Shock and disbelief as Andrew Bolt is revealed to be racist

Australia's most popular news columnist, Andrew Bolt, found himself on the wrong end of a Federal Court decision this week. Justice Mordy Bromberg found the right-wing polemicist and his publisher the Herald-Sun guilty of a breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. The paper will be forced to print an apology. The court found that 2 articles Bolt penned about certain fair-skinned members of the Aboriginal community were racially offensive, humiliating and "destructive of racial tolerance".

You can read the articles for yourself (White fellas in the black, and It's so hip to be black) although for legal reasons they may not stay up on the web for too long.

Predictably, the Right in Australia have collectively tut-tutted about the threat to free speech, with the Coalition signalling it will try to amend the Act if it gets in to power. By contrast the Left in Australia, who have long viewed Bolt as some kind of racist climate-change-denying Antichrist, seem happy to see the guy cop a legal beating.

For me, there are a few aspects to consider. Will this truly be a landmark ruling ushering in a new Orwellian approach to censorship in this country, as some are saying? Time will tell. While I believe there is certainly a place for legislation dealing with racial discrimination and vilification, I'm skeptical about its use in anything that's not a clear and fairly extreme case. I don't like most of what Bolt has to say, but in the main I think he should have a right to say it, just as other people should have the right to call Bolt a bit of a douche in reaction. Rather than trying to shut Bolt up, I'd prefer the Left lift its game, since Bolt's primary drawcard is his ability to point out stupidity on the Left. (Let's be honest, both sides of the spectrum have stupidity in spades if you look for it.) But it's important to keep in mind the particular details of this case. Bolt got facts wrong, quite basic facts, about the people who subsequently brought the case against him. While Bolt denies accusing fair-skinned Aborigines of identifying as black for cynical motives, the tone of these articles and others (this has been a long-running theme on the Bolt blog) certainly casts these people in a negative light for having the nerve to call themselves indigenous.

I've never been a fan of Andrew Bolt and have had my share of things to say about him on this blog, particular his love of highlighting "ethnic crime". I do feel a tiny bit sorry for him on this occasion, however, because I happen to agree with one of his points.

I have no issue with people claiming Aboriginal identity even though they might be predominantly European in ancestry and have a corresponding appearance; I'm in no position to judge how Aboriginal their upbringing was. I also have no issue with affirmative action policies for Aboriginal Australians; given our shameful history, there needs to be at least some measures in place to give them a leg up. However, it is where these two concepts meet where a problem can occur. Positive discrimination for Aborigines occurs in order to counter the racism and disadvantaged upbringings that they so frequently experience... yet does someone who is 3/4 white and is raised in a predominantly white environment actually experience these challenges to a substantive degree?

So while I don't think it is fair to question whether a "white" Aborigine is actually an Aborigine, it does seem fair to question whether they are entitled to all the financial benefits and opportunities that come with being Aboriginal when they almost certainly do not suffer the same level of disadvantage that a "black" Aborigine does. Particularly in cases where "black" Aborigines, a great many of whom are truly needy, are actually missing out on opportunities to Aborigines who are effectively white in appearance.

So Bolt actually had a point in there somewhere. It's a shame then that it had to be made by someone whose writings have shown repeated antipathy to the Aboriginal cause, and indeed to any culture that is not North-Western European in origin. It didn't take a court decision to prove that Bolt is a racist, or at very least "racially insensitive" or "racially inflammatory"; that was pretty well known already. But a wise man can admit that once in a while, one's ideological opponents can sort of get it right on some things. And if Bolt's overall tone was not so contemptuous of non-white people, maybe people on the other side of the spectrum might actually be able to listen to him without working themselves into a rage.

Colbert: Our Native American Overlords

Barack Obama wants to turn the entire US over to Indian tribes. At last Americans have another group of people to be afraid of. I wonder if they are Muslim socialist Native Americans too.

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French woman does striptease on Ayers Rock in "tribute" to Aborigines

Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is not only the largest rock in the world but also a sacred site for the Aboriginal people who have traditionally lived in the area. Which is pretty well known; the local owners try to discourage tourists from climbing it, let alone leaving litter on it and going to the toilet on it.

Now a French woman has performed a striptease act on top of the rock. In "tribute" to those traditional owners. Because Aborigines were naked, dontcha know.

I never realised that stripping had such spiritual significance. What next, a pole dance in tribute to the Aboriginal custom of carrying spears?

Kicked to death by "persons of good character"

 

There are times when I wonder if we really are in a post-racial world and I should stop worrying about racism. We've come a long way after all. And then there are other times when I am reminded of how little some things change.

This story is a few weeks old now, but I just came across it and it sickened me so much I had to share it with you. Even if you choose not to see it as being primarily about racism, it certainly is a sad indictment on the savagery some people are capable of.

A group of men dubbed "The Ute Five" after the vehicle they drove, left an Alice Springs Casino drunk at 6am, July 25 2009. Scott Doody, Timothy Hird, Joshua Spears, Anton Kloeden, and Glen Swain, all aged between 18 and 23, decided to have fun by terrorising a groups of Aborigines who were camped along the route they were travelling. They did this by driving straight at them, intentionally driving with a metre of an elderly man to scare him, then doubling back to run over his swag. They then drove at a second group sleeping at another camp, who fled in terror.

You'd think that would be enough. But they returned to the home of Hird and Swain to pick up more alcohol, and a pistol with blank ammunition with which they intended to further scare Aborigines. They returned to the first camp and continued their intimidating behaviour. One of the Aboriginal men, Kwementyaye Ryder, responded by throwing a bottle at their car. The 5 men stopped and chased Ryder, who tripped and fell. They kicked him in the head, saying "Don't f*ck with us," and Spears hit him over the head with the bottle. Ryder lay motionless and sensing something was wrong, the men fled. Over the course of the next week, they lied to police about the incident, until Swain finally confessed.

If that was the end of the story, it would be bad enough. But it gets worse. Not just that the memorial cross erected to honour Ryder (pictured) was set on fire several months after the incident. It is the verdict by Chief Justice Brian Martin that is the icing on the cake.

Blogger Michael Brull describes it best:

Those are the facts. Justice Martin then had the task of interpreting them. He concluded that this 'crime is toward the lower end of the scale of seriousness for crimes of manslaughter'. Not enough violence was inflicted, and the defendants supposedly could not have foreseen a serious risk of death from their violent attack. Repeatedly kicking someone in the head and hitting him with a bottle and then fleeing when the victim was motionless is apparently not recklessness, but negligence to Justice Martin.

Yet there is one other factor which played a crucial role in Justice Martin's sentencing, and is arguably the most appalling part of his decision. Justice Martin went out of his way to provide character references for every single defendant. Doody is 'a person of positive good character'. Hird is a 'solid, hard-working young man of good character'. Kloeden has an 'underlying good character'. Spears is a 'person of very good character'. Swain, like Kloeden, was a 'person of underlying good character'. These men of good character repeatedly terrorised Aboriginal people for being Aboriginal, before getting a gun to terrorise them further, ending the night by beating a man to death, and then casually driving away without checking if their victim was okay.

Justice Martin's grounds for these conclusions are astonishing. He notes character references in their favour, proving that many of them have friends and employers who think nice things about them. This hardly balances out what they did. He then scrapes the barrel in special pleading on their behalf, holding, for example, that Spears had never previously 'come into contact with the criminal law'. Considering he was 18 at the time, this is hardly such an achievement. Hird, Kloeden, and Swain, on the other hand, despite their youth had previously had difficulties with the law. Yet Justice Martin was able to claim that this was 'totally out of character' for all of them, and also that they were 'genuinely sorry'. Presumably he was able to judge their tremendous remorse from how they casually left the scene of the motionless man who soon died from their beating. This too was in their character. Or perhaps their remorse was manifested in the lies they worked on together to tell the cops. Or perhaps he judged their remorse in the fact that four out of five of them didn't cooperate with the police at all, and only one did when it was already apparent that they would be caught.

I'm surprised that society doesn't seem to have woken up to the reality that repeatedly kicking someone in the head while they are on the ground is highly likely to result in their death. Punching someone is one thing, but when someone boots a prone person in the skull, I'm not quite sure what they think will happen, other than death or severe injury. But not only is this apparently not worthy of a murder charge, apparently it's only manslaughter due to negligence. Think on that for a moment.


Compare that sentence to the 15 year sentence (10 year minimum) handed out to a Melbourne man who robbed and killed a man by dropping him headfirst onto the footpath and kicking him in the head afterwards (read that here.)


So what sort of attitudes lead to this sort of vile incident? Some of the comments attached to the article are quite telling:
 

Jen (28 May 2010 10:21:19am):
If they weren't sleeping in a riverbed this wouldn't have happened. The boys more than likely wouldn't enter a house to provoke people. Come on, anyone who has seen the situation with both eyes know it is be a breeding ground for 'trouble makers'. A very unfortunate event. Clean up the river bed to prevent (goodness forbid) future incidents of this kind.


Frank (27 May 2010 1:39:51pm):
The author has a massive chip on his shoulder and refuses to see the criminal justice system in Australia for what it is. This was an appalling incident, but one of many that receive similarly light sentences.
It's a terrible fact that as in many cities and towns, Alice Springs has racists (black and white) living in it. Although it was central to the crime, it is not, and nor should be central to the sentence.
People are assaulted and killed for all sorts of reasons, why should race elevate the sentence?
As others have posted, I also wonder how ashamed of being Jewish the poster is, given the Jewish attacks on Palestinans.


Robinoz (27 May 2010 11:14:38am):
I do understand the lack of respect for descendents of the First Australians living at Alice Springs. Respect must be earned. As for the author, if he's ashamed to live in Australia, the solution is simple. There are numerous ports and airports, choose one and leave. It's not compulsory to live in Australia with all the benefits that entails. Maybe Israel would be a good alternative.

CRISNT (27 May 2010 9:35:16am) :

Be born in Alice, grow up in Alice, live in Alice then have an opinion about what was. Otherwise your misinformed opinions are just that. This crime pales to others. The sentences in this case were manifestly excessive when compared to the sentences handed out on a repeated basis to traditional Aboriginal men who kill or seriously mame there wives or other aboriginal men. And I challenge anyone to disprove that fact!!  In so far as the sentencing and judgement is concerned, the level of punitive racism within the sentencing and judges comments is only on a par to that of the circumstances of the offence committed. Pity this Author wasn't so ardently shamed and embarrased when Jacinta Ryan was repeatedly raped and left for dead in the streets of Alice springs by three youths from Areyonga, and who recieved sentences of mere months. Lets see you get all tied up about that case, but I bet you don't. Bad things happen, get over it.

And we wonder why these incidents happen.