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Attention Torres Islanders and Aborigines: PEOPLE DIE.
Get over it.
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Author name (Administrator) 2010-01-27, 10:13 #1
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Member since May 2011 · 2173 posts · Location: Brisbane
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Subject: Attention Torres Islanders and Aborigines: PEOPLE DIE.
Every time a news article, TV show or webpage wants to discuss aboriginal news, they preface it with a warning like this one (from AusGov's NAIDOC site):

Quote by NAIDOC:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are warned that this web site may contain images of deceased people.

OK, look, I'm gonna try and explain something to you guys.  Listen up:

People die.  They die all the damned time, including - somewhat inconveniently I know - after being recorded for media broadcast.  You should expect that every single recording ever made of every one of your brethren might include images of dead people.

Seriously.


I don't know what this warning's in aid of, really.  Do they need to be reminded?  What do they do, turn off the TV every time they hear this warning?  How do they know to turn it back on?  What outrage does it cause when they see a dead person without being warned it could happen? 

I'm starting to think that the aborigines of Australia are a wee bit sensitive.
BLEARGH
Author name 2010-01-27, 19:40 #2
Member since Oct 2007 · 265 posts
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Well, if you read the Wikipedia article a certain way, it's Aboriginal tradition to refrain from naming the recently dead out of respect for their family:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_avoidan…

On one hand, this seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do in a nomadic society with no written records. In dusty, harsh place where food is scarce and hunters can't waver, you can't have them distracted by grief. But obviously, the tradition doesn't work in a world with instant communication and forensic investigation.

There's obviously a great bit of white guilt going on too. There's so little of Aboriginal culture left, that the instinct is to preserve what little of it we can. Respecting the traditions of that society (however knackered or outdated) is well-meaning, if questionably effective.
Author name (Administrator) 2010-01-27, 20:14 #3
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Member since May 2011 · 2173 posts · Location: Brisbane
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So much of what I post around here makes me sound, I fear, like a racist ass.  The truth is I care little for ceremony in my own life, and I don't have a great deal of respect for people who let ceremony, no matter how well intentioned, control theirs. 

I'm mellowing with age, but it ain't a rapid change.  =D

You're probably right that it's white guilt.  I do not see that any attempts by the white man to assuage the collective rage of the aborigines is really having an effect, so I wonder why they keep asking for it and the Australians keep giving it.
BLEARGH
Author name 2010-01-27, 20:15 #4
Member since Nov 2007 · 121 posts
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In reply to post #2
Respect for the recently deceased is understandable, just as non-Aboriginals have their customs, quirks and superstitions, but I'm more of the mind that 50,000 years of existence and fuck all progress is more likely to push you towards a more sensible conclusion.
"...either stop and think or fuck right off" (TheOutrider)
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