Advertisement
Published: June 16th 2006
Well, end of the semester is just around the corner. Just one project and 3 finals and I'm free!!! Turns out that my last final is on June 27 but my flight out of here isn't until July 10. I had no way of knowing when my last final was and I was kinda bummed because I didn't wanna be hanging around here when no one was here. Luckily I have a friend that lives in neaby Brisbane and his parents said I could stay with them. I'm not going to stay the whole time, but its good to know when otherwise I'd be all alone I have a place to stay.
I fgel this was a pretty productive trip! I learned a lot about myself and others. I had a prior post on here that was kind of poking fun at Australians. It was supposed to be in a humorous way but some people took offense to it saying I gave Americans a bad name, or no wonder other countries hate Americans. Pfft. I didn't even think my friends read this, let alone complete strangers! They were just random people who happened to read my blog! Do they think heads of state or whomever read this? As if.
So, I ended up deleting that post because I didn't want to offend anyone. Well...sorry random people, no such luck today. I have an opinion and I'm allowed to voice it! So here is my prior post in a condensed form.
There are a lot of differences between Americans and Australians taht I have found. One is fashion. The girls dress stupid. They wear belts--BELTS!-- in the same place where empire waists are (belts have no purpose there!) and huge belts over shirts. It looks stupid, get over it. They also wear boots over jeans...and their jeans are all straight leg. It just doesn't loook good!
There were some more things I said...I think about pronunciations and what not and how they spell...but there is a huge thing that Australians do. It's like a huge White Elephant in the living room...no one talks about it.
Australians are racist.
There, I said it. Sure, no where is perfect. Americans are still crazy racist and its a hard thing to stamp out,...but it's weird over here. My roommate was telling me about a "white Law" that basically meant that if you weren't white, you had no rights at all. That was just appealed a little over a decade ago, and some dude is trying to bring it back. If that law comes back into effect, Oz is seriously downgrading their country and setting it back years.
Americans were absolute crap to the Native Americans and everyone knows it. We're still pretty bad to them, but that's nothing as to how the Australians treat and treated the Aboriginals. The Native people of Australia were "protected" under the Plants and Animals Act until 1968. 19....68. That means that they were classified as animals until about 38 years ago. Wow. I've asked some people about it and they have just laughed. I have a lot more examples, but that is mostly people as individuals and not the country itself,.. and of course there are exceptions to every rule... not everyone is like that...and Americans were pretty guilty of it too.
I'm just calling it like I sees it and...just...wow.
Bring on the comments.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.101s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 10; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0554s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jay Weebling
non-member comment
Enjoy the moment
I understand how you feel. Every country in the world has areas of different outlook. You would not judge New York by the way people of Georgia act, in the same way you should not judge Australians by the way people from Toowoomba act. Toowoomba is a "Nationals Party" heartland. This is a political party that is very rednecked. I would say it is well intentioned but still pro-white and very bias in it's outlook. Most of Australia is not like this, and the Nationals are a minor political party. I have many aboriginal friends and we all share the same concerns, family, prosperity and doing the best for ourselves and the community. It is unfortunate that you have experienced a visit to Australia with a minority of people with rascist opinions. Toowoomba is a very small and insignificant part of Australia and it would be unfortunate to take away a view of this country based on those people. The "white law" that you refer to was the "White Australia Policy" related to immigration that was abolished over 40 years ago, not 10 years. Native people as you say are still treated under certain acts that the rest of Australians are not protected under. But these acts are in favour of Aboriginal people and they do not want them removed. They encompass land rights, ceremonial sites, customary laws and protection of their culture. Having spent 5 years working with aboriginal people, they have taught me a lot and one thing I understand is that their untimate progress must come from their own self determination protected by the rights that are currently legislated to them. It is ignorant to make assumptions without determining the facts and unfortunately many people who live in Toowoomba pretend to present facts as they would like them to be.