off to Aus without the consent or consultation of his parents (like thousands of others). He considers himself lucky in that he eventually got to go back and see his parents before they karked it. Don't believe me ? Check the History books - Ask your self one other question Right now I mean 2007 -2008 in this PC correct world What is the Ratio of Aborigine children being removed from their families compared to white families? Guess 1 to 1 No its 8 to 1 in forty years time are we going to say sorry again? Don't get me wrong we are killing the Aborigines not with a gun but Booze ! 40 years ago if I sold booze to an Aborigine I got an an automatic 9 months in jail along side the Aborigine who drank it Anyone who traveled the outback and seen the way they live in the grip of the Booze will realize we are killing them but I don't know the answer I know the problem how to fix it ?? John Well I have travelled to the outback a few times but that was meaningless for me with respect to knowledge of aboriginal issues. To get an idea I had to live in a semi rural community where I worked with and lived alongside (although admittedly not as neighbours) people of clear aboriginal descent. Those I worked with weren't angry bitter people but in their shoes I definately would be... they had far more character and fortitude I could ever muster. Imagine being called a "black c**t" each and every day... and we're not talking in a friendly blokey way. On one occasion the foreman ( a personal friend) called my aboriginal mate a 'black c**t'... thankfully for 'poor little me' he didn't report it. I would have been faced with doing the right thing or total social alienation from my fellow white colleagues... poor little me! :smile: Finally if we 'steal' thousands of children in the future to remove and eradicate a problem under any false premise, then we should be saying more than sorry... we should be looking to "the Hague" to decide the consequences of the actions of those responsible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Whether its been dreamed up by the "left wing basket weaver" I couldn't say but it seems that the left, the centre and right of centre are largely in agreement with the 'rightness' of this apology. Yes they did. An ex colleague of mine was 'a stolen white generation' born in Newcastle UK. He was put into foster care as a very young child whilst his mother went into hospital for a routine operation. His older siblings were deemed capable of looking after themselves for the duration. He was shipped off to Aus without the consent or consultation of his parents (like thousands of others). He considers himself lucky in that he eventually got to go back and see his parents before they karked it. Well I have travelled to the outback a few times but that was meaningless for me with respect to knowledge of aboriginal issues. To get an idea I had to live in a semi rural community where I worked with and lived alongside (although admittedly not as neighbours) people of clear aboriginal descent. Those I worked with weren't angry bitter people but in their shoes I definately would be... they had far more character and fortitude I could ever muster. Imagine being called a "black c**t" each and every day... and we're not talking in a friendly blokey way. On one occasion the foreman ( a personal friend) called my aboriginal mate a 'black c**t'... thankfully for 'poor little me' he didn't report it. I would have been faced with doing the right thing or total social alienation from my fellow white colleagues... poor little me! :smile: Finally if we 'steal' thousands of children in the future to remove and eradicate a problem under any false premise, then we should be saying more than sorry... we should be looking to "the Hague" to decide the consequences of the actions of those responsible. Hi Fatpom I have nothing to add. I just want to endorse - 100% - every word you have said in this very well-written post. Regards Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Hi Lyn & Sean Everything you say about your friend's dealings with the Abos simply re-inforces my own convictions about this topic. Just one minor point, though!!!:smile: Aboriginal society is brutal in many ways to the white man because we 'moved on' from that way of life many thousands of thousands of years ago but Australia was THEIR land and ultimately we had no right to it and what we did in the following years was hideous beyond belief so the apology is way overdue. I don't think that's quite how it was, hon. Britain only did away with the hangman's noose the year before I was born. There have been countless post-hostumous pardons since then because basically we murdered peiople in or own back-yard following miscarriages of justice which proved to be fatal for the victims of our flawed legal system. Have you read about Rebecca Wade? She was about 10 when she was transported to Oz in the late 1780s, having committed some crime or other so trivial that it would go unpunished today. Somebody traced her family tree. There are something like 300 Aussies today who can trace their ancestry back to Rebecca Wade because she was so young when she was sent there. Cheers Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 I am a no voter for several reasons. First the argument which has already been put - this was social work practice of the time and it applied to thousands of white kids who were shipped to the other side of the world for similar reasons, treated in a similarly appalling fashion (no excuse for what some of the church organizations did) and never saw their folks again. However, they didnt develop the major victim chip that sits on the shoulders of the indigenous community. Half caste children were cast out by the indigenous population too - surely their "white half" had the right to all benefits of their white heritage, why is it that only the black half is valued? Second. There is a lot of myth about who was "stolen" and for what reasons. Even the author of Bringing them Home has had to admit that he cannot justify a fair bit of what he claimed. It is far easier to accept that you were stolen from your family than to admit that you were neglected and abused. All kids have an affinity with their family, of course they do and they hate it when anyone criticizes those that they love. However the facts are saying something different - a number of claims have proved that the kids were removed for their own protection - the kid in The Rabbit Proof fence for example in reality was found wandering alone in a community with her parents dead and the elders at the time asked for her to be taken away and given a good education. Lowitja O'Donohue who is in the forefront of the Aboriginal industry was dumped by her Irish father with a request that she be taken care of (and she hasnt done so badly out of it either). The media hyped up one woman the other day who was "stolen" but failed to acknowledge when she said, in the interview "I was raped by my brother" - so she and one of her siblings were saved but the remaining half a dozen were returned to their family. No, according to the interviewer she was one of the stolen generation(s). I could go on but wont. Thirdly I think it is indeed a sorry nation that refuses to remove children from abusive home environments because of their colour and that is what this grovelling apology has said. I dont care if you are black, white or ginger-pink, if a child is raped by others in their community and gets STDS then that kid needs to be taken right away and not returned to the same crappy place she was abused in (cf the case in Queensland just last month). Nor should a child die in the dirt, eaten alive by maggots because her foster family for whatever reason couldnt be bothered to seek assistance (also last month). I think the repercussions of this politically correct grovel will lead to more indigenous children being "mistreated" than ever before and social workers paralysed with fear about removing them. If I cry for anyone I cry for those children for whom this sorry will cause to be shackled forever to a life which most of the rest of us would not let our dogs go into! There is without doubt an aboriginal industry which is rubbing its hands with glee at this moment because they can see that the federal goverment will be opening up the financial sluice gates any minute now (yeah, no compensation, right, lets see how long that lasts). There really is no desire for "reconciliation" which is a two way street. The policies likely to be implemented by this government are the same as by previous governments and which have been a dismal failure - billions of dollars have been poured into the Aboriginal industry and some aborigines have become very wealthy out of it but the poor souls up in the NT havent seen a red cent of it. A sorry day indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fatpom Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Hi Fatpom I have nothing to add. I just want to endorse - 100% - every word you have said in this very well-written post. Regards Gill Thanks Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Hi Quoll When did you last consult an Abo - treating him with respect, dignity and the benefit of your ears and an open mind - in order to discover whether the Defendant agrees with the allegations made by the Prosecution? Be wary of kangaroo justice, my friend. It tends not to be good justice. Best wishes Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Hi Quoll When did you last consult an Abo - treating him with respect, dignity and the benefit of your ears and an open mind - in order to discover whether the Defendant agrees with the allegations made by the Prosecution? Be wary of kangaroo justice, my friend. It tends not to be good justice. Best wishes Gill Pardon? Kangaroo justice? BTW Abo is a derogatory term and not commonly used in Australian parlance. I am not sure where you are going with this one. I always treat no matter who I deal with with respect, dignity and the benefit of the doubt regardless of their colour. Yes I have spoken with aboriginal people and, I would like to think I have made a difference in the lives of one or two at least (in honesty, probably many more if their relationship with me is to be believed) - urban aborigines but with an indigenous ancestry nevertheless. The facts are there - are you denying that a 10 year old girl was raped in her community by a group of men and was returned to that community because of the political correctness of the social workers who saw her fostering with a white family as a new "stolen generation". Can you deny that a child recently died in horrific circumstances because of inadequacies in the foster family she was placed in because she HAD to be placed with an indigenous family? I really dont see where the prosecution has alleged something which was not true. If there is deceit and sleight of hand it has been in the media portrayal of some of the cases without consideration to the veracity of the claims. BTW A Rabbit Proof Fence was fiction! I have open eyes and ears and nothing shocks me any more. My only bias comes from working in a field where I have seen child abuse first hand and NOTHING in this world will ever convince me that in some cases removal from a family and community is the only thing that will ever give that kid a skerrick of a chance at being a normal functioning human being and I dont give a toss whether the kid is black, white or green! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BullcreekBob Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 When did you last consult an Abo - treating him with respect, dignity and the benefit of your ears and an open mind... Gill I feel I should ask you the same question. Have you spoken with many Australians from Aboriginal descent? Are you aware that probably more than 99% of them would be very offended by you calling them "Abo". Would you also call them a "black c**t"? I just rang a work colleague and asked him which he considered to be worse. He said he found it less offensive to be called a "black c**t" than an "Abo". But he'd heard both terms more than enough. BTW his brother calls him a "black c**t" but the term is used with respect and humour, indeed Aussies often call each other things like "Bastard", "C**t", "Wanker" etc and what is generally recognised as offensive is the intent or feeling behind the word, rather than the word(s) themselves. Gill, your posts in this thread are scattered with this term. When I read it the first time I was very surprised, after the second, third, fourth, fifth I can only deduce that your words were neither deliberately nor well chosen. Take care Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fatpom Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 I've just watched the speeches by both Prime Minister Rudd and Opposition Leader Brendon Nelson. Well, whatever you think of the PM's speech it would be hard to say that Brendon Nelsons speech was anything other than pathetic. Admittedly his mob are less than happy about the apology and he has to hold the party together but a bit of grace on the day would have gone a long way. No sensible person would say the aboriginal problem is simple but institutional genocide by "breeding out through forced taking of childeren" along with other methods is appalling even by the standards of its day. Oh well! BTW Quoll you're correct to say that Abo is an offensive term to some aboriginals but you should also know that not all UK based poms would know that and so are not using it deliberately as an offensive term. Rabbit Proof Fence - fiction? Are you absolutely certain? I thought it was a matter of public record that 'the Protector' engaged the help of locals all the way up the west coast in an attempt to capture them????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 Which policy is it that states "breeding out through forced taking of childeren" ? I am not aware of any state policies that are actually explicit in this but would be really interested in having a reference to them. RPF is "based on" but is an interpretive work which will, naturally show the bias of the author. When Molly Craig, upon whom the story was based, saw the movie she said "that is not my story". She was not stolen from loving parents but taken at the request of elders from the community because she had no parents. So, yes, fiction as opposed to biography. With respect to Poms not knowing the offensiveness of the term Abo that is all fine and well but do not then criticize and come from the position of expertise and all knowingness! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 To my critics (one of whom appears to try to bash me just for the heck of it anyway) I say as follows: Not one intelligent indigenous Australian reading my posts on this topic would fail to grasp that I use the term "Abo" simply and solely in order to save endless typing errors which would simply be exasperating to have to read. Anyone with any intention of genuinely seeing the wood from the trees would not ignore the context in which my words have been written. So that allegation can go fry itself, I firmly suggest. I have never met an Abo, partly because I rarely visit Australia and whenever I have done so I have only ever been able to make very short visits, on account of an irritating inconvenience known as "a job" in the UK. Partly, the reason has been jet lag. On a three week visit, I get wiped out by jet lag for a week whenever I travel from West to East. (I first started flying between the UK and Malaysia dozens of times when I was only 8 years old. I'm fine travelling East to West. That doesn't bother my body clock. But West to East has always half-killed me and it has never got any better.) Plus I go to Oz to see my family, not for tourism. Much as I would like to see other parts of Oz and do other things whilst I am there, realistically I do have to stick to the purpose of the visit and since they are spending their ordinary lives in a suburb of Perth, it does limit what I can do whilst there, particularly when we have my sister's two young sons plus an elderly, disabled mother in tow. Before the children were born, I did once get 5 weeks in WA 20 years ago. (Nearly got the sack because I rang the boss from Oz and told him I was taking an extra 2 weeks of annual leave - unpaid because I had used the rest going sailing in the UK - whether he liked it or not, but I just about got away with that. He was then even more livid when I insisted on a 3rd unpaid leave week about a month later in order to go skiiing in France, but that is another story! He wasn't wildly amused to be told that a junior solicitor can do a fair amount of soliciting on a ski slope... but I don't think that that old fossil ever did have a GSOH anyway.) Anyhow. The 5 weeks and the Big Trek. Down to Albany for 3 days with my beloved god-parents there. Back up to Perth for 10 days with my sister's in-laws and friends over Christmas & New Year. Then having told the Boss that I would not be back on Jan 2 or whatever, we headed north for 10 days, aiming for Monkey Mia and other places of interest. It was so long ago that I can't remember whether it was Meekatharra or Karratha that we didn't get to - there was not enough time. I do remember Carnarvon, Broome and Geraldton, plus Kalbarri and Monkey Mia. We were camping - in tiny little pup tents (God alive - never again!) I think it was Geraldton where we camped for a night and there was an Abo community somewhere nearby - in some sort of enclosure as far as I could gather. I did not go to Cambridge University in order to read Social Anthropology as part of my degree owing to a profound lack of interest in the subject, plainly, and because of all the years in Malaysia I had never known anything other than a multicultural comunity in the country which I knew as 'home." I would DEARLY have liked to be allowed to walk into the settlement or whatever it was, just to spend a day with the people - longer would have been out of the questin given the near-prospect of the sack from the boss anyway - and asking them about the Australia that they knew. My sister harrumphed, made it plain that this was not on, and all that a visiting guest can do is leave well alone in such circs. I could not go to Australia and bloody well insult the couple hosting my visit, so that was a case of, "Put up and shut up, like it or not." Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 Well Gill, I quite understand but please dont persist in calling them Abos, if only for the reason that you now know it is offensive and no longer ignorant of the fact. A typo would be preferable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BullcreekBob Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 ... that I use the term "Abo" simply and solely in order to save endless typing ... Gollywobbler, Often you appear to go out of your way to help people and provide information. You have regularly shown that you can use a keyboard. You probably type longer posts than anyone here. That you continue to use a highly offensive term that you know to be offensive and try to explain it away because it's easier for you to type is the most pathetic dribble I have seen come from you. If you are such a racist, have the decency to admit to your views. If you are not, use less offensive language. Bob in Bull Creek PS As today is "Sorry Day" perhaps we may hear such an utterance from you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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