Australian apology to the aboriginal population

[Binxi]

Received this in my inbox from a colleague today. I didn't realise I worked with this calibre of people!

-----SORRY...
AUSTRALIAN APOLOGY TO THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION

We apologise for giving you doctors and free medical care, which allows you to survive and multiply so that you can demand apologies.
We apologise for helping you to read and teaching you the English language and thus we opened up to you the entire European civilisation, thought and enterprise.
We feel that we must apologise for building hundreds of homes for you, which you have vandalised and destroyed.
We apologise for giving you law and order which has helped prevent you from slaughtering one another and using the unfortunate for food purposes.
We apologise for developing large farms and properties, which today feed you people, where before, you had the benefits of living off the land and starving during droughts.
We apologise for providing you with warm clothing made of fabric to replace that animal skins you used before.
We apologise for building roads and railway tracks between cities and building cars so that you no longer have to walk over harsh terrain.
We apologise for paying off your vehicle when you fail to pay the instalments
.
We apologise for giving you free travel anywhere, whenever.
We apologise for giving each and every member of your family $100.00 and free travel to attend an aboriginal funeral.
We apologise for not charging you rent on any lands when white people leave to pay.
We apologise for giving you interest free loans.
We apologise for developing oil wells and minerals, including gold and diamonds which you never used and had no idea of their value.
We apologise for developing Ayers rock and Kakadu, and handing them over to you so that you get all the money.
We apologise for allowing taxpayers money paid towards daughters'
wedding ($8,000.00 each daughter)
We apologise for giving you $1.7 billion per year for your 250,000 people, which is $48,000.00 per aboriginal man, woman and child.
We apologise for working hard to pay taxes that finance your welfare, medical care, education, etc to the tune of $1.2 billion each year.
We apologise for you having to approach the aboriginal affairs department to verify the above figures. For the trouble you will have identifying the "uncle toms" in your own community who are getting richer and leaving some of you living in squalor and poverty.
We do apologise. We really do.
We humbly beg your forgiveness for all the above sins.
We are only too happy to take back all the above and return you to the paradise of the "outback", whenever you are ready.

[Dropbear]

Eeeww. That is as nasty a piece of viciousness as i've seen in quite a while.

I can't even bring myself to pick it apart.

Dropbear

[inkrose115]

Ouch. I'd say that must have been a shop. You have my sympathy and understanding for having that horse crap cluttering up your inbox.

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

I read the first couple of lines, and then stopped.

I just couldn't bring myself to finish.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

"We are only too happy to take back all the above and return you to the paradise of the "outback", whenever you are ready."

Does that also include packing up and leaving? Because, if so, the mood of the majority of the aboriginal population would quite possibly be to accept the offer.

Dropbear is right; this piece of obscenity isn't even worth the effort of analyzing intelligently.

Silas

[Binxi]

I knew it wasn't a real media release. It is just absoloutely horrible. I'm trying to think of a way to respond to the girl who forwarded it to me. She sent it to the whole office as well! We have a fairly relaxed atmosphere here so people will often send around things that have mildly racist or sexist undertones which most people disregard (Small firm, about 17 people). Our boss is probably the worst for doing it.

The worst thing is this girl (she's in her early 30s so about ten years older than me) is someone I generally get along with most of the time, we go out for lunch occasionally. She's actually just bought a house down the road from me- we don't live in very big town so it's not as stalkerish as it sounds !

Any tips on how I can address this without coming across as the fun buster?Because we all interact socially as well as through work, I don't want to alienate everyone, but at the same time, I don't want this sort of shit turning up in my inbox.

[mags]

Originally Posted by Binxi

We apologise for developing large farms and properties, which today feed you people

Soylent Green is people!

[me, no really]

Like Ryda, I couldn't read more than a few words.

Last time I heard sentiments like this it was from a woman in her 80's who is probably dead now (it was a long time ago). Her friend of the same age was violently disagreeing. I can't believe anyone younger would be passing it on.

me

[Dropbear]

Originally Posted by Binxi

Any tips on how I can address this without coming across as the fun buster?Because we all interact socially as well as through work, I don't want to alienate everyone, but at the same time, I don't want this sort of shit turning up in my inbox.

Its always horrible when you find that someone you quite like has acquired this sort of intellectual leprosy. Sort of like finding half a cockroach in your cornflakes.

I think you need to decide whether for you its something that you can ignore or not. If you respond then you will risk being seen as either a bleeding heart or as someone without a sense of humour (although I would think the author of that malignant dreck is the humourless one).

Personally I'd respond with something simple like:

"I appreciate that you've forwarded this as something that you thought I would enjoy but I have to respond that I did not find it funny at all but instead thought it untrue and mean-spirited. I would appreciate it if you didn't forward me stuff like this in future."

I think your boss also needs to be very careful about letting stuff like this float about as it could constitute harassment if you had any aboriginal people on staff.

Dropbear

[Namowal]

There's an American version of this in circulation too, courtesy of some racist group who isn't as clever (or historically knowledgeable) as they think they are. A copy of their "apology" (and a bunch of comments pointing out how lame it is) can be found here.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Dropbear

Its always horrible when you find that someone you quite like has acquired this sort of intellectual leprosy. Sort of like finding half a cockroach in your cornflakes. . . .

Beautiful! Truly poetic! A shame that it is inspired by something as morally repugnant as the OP, but, well... Indignation brings out the best in you, I guess! "Intellectual leprosy" is a stabbing condemnation, and very eloquently coined!

Silas

Sigh. I know some people who with the sentiments in the tripe quoted in the OP. It is disappointing, yet at the same time I feel sorry for anyone so narrow-minded, bitter and selfish that they would begrudge the apology, which is long overdue.

[Canuckistan]

Originally Posted by Binxi

Any tips on how I can address this without coming across as the fun buster?

Secretly leave half a cockroach in their Corn Flakes?

[Binxi]

Originally Posted by Dropbear

Personally I'd respond with something simple like:

"I appreciate that you've forwarded this as something that you thought I would enjoy but I have to respond that I did not find it funny at all but instead thought it untrue and mean-spirited. I would appreciate it if you didn't forward me stuff like this in future."Dropbear

Thanks for the help Dropbear. I've forwarded your tactfully worded response on. Unfortunately it wasn't the only racist email I received today.

[Dropbear]

Originally Posted by Binxi

Thanks for the help Dropbear. I've forwarded your tactfully worded response on. Unfortunately it wasn't the only racist email I received today.

Glad to help - I'm sorry that you seem to be attracting the loons today. Mind you this Federal Gov. apology thing has got them crawling out of the woodwork like the giant insects in King Kong.

Dropbear

[Binxi]

I just got a response back from her via email "Are you tugging my chain?" to which I replied, "No, I'm not funnily enough". As I'm typing this I just got an email back "Ok, too easy, I’ll have to take you off the group email list when I do this". Or she could just not send it on but I don't think that has occurred to her.

While the social atmosphere here is great at work, it does make complaining about these things difficult- ie people will initially think you're joking because hey, we're all friends, therefore you must have the same opinions as me. Then when you let them know you are serious, you don't have a sense of humour blah blah. While I could make a complaint to the boss (And I am in my rights to do so) he'd just tell her to be more selective to who you forward emails to as he's just as likely to send something that racist on.

I know in the past I have been guilty of forwarding racist things on, making inappropriate jokes but I am trying to mend my ways and not participate. (Repeat to self- just because everyone else around you is saying it, doesn't make it right).

[Natalie]

Originally Posted by Binxi

We apologise for giving you free travel anywhere, whenever.

I'm not Australian, but I sincerely doubt that this is anywhere close to the truth.

We apologise for developing oil wells and minerals, including gold and diamonds which you never used and had no idea of their value.

Sweet. By this logic I can steal from anyone if they have no idea of the value of their possessions. My brother has a valuable Persian rug he inherited from our grandparents, but he doesn't know it's valuable. I guess its mine now!

Binxi, do you think this person is educable? If she is, perhaps there's a website, magazine article, or even a small book you could recommend for her, that would give her some real historical perspective on aboriginal Australians. There are some No-Nonsense Guides that would be relevant, and they might even have one on indigenous people.

Otherwise, I'd just cut your losses and be happy she took you off her email list.

[Dr. Winston O'Boogie]

Originally Posted by Namowal

There's an American version of this in circulation too, courtesy of some racist group who isn't as clever (or historically knowledgeable) as they think they are. A copy of their "apology" (and a bunch of comments pointing out how lame it is) can be found here.

I was able to force my way through the Aussie list. I read the first two items of your list, started the third, and just absolutely couldn't go any further. I have a short leash for idiocy.

From your list,

To the entire Black race living in America, we, the Adamic, pink complexioned race (better known to you as the White race) that came to these shores from Europe, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland, apologize for freeing you from slavery by fighting a horrible war among ourselves that cost the lives of almost two million of our own race.

So, the white people enslave the blacks, then expect them to be grateful that half of us didn't want to free them? By the time I got to

We apologize for thinking we could civilize you when you have proven that it is indeed an impossible feat, a feat beyond anything we could have ever imagined.

I was ready to puke. If I can read three entries (and I left out one here) and not find anything even remotely humerous, true, or logical with as twisted a humor, view of reality, or logic that I could come up with, this is the biggest load of crap ever. At the risk of falling afowl of Godwin II, this is as bad as anything coming out of Phred Felps' bastardization of Christianity.

[FullMetal]

We apologise for developing oil wells and minerals, including gold and diamonds which you never used and had no idea of their value.

What value is oil in a simpler existance, imagine a world where there's no cars, no electricity and you are working to survive, what value is oil? what value is gold?

in a simpler lifestyle which the aborigines lived, what is the value of gold in particular. It's pretty, and shiny. that's it. can I eat it? no... Can I use it to get something to eat? no to soft to make a good tool. can I make a shelter out of it? no too rare. so it's a pretty shiny metal, well what can we make out of it? shiny metal things of no particular value. Oil? in it's crude form it's not much use to many people. Tar yes, and that's been used for millenia, even oil for a bit. but no need for wells.

diamonds and gemstones? pretty shiny hard rocks... again not much use in that lifestyle.

[Blatherskite]

From Namowal's link:

To the entire Black race living in America, we, the Adamic, pink complexioned race (better known to you as the White race) that came to these shores from Europe, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland,

Why do I suspect the writer wrote 'England, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland' and then couldn't remember any more European countries? I wouldn't freely advise watching the Eurovision Song Contest, but...