Looks like I wandered into a briar-patch this time. 
I visited an Indian Reservation years ago and seen the poverty there. It is heartbreaking. Income from Casinos has helped a few of the tribes. But, there’s a lot of tribes that don’t have them.
I thought maybe the Aussies had figured out a better answer to an unfathomable problem. Apparently, they haven’t and are in the same mess we are.
Sorry to have bothered GQ. At least I did learn something today.
Don’t worry too much aceplace57, the Aussies here are probably still nursing hangovers and empty wallets from this weeks’ Racing Carnival…hence the grumpiness. 
We don’t always respond this rudely to sincere questions.
Cheers
kam
It’s not your fault, and we are supposed to be here to fight ignorance so we probably owe you an apology. I’m sorry.
As These are my own pants said, the reality is so strikingly different from your perception that it’s, well, astonishing. It’s as though someone had the impression that some Scandinavians lived in villages of thatched huts with a central longhouse and went our raiding Scotland in their boats. The discrepancy from reality is really that jarring.
The fact that the more distinct an Aboriginal lifestyle is from that of mainstream Australia the more horrific it becomes makes your beliefs even more shocking. The situation for Aborigines in Australia is pretty bad. While there are some success stories, and a lot who simply blend in and are just like everybody else, the majority of the Aboriginal population is failing. Those who live in the poorer urban areas are pretty bad off, but those who live in communities, the closest to the traditional lifestyle are by far the worst.
Poverty is extreme, with unemployment rates in excess of 90% in many communities. Substance abuse ubiquitous, alcohol for the older people, petrol sniffing for the children and marijuana and other drugs for the teens and young adults. Crime in general and violence particularly in those communities is, for the most part, horrific. Communities like Palm Island are unspeakably violent with a majority of the population being physically assaulted at least once a month. Instances of police abandoning communities because they are unable to protect themselves during riots and gang wars are common. Child sexual abuse is rampant and in the worst cases most female children have been literally raped by the time the reach the age of nine.
And those are just the statistics, The reality for the actual people is, of course, much worse. I’m not sure that I would use the term “shame”. Doubtless there are many city liberals who fell shame about the Aboriginal condition, but it’s not a majority view. The majority view is that most of these problems are self-inflicted, that everything that can be done has been done and is being done and that there really is no hope for a solution unless it is either internal or the result of draconian administrative measures that forcibly dismantles the current social system. Regardless of perception or apportioning of blame, Australia certainly hasn’t produced a working system for indigenous people. It’s not a situation that anybody would want to emulate.
So your statements that there were all these happy, successful, culturally aware Aborigines running around are rather jarring when compared with the known reality.
The biggest problem is overgeneralization. I visited New York City and saw the poverty there. People begging on street corners, sleeping in rags on sewer grates, digging in dumpsters. Perhaps New York City could learn something from the aboriginals, too.
I’m sorry, I know that’s snarky, but one visit to one reservation doesn’t provide a realistic look at all American Indians. I used to teach in a “degree completion” program based at Rocky Mountain College. The majority of my students were attending class via state-of-the-art videoconferencing centers on the campuses of the colleges on their reservations around Montana. They were studying computer programming. Granted, some of them had very little money, but the majority of them dressed just like any other Montanan and spoke virtually accentless English. I have done book signings on three different reservations, and the schools and libraries didn’t look much different than any other small town.
On the other hand, there are American Indians who choose to live in tipis–at least part of the year–and I’ve seen people on the Crow reservation wearing garb that would have been familiar to their ancestors a century or two ago.
Yes, one can generalize and say that poverty is more of an issue on the reservations than it is in the rest of the United States. But I don’t think the situation’s any better with the aborigines in Australia.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:24, topic:559488”]
Yes, one can generalize and say that poverty is more of an issue on the reservations than it is in the rest of the United States. But I don’t think the situation’s any better with the aborigines in Australia.
[/QUOTE]
The situation is much,much worse. You won’t find an Aboriginal community where “the schools and libraries didn’t look much different than any other small town”. Simple as that.
So how does he follow football if he’s living the same way his ancestors did a thousand years ago? Obviously not via TV, radio, or the Internet. Are Aussie football games broadcast through the Dreaming?