this severely under-reported story was gleaned from the sports.philly.com website. more evidence that white people are very, very bad.


NBC probably won't devote much of its tape-delayed Olympic coverage to this story.

Still, if the extreme factions of Australia's indigenous population carry out their threats, the story of the "Stolen Generation" could become the social issue of the 2000 Sydney Games.

As the Island Continent prepares to host the world's greatest sporting spectacle, a dark chapter of its past could be exposed to the international community in the form of threatened violent protests.

"It's not for me to say there will be or won't be violence," Geoff Clark, chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commission, said earlier this year. "The fact is that violence is part of demonstration. What you need to do is be able to contain that, suggest to people that there shouldn't be violence, and that's been my call. I would hope people would heed those suggestions."

I hope so too - for several reasons.

First, it troubles me when sports, normally the one thing that links diverse cultures, is used to promote political agendas that contradict such unity.

Unfortunately, a global event such as the Olympics is an irresistible stage.

Second, with local security having prepped for more than six years to deal with terrorist threats at the Games, a violent protest from native Australians likely would be quickly and decisively squashed before it reflected negatively on the continent's shining moment.

But most important, as the demonstrations at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles show, when protesters turn violent and start affecting innocent people, any message becomes lost in the chaos.

And the "Stolen Generation" story needs to be told.

Between 1910 and the 1970s, Australian government policy allowed Aboriginal children, predominantly those of mixed race, to be taken from their families and given to white people to raise in a misguided attempt at assimilation.

The problem with looking at world history with a Eurocentric view is that European settlers ignored cultures that had been around for thousands of years, and viewed the thriving indigenous cultures as little more than savages. They weren't of European descent, so they were less than people. It happened in North America, South America, Africa, Asia and everywhere Europeans settled.

So even though Australia was settled primarily by British convicts on Jan. 26, 1788, where Sydney now stands, they considered themselves superior to the Aborigines who had been on the continent between 40,000 and 100,000 years.

Naturally, the way to make the Aborigines more like people would be to convert them to Christianity.

But the early missionaries, who brought influenza, measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, venereal diseases and other diseases to the Aborigines, decided it would be impossible to convert the children and teach them "proper" European skills and customs as long as they remained with their parents.

By the late 19th century, the "educated" opinion in Australia was that full-blooded tribal Aborigines were a dying race, doomed to extinction.

So in 1883, it became policy in some states that Aboriginal children could be taken from their parents.

Light-skinned Aboriginal children were often given to white families for adoption, while darked-skinned children were often put in orphanages.

Today, the Aboriginal community says, close to 100,000 people of Aboriginal descent, taken between 1910 and 1969, do not know their true families or communities of birth.

A recent report by Australia's Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron, suggesting that that number was exaggerated, has led to threats of protest at the Olympics.

"A generation is all people born around that period," Herron told Australia's Channel Nine Television in April. "It didn't affect all Aboriginal people, and that's the point that I'm making in my ."

Some Aboriginal people, who considered the removal of children government-sponsored genocide, have not taken kindly to playing down the significance of the "Stolen Generation."

"I think it matters not whether it was a generation or whether it was 10 percent. The policy was wrong," said Lowitja O'Donoghue, chairwoman of an Aboriginal advisory committee set up by Olympic organizers, who was taken from her parents when she was 2.

On one side, the simple solution would be a government apology, but does white Australia really want to be associated with a perception of genocide?

Is it fair to blame white Americans for the horrific treatment of Native Americans and African-Americans by their ancestors?

"Of course, we treated Aboriginals very, very badly in the past," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said in 1997, "but to tell children that we're all part of a sort of racist, bigoted history is something that Australians reject."

Still, if violent protest by Aborigines affect the Olympic Games, Australia's "Stolen Generation" will become part of the global debate. NBC probably won't devote much of its tape-delayed Olympic coverage to this story.

Still, if the extreme factions of Australia's indigenous population carry out their threats, the story of the "Stolen Generation" could become the social issue of the 2000 Sydney Games.

As the Island Continent prepares to host the world's greatest sporting spectacle, a dark chapter of its past could be exposed to the international community in the form of threatened violent protests.

"It's not for me to say there will be or won't be violence," Geoff Clark, chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commission, said earlier this year. "The fact is that violence is part of demonstration. What you need to do is be able to contain that, suggest to people that there shouldn't be violence, and that's been my call. I would hope people would heed those suggestions."

I hope so too - for several reasons.

First, it troubles me when sports, normally the one thing that links diverse cultures, is used to promote political agendas that contradict such unity.

Unfortunately, a global event such as the Olympics is an irresistible stage.

Second, with local security having prepped for more than six years to deal with terrorist threats at the Games, a violent protest from native Australians likely would be quickly and decisively squashed before it reflected negatively on the continent's shining moment.

But most important, as the demonstrations at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles show, when protesters turn violent and start affecting innocent people, any message becomes lost in the chaos.

And the "Stolen Generation" story needs to be told.

Between 1910 and the 1970s, Australian government policy allowed Aboriginal children, predominantly those of mixed race, to be taken from their families and given to white people to raise in a misguided attempt at assimilation.

The problem with looking at world history with a Eurocentric view is that European settlers ignored cultures that had been around for thousands of years, and viewed the thriving indigenous cultures as little more than savages. They weren't of European descent, so they were less than people. It happened in North America, South America, Africa, Asia and everywhere Europeans settled.

So even though Australia was settled primarily by British convicts on Jan. 26, 1788, where Sydney now stands, they considered themselves superior to the Aborigines who had been on the continent between 40,000 and 100,000 years.

Naturally, the way to make the Aborigines more like people would be to convert them to Christianity.

But the early missionaries, who brought influenza, measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, venereal diseases and other diseases to the Aborigines, decided it would be impossible to convert the children and teach them "proper" European skills and customs as long as they remained with their parents.

By the late 19th century, the "educated" opinion in Australia was that full-blooded tribal Aborigines were a dying race, doomed to extinction.

So in 1883, it became policy in some states that Aboriginal children could be taken from their parents.

Light-skinned Aboriginal children were often given to white families for adoption, while darked-skinned children were often put in orphanages.

Today, the Aboriginal community says, close to 100,000 people of Aboriginal descent, taken between 1910 and 1969, do not know their true families or communities of birth.

A recent report by Australia's Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron, suggesting that that number was exaggerated, has led to threats of protest at the Olympics.

"A generation is all people born around that period," Herron told Australia's Channel Nine Television in April. "It didn't affect all Aboriginal people, and that's the point that I'm making in my ."

Some Aboriginal people, who considered the removal of children government-sponsored genocide, have not taken kindly to playing down the significance of the "Stolen Generation."

"I think it matters not whether it was a generation or whether it was 10 percent. The policy was wrong," said Lowitja O'Donoghue, chairwoman of an Aboriginal advisory committee set up by Olympic organizers, who was taken from her parents when she was 2.

On one side, the simple solution would be a government apology, but does white Australia really want to be associated with a perception of genocide?

Is it fair to blame white Americans for the horrific treatment of Native Americans and African-Americans by their ancestors?

"Of course, we treated Aboriginals very, very badly in the past," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said in 1997, "but to tell children that we're all part of a sort of racist, bigoted history is something that Australians reject."

Still, if violent protest by Aborigines affect the Olympic Games, Australia's "Stolen Generation" will become part of the global debate.


if you don't bring me some muthafuckin' cognac, i'll kill you -- supherb

how do it feel to hold my dick in public, cock-blower? -- prodigy