OPINION
Breakfast TV is not a viewing habit Australians have ever truly acquired. Persistently low rating figures for such programs were, for me, a persistent source of hope. Our refusal to watch perky people emit hollow sounds from their frozen smiles made me happy. I dreamed once of a day to celebrate the one national achievement of which an overwhelming majority could be proud.
That dream has been overwhelmed by horror. Apparently, breakfast TV is not just a very dull and rarely seen parade of infomercials, barely known politicians and . It’s more of a funeral march toward the death of reason. Today, I saw hope die on the internet.
Yesterday on Seven's Sunrise, there was no light. Just a nightmare "debate" on the urgent need to remove Aboriginal children's from their families. All participants were on the side of "yes" and competed only for the dishonour of agreeing with the unspeakable proposition the most.
How ? No, really. What sort of life might lead not just one but three adults to speak in brutal ignorance of other, younger lives in a televised defence of the theft of children?
If you care to learn of the several ways in which Prue, some lass called Samantha and a lad with a name I didn’t quite catch ignored scholarship on the horrific consequences of separating Aboriginal kids from their families, read . Be warned: McQuire has the tendency to acquire knowledge of things before reporting them. I can’t imagine she’ll get very far in the heady world of early morning infomercials. All that “substantiation” and knowledge of “history” written down in the National Archives is, if you ask Prue, “politically correct”.
I am a keen student of the usage of this term, and so, I shall speak to that. Let McQuire be the final authority on racism. Let your conscience do some of the work, though, when you hear that uneven standard fly from the perma-smiles of breakfast TV. I’ve listened to their rot more than a dozen times, just to check it was real. To my ears, the message that Aboriginal people are not quite due human rights is clear.
Political correctness is the problem. This is the true hurdle to the flourishing of Aboriginal people. It’s not, you know, a foundational act of land theft and murder. No! It’s Political Correctness Gone Mad.
To make this old case, the morning crew choose a new rationale: political correctness. Political correctness is the problem. This is the true hurdle to the flourishing of Aboriginal people. It’s not, you know, a foundational act of land theft and murder. No! It’s Political Correctness Gone Mad.
Look. Between you and me and any person who can sustain a thought for thirty seconds, I find myself ticked off at times with “political correctness” too. There are those more concerned with appearing to care than the act of care itself. Here are two real-life examples.
First, throughout a term in which he spoke powerfully of , President Obama deported more people from US territories than all . You wouldn’t call Trump a politically correct figure, but, he’s the shameful record of the true deporter-in-chief. I propose that a form of political correctness practiced by an overwhelmingly white and guilty press permitted the Obama administration to go about with some .
Second, on the day that Prime Minister Gillard made her , legislation that cut , who are largely women, passed in the Senate. Gillard appeared to represent all us girls in the typing pool. Gillard punished some of her nation’s poorest women.
So, in some cases, the structure of the argument used by our morning spokesmodels is solid. The fear of being seen to do the wrong thing overwhelms the responsibility to do the right thing. This happens very often at the level of policy. More privately, bossy people enjoy telling others off for their use of a descriptive term that was generally considered “correct” up until last week.
We whites must not permit the genocide by stealth of another generation whose history and present we remain too ashamed to face.
Political correctness has its problems and misuses. But, to claim that it is the political correctness of white bureaucrats that stands in the way of the flourishing of an Aboriginal child when Aboriginal children, and their families, have been systematically punished for being Aboriginal long before political correctness had either incidence or name is, if you ask me, politically correct. The politically incorrect thing for the morning crew to do would be to declare their views honestly. No messing about with, “And Warren Mundine, who is black and therefore represents all black opinion which just happens to be the same as my white one”. Just straight back to the good old days. A time where white supremacists didn’t have to bother with the chore of pretending they believed Aboriginal people to be fully human.
In closing, to restate my admiration for those many Australians who do not watch the politically correct displays of breakfast television. I would also say that I might have preferred to keep you in your ignorance of this madness. Often, it is better to ignore the wilfully ignorant, and I still regret ever committing the name of that Milo person to print.
I do not regret the opportunity to condemn the worst of the politically correct. Do watch out for those Breakfast types who claim to be cheeky and fearless and telling it like it is. It is not like that. It must not be like that. We whites must not permit the genocide by stealth of another generation whose history and present we remain too ashamed to face.
You want to be politically incorrect and totally cheeky and “out there”, Sunrise? Try demanding justice. There are not very many incorrect enough to dare.
