Piers Akerman: Marching mindlessly to the future ignores lessons of the past
If black lives mattered, the BLM movement would focus on exploring the appalling lack of respect for law which ensures that jail time becomes a black rite of passage, writes Piers Akerman.
Opinion
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In the trashed world of woke protests the truth stands for nothing. If black lives mattered, either in the US or here, the emphasis of the Black Lives Matter movement would be on the disproportionate incarceration rates of black people — but that’s not what the masked organisers are focused on.
They don’t want to address the extraordinary crime rates among young black men (and increasingly black women in Australia). They don’t want to explore the lawlessness.
They don’t want to explore the appalling lack of respect for law which ensures that jail time becomes a black rite of passage.
The anonymous figures behind the faux outrage don’t give a fig for the lives of those they claim to represent.
They’re only intent on fanning mindless outrage and they’ve successfully lured thousands of witless virtue signallers to their corrupted cause.
In Australia, people identifying as Aboriginal represented 28 per cent of the total adult prison population as of September, 2019, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, while accounting for 3.3 per cent of the population.
However, the pressure on state governments and territories to lower this horrendous incarceration rate is reflected in the disparity of length of sentences for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. According to the ABS, the aggregate mean sentence for Aboriginal prisoners is 3.6 years compared with 5.7 years for non-Aboriginal prisoners.
Aboriginal prisoners are jailed on average for 2.7 years compared with 4.3 years for non-Aboriginal prisoners.
Australian Institute of Criminology statistics show Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians die at approximately the same rate now, just as the Black Deaths in Custody royal commission found 24 years ago.
The death rate of Aboriginal prisoners is actually marginally lower than the death rate for non-Aboriginal prisoners (0.14 and 0.18 respectively) according to the AIC. But facts don’t matter to the mob because its organisers aren’t trying to reduce crime rates, or incarceration rates or death rates — as the lack of stated goals from the protesters clearly demonstrates.
They’re interested in smashing Western culture.
If they were intent on protecting black lives, if they would attack the African nations where slave markets still exist, and the Middle Eastern and Asian nations which turn a blind eye to slavery today.
Instead, the cultural nihilists have turned their sights on the nations which have led the global push against slavery and injustice, the UK and the US, and to a lesser extent, Australia.
On June 4, 1989, the Communist Chinese government opened fire and drove tanks over peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square, barbarically killing thousands. There were no marches to mark that anniversary by woke folk.
Now statues and artworks which are the milestones, the reminders, of our past and markers of our cultural development are at risk of being torn down by an ill-educated rabble lacking any comprehensive idea of how the people of the world should prosper and progress.
As Australia slowly emerges from its economically and socially destructive lockdown — the merits of which still must be examined — the mob has seized the moment.
Our country is not the racist bastion as painted by the mob.
It has a past, a present and a fantastic future for all who wish to participate in building a better nation.
In our past, Europeans fought each other and they colonised lands.
They brought a lot of sad baggage but the benefits of their civilising influence far outweighed the tragedy inherent in colonisation.
We won’t get anywhere by kneeling silently, but we will by standing tall and actively creating a future to benefit all.