When a group is or has been discriminated against it is entirely proper that this group be targeted for redress of the injustice. This is not racism it is remedying racism.
—Evan Hadkins: 27 Sep 2012 6:43:11pm
To the latter comment, I would counter that targeting a present-day “racial group” for the redress of historical injustice against other people of that “racial group” is actually racism at its most insidious and contemptible. According to this notion, I am regarded not as an individual with my own personal history, aspirations and choices, but as a member of a historically mistreated “racial group” that is now “targeted for redress”. I have become a representative of all other Aborigines, past and present. This means that if you feel bad about what happened to an Aboriginal person in the past, you can simply compensate me, because we are essentially the same creature. The ill-treatment or misfortune of a past Aboriginal person, unrelated or very distantly related to me, is apparently recorded in my Aboriginal genes as a hereditary grievance, which can be remedied by providing me with material compensation and perhaps an apology.
An alternative, but no less loopy explanation could be that all Aboriginal people are so cosmically entwined that awarding special concessions to me somehow mollifies the aggrieved ghost of an Aboriginal person who I never met and who has been dead for quite some time. Such is the mysticism surrounding Aboriginality, I would not be surprised if some otherwise rational people actually believed ideas as silly as these. Like all notions that are premised on the concept of “race” as something real, there is no rational basis for this sort of thinking.
An excerpt from a very well written essay from a very sharp mind. The whole piece is well worth a read … just click on Kerryn’s name.
bobmcgee 