Australian Aboriginal prisoner 'cooked to death' in van

[doddles]

You don't hear that kind of thing from the more educated end of British society these days, I have to say.

Interesting. Someone on another thread today or yesterday was mentioning the person they knew with a science degree working in a scientific laboratory who was a BNP supporter. Ah - but that's just anecdotal isn't it?

 

[ohmyliver]

Is there any archeological evidence to support the 'saxon ethnic cleansing' notion?

I thought that modern genetic mapping has suggested that the impact of saxon, angle and jute migrations was less severe and more of an intermingling.

well, apparently in saxon/other north germanic/danish tribes settled area it would seem that 60% of the population has genomes that suggest ancestry from those tribes.

 

[slaar]

The casual racism I've encountered from even quite well educated, middle class aussies, teaching in China was quite shocking.

One of them was telling me about when he lived quite near my neck of the woods, in Dalston.

"It was OK," he said, "But there were too many niggers."

You don't hear that kind of thing from the more educated end of British society these days, I have to say.

Sure, if you go into a dodgy pub in Barking...

To be fair, the average Chinese person I've spoken to in Africa and Asia has been hilariously racist too. I actually think the UK is about the least openly racist place I've been.

 

[Dan U]

As for racism in the two countries. Well, I've noticed plenty in both. Sitting in the Emirates Stadium in London, for example, and hearing the 30-something chap next to me tell his 5 year old son earnestly, "they're all cheating divers, the eye-ties", followed shortly by "that's the problem with those Africans son - they're all bloody greedy and lazy". He didn't even have the "excuse" of being pissed.

And anyone who can point the finger at other countries about racism when the BNP and UKIP between them get 23% of the vote in a recent election needs to get their head out of their arse.

As I said, I've seen plenty of racism in both countries. Neither is exactly a shining light of racial tolerance, and both have a pretty appalling history. The original quoted article mentioned that although making up only 2-3% of the population, Aborigines make up 20% of the prison population. Interesting comparison with this article about the UK

what doodles said, basically.

this thread annoys me as i know many Australians, including my girlfriend, from a wide variety of racial backgrounds, none of whom could be at all accused of being racist or using terms like 'wog' when referring to Italians.

 

[ViolentPanda]

what doodles said, basically.

this thread annoys me as i know many Australians, including my girlfriend, from a wide variety of racial backgrounds, none of whom could be at all accused of being racist or using terms like 'wog' when referring to Italians.

I'm not surprised.

'Cos they mostly call the "guineas" or "dagoes".

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Interesting. Someone on another thread today or yesterday was mentioning the person they knew with a science degree working in a scientific laboratory who was a BNP supporter. Ah - but that's just anecdotal isn't it?

And how likely is that person to pipe up in the science lab with 'bloody niggers'? Not very, I'd suspect

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

what doodles said, basically.

this thread annoys me as i know many Australians, including my girlfriend, from a wide variety of racial backgrounds, none of whom could be at all accused of being racist or using terms like 'wog' when referring to Italians.

Look, I like aussies, they're confident, happy, brash, like what we would be like if we had sunshine all the time. Which is precisely what they are. English people living in a decent place.

But with that confidence means that sometimes they will express these views without really thinking about it

 

[Dan U]

I'm not surprised.

'Cos they mostly call the "guineas" or "dagoes".

it's a general term for southern europeans immic

Look, I like aussies, they're confident, happy, brash, like what we would be like if we had sunshine all the time. Which is precisely what they are. English people living in a decent place.

But with that confidence means that sometimes they will express these views without really thinking about it

well yes, some of them do, make no mistake.

but Australia is also a fairly diverse society, to say they are all 'english people living in a decent place' is a bit inaccurate.

approaching 10% is of Asian descent, for example, again if my memory is right. which is significantly higher than the UK for example.

a more diverse society (?) than that in the UK is frequently slandered as being more racist on the basis of the same kind of morons you find in the UK

eta - or maybe my girlfriend and all her friends are just nice and i am in for a terrible, terrible shock when i move there in 2 years!!!!!!!

 

[david dissadent]

'Australia is what South Africa would be like if the whites had won'. Discuss.

You what???
Fuck off.

 

[Azrael]

Before extrapolating a theory on Australian racialism from this nasty and criminal death, I'd like to know if white prisoners had been treated in a similar fashion. If so, it's still a civil liberties scandal. Since Australia is a common law country, surely the people who threw the prisoner into the van could be brought up on manslaughter charges?

 

[ice-is-forming]

thats bloody terrible! those 2 security guards should be up on manslaughter charges...i suspect they will be tbh. they must have been particualy thick to think that the man wouldn't suffer/die. i don't know if it was racially motivated or just the fault of 2 extremly cruel guards.

fwiw. racism seems to be turning around here ime, all college/uni courses have compulsary modules in them on ethnic minorities and diversity. we have many local aboriginal mps where i live, more than women mps..and the land rights issues are strongly in favour of the local tribes.

 

[badco]

You don't hear that kind of thing from the more educated end of British society these days, I have to say.

It's not a word you hear much from any end of society in Britain ime

 

[badco]

thats bloody terrible! those 2 security guards should be up on manslaughter charges...i suspect they will be tbh. they must have been particualy thick to think that the man wouldn't suffer/die. i don't know if it was racially motivated or just the fault of 2 extremly cruel guards

It maybe standard procedure ice.I know in the UK that group4/serco don't stop for 4 hours once they've started a journey in the sweat boxes.

 

[cesare]

It maybe standard procedure ice.I know in the UK that group4/serco don't stop for 4 hours once they've started a journey in the sweat boxes.

The conditions there are different to here. And those conditions are known to everyone.

 

[badco]

The conditions there are different to here. And those conditions are known to everyone.

Cn you explain what you mean?Late night,sorry

 

[cesare]

Cn you explain what you mean?Late night,sorry

Australia's very hot in some places. The temperature was 47°C which is 116.6°F Not the same as transporting people in the UK.

 

[badco]

The temperature was 47°C which is 116.6°F

As was stated in the op...fucks sake

 

[cesare]

As was stated in the op...fucks sake

Which is why saying something like:

It maybe standard procedure ice.I know in the UK that group4/serco don't stop for 4 hours once they've started a journey in the sweat boxes.

Was particularly considering you can't draw the same sort of parallel with the procedures we have here. Standard procedures? In those temperatures?

 

[ice-is-forming]

its bloody awful...cooking him the back of the paddy wagon..and he was only being taken in for DD..not that it lessens it.

heres the latest..disgusting!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/12/2597089.htm

 

[cesare]

its bloody awful...cooking him the back of the paddy wagon..and he was only being taken in for DD..not that it lessens it.

And 47°C was outside ... can you imagine what the temperature must have been like inside the van? How could they have not realised?

 

[_angel_]

And 47°C was outside ... can you imagine what the temperature must have been like inside the van? How could they have not realised?

People get prosecuted for leaving dogs in hot cars over here!
This case sounds horrendous.

 

[cesare]

People get prosecuted for leaving dogs in hot cars over here!
This case sounds horrendous.

And one of the worst things is, that they knew he'd collapsed and just chucked some water over him

 

[_angel_]

That is manslaughter then?

 

[doddles]

More on the case here

WA Coroner Alastair Hope has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether charges should be laid over the incident.

It seems the company, GSL, was at the centre of a very similar case in 2005, following which they promised to never let it happen again. Right.
6 Months before the January incident, GSL were taken over by G4S, the world's largest security firm, based in the UK. G4S claims that it should not be held responsible for the actions of its staff who ignored verbal instructions to stop every 2 hours. They effectively claim that using a van without padding, seat restraints and non-functioning air conditioning would not have been a problem had the guards stopped once every 2 hours. 2 hours at >50C!!
Apparently the world's largest security firm can't afford proper vans.

 

[badco]

its bloody awful...cooking him the back of the paddy wagon..and he was only being taken in for DD..not that it lessens it.

heres the latest..disgusting!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/12/2597089.htm

Is there a lot of prejudice towards them then ice?

 

[camouflage]

'Australia is what South Africa would be like if the whites had won'. Discuss.

I thought the whites did win, SA is a poverty ridden neo-liberal sprawl of minimal worker rights zero public investment, private armies and security compounds and democraticaly elected profoundly ineffectual governance with zero economic sovereignty. Isn't that what Mr Keep-da-Blix-in-deir-place intended?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Remember that massive thread on here: "I'm going for a chinky, is that racist or not?" and the debate that caused. Well, in Australia, even relatively right-on aussies refer to football as 'wogball'. I would imagine that that would raise an eyebrow or too if used in Britain.

This is a strange thing - when i lived over there for a year or so there was a movie called 'Wogboy'. It was a popular mainstream film but as far as I could see no one took the terms racially - least of all the Australian 'Wog' actors who were in it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wog_Boy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216417/

 

[asbestos]

This is a strange thing - when i lived over there for a year or so there was a movie called 'Wogboy'. It was a popular mainstream film but as far as I could see no one took the terms racially - least of all the Australian 'Wog' actors who were in it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wog_Boy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216417/

That's the point I was making earlier in the thread, I hear the word said carefree at work by people of varying backgrounds, I nearly spat my tea out when I first heard it used.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Sorry, I don't buy the idea that the use of the term wog in Australia to refer to people of Mediterranean origin has no derogatory undertones.

It was originally very clearly a derogatory term, one that has now been in some ways claimed by those it refers to, a bit like queer by homosexuals. But, like the word queer, it has different meanings depending on how it's used. The term queer can be and is still used in a derogatory way by heterosexual bigots, and I don't doubt for a second that the term wog is similarly still used.

The entry on wiki says this:

the term remains quite offensive to a lot of people in Australia, particularly people of Southeastern European origin who grew up in Australia through the 1950s to 1980s as it was still very much an ethnic slur or insult.

As for calling football wogball, that's about as neutral as talking about a 'paki shop' in the UK – in other words, not a hate-inspired insult, more casually dismissive and unthinking racial stereotyping that clearly shows that the person saying it sees the group in question as 'other' from them. In the case of the 'pakis', not quite Britishl; in the case of the 'wogs', not quite Australian. How can you be Australian with a name like Papadoudopoupoudolopololos anyhow?

 

[Upchuck]

Just goes to show the police and corrective services are the same the world over. You could put a racism slant on this if you wanted to, but it is more about police attitudes than anything.