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“Black Lives Matter” banners and the Aboriginal flag were hoisted during the march, organised by the Australian Communist Party, which was estimated to be at least 500 strong. The demonstration remained peaceful.
“I think its cool that the cops aren’t trying to kill us right now, running us over with SUVs or horses,” one man said on Channel 7.
“Everywhere we look we see the same struggle of indigenous people and displaced minorities being abused at the hands of law enforcement," he told the ABC.
Death rates of Indigenous prisoners have been consistently lower than the death rates of non-Indigenous prisoners since 2003–04
originally posted by: projectvxn
originally posted by: Gothmog
Why is it always the Communist/Socialist Party , no matter the country ?
Interesting coincidence across the whole of the western world.
originally posted by: myselfaswell
Over the last few months we have been bombarded with so much Cov19 propaganda that I suspect many people are becoming brow beaten, many I suspect have just given in to the corporate agenda, and it’s hardly surprising, most of us are only human after all.
Anyway, and with the above in mind, I decided to take a look at the influence that the current US riots and the broad claims of institutional racism are having in Australia, particularly with a view to Aboriginal deaths in custody.
Here are a couple of recent “news” snippets;
“Black Lives Matter” banners and the Aboriginal flag were hoisted during the march, organised by the Australian Communist Party, which was estimated to be at least 500 strong. The demonstration remained peaceful.
“I think its cool that the cops aren’t trying to kill us right now, running us over with SUVs or horses,” one man said on Channel 7.
And
“Everywhere we look we see the same struggle of indigenous people and displaced minorities being abused at the hands of law enforcement," he told the ABC.
Bold by me.
Link
After the protests yesterday in Sydney and all of the talk about racism and Aboriginal deaths in custody I can only ask myself one simple question, is it true? Is it in fact the reality that our police forces as well as our correctional facilities are in fact racist and are specifically targeting aboriginal people? Could it be that we have the same problems that exist in the US?
Fortunately, we have numbers.
Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1987, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has been tasked with recording the data and producing the statistics for all deaths in custody, Aboriginal & Non-Aboriginal.
On the 20th of February 2020 the following report was published.
Deaths in custody in Australia 2017-18
Statistical Report
Laura Doherty & Samantha Bricknell
Link to Report
So then, let’s look at the relevant numbers.
Deaths In Prison Custody;
Aboriginal Deaths in Prison Custody; 0.14 per 100.
Non-Aboriginal Deaths in Prison Custody; 0.18 per 100.
Death rates of Indigenous prisoners have been consistently lower than the death rates of non-Indigenous prisoners since 2003–04
Deaths In Police Custody;
Aboriginal Deaths in Police Custody 1989 - 2018; 167
Non-Aboriginal Deaths in Police Custody 1989 - 2018; 664
Total of all deaths in Police custody 1989 – 2018 are 831.
So what does all that mean? Well clearly there is no level of institutional racism specifically targeting Aboriginal people in the prison system.
The deaths in police custody isn’t so clear cut, however, what we do know is that Aboriginal people are over represented in the prison system, in fact aboriginal people account for 28% of the prison population.
While assumptions are dangerous, in this case I’m going to assume that 28% of police cases are Aboriginal. That would mean Aboriginal deaths in police custody should be somewhere in the vicinity of 232, not 167. Again it would appear that there is no institutional racism, this time by the police against aboriginal people.
Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend that bad things don’t happen, police brutality is real, and bad things do happen at the hands of the police and the prisons, clearly they do and they happen to all types.
But is it NOT racism.
You’re being told that it’s racism when in fact what you see is police brutality, and there is a serious problem with that.
It’s a problem because Aboriginal people are grossly over represented in the prison system in this country and something has to change. But if you continue believing the lie that it’s because of racist police or the like, then the problem is you. You become the problem because your blindness, in believing an apparently racist media, prohibits the opportunity to look seriously for what is broken in our communities and society that creates the real problem(s) that we have.
Your blindness also guarantees something else, and that is that nothing will change.