Australia: Africans having to fight against 'history of failure on blackness'

Here is the Australian equivalent to the USA race-hustler Al Sharpton. Dr Ahmed - a refugee from Eritrea - blames the FAILURE of Black Africans to assimilate on Australia's inability to accept blackness! Wow! So, let me get this all untangled in my small, racist mind. The reason Black Africans don't work, do crime, don't SPEAK English etc.  is down to the inbred racism of White Australians! Dr Ahmed - here's a little hint for you. How about getting your Black community to pull their finger and actually do something about their own situation? It's called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. You see, us Whites - we don't have time to sit in a heap and feel sorry for ourselves. We have responsibilities. You know, like raising kids, working, paying bills. We don't have time to nanny you and your Black folk, begging you to come to the party. It's really not our fault you can't speak English. Last I checked, when in Eritrea, speak Eritrean. Understand? You really don't need an 'African Think Tank' - salaries of which are paid by us racist White tax payers - to figure the bleeding obvious out. How about changing your ATTITUDE and lifting your finger and working - and keeping your job by doing it properly so that people are willing to employ you? How about staying out of trouble so that your community doesn't get a bad reputation as trouble makers? Maybe then us racist Whites will actually start respecting you instead of getting fed up by your 'woe is me' and 'you owe us because we have a Black skin' attitude. It's people like you and other government funded 'human rights' committees that make us want to pull our hair out. Get a life, get a job - a real one and not one where  you moan all day on my dime - and then we can speak again. Until then, this anti-blackness Australian resident still thinks you're a bottom-feeder instead of setting an example for your own people, by, you know, WORKING a real job. Oh, and by the way Dr Ahmed - when I arrived at the Melbourne airport after fleeing Black South Africa, I got no humanitarian assistance either but I'm doing just fine. Last I looked, planes departed Melbourne too, so if you're still not happy here you and your fellow unhappy Black folk are free to leave - you could even go to South Africa, where the ANC government is Black and can sympathise with your plight.


Dr Ahmed

AUSTRALIA'S inability to accept ''blackness'' is working against the settlement of African refugees, according to an eminent community leader.
Dr Berhan Ahmed, head of the African Think Tank and the 2009 Victorian Australian of the Year, also said Australia's humanitarian assistance was ''stopping at the airport'', and failed to provide African migrants with the skills to find jobs and engage in society.

Dr Ahmed was speaking out after two brawls involving the Sudanese community, both of which followed a beauty pageant and ended in violent attacks on police.

He condemned the violence as ''appalling and shameful'', but said it was important to analyse the problems that led to the incidents.

Africans experienced racism daily, said Dr Ahmed, a refugee from Eritrea who arrived in Australia in 1987. ''Australia has a black history with black people, and Africans coming with a black skin, they are just copping that sort of Aboriginal black treatment.

''We should have been ambassadors of change and acceptance for blackness. The system still has a problem accepting that blackness.''

Australia has a history of failure on blackness, he argued, ''and that's what's halting Africans in their settlement''.

Dr Ahmed said African refugees were encountering racism when trying to find work. ''People are changing their names to apply for a job. They are putting a different name to be called for an interview. And when they see their face, they tell them, 'Oh sorry, we'll call you again'.''

The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission last year reported that young African Australians were suffering entrenched racial discrimination. After consultations in Dandenong, Commissioner Helen Szoke said ''systemic barriers'' restricted job prospects for young African Australians, who also said they felt targeted by police.

Anecdotal reports suggested that some employers tried to avoid hiring refugees by framing job descriptions that effectively excluded them.

Dr Ahmed, who last month gave evidence to the Federal Parliamentary inquiry into multiculturalism, said another problem for migrants was boredom and lack of engagement. This resulted from a lack of adequate training and education to equip Africans for jobs.

He argued that refugee policies had not changed in line with the shift in Australia from a manufacturing to a knowledge and service economy. Previous migrant intakes were absorbed into factories, and it was not unusual to hear of people who had not learned English throughout their working lives.

''Now our economy is a knowledge and service economy,'' he said. ''On the first day you have to be able to speak and write [English]. You have to have the qualifications and skills to fit into the system.''

Dr Ahmed expressed a growing frustration with the inability of politicians to address this issue. ''It's all been meeting and meeting and meeting. For the last four or five years, we've been meeting.''

Refugees were getting up to six months' training, then returning to unemployment, he said. ''Families are not getting anywhere. Their kids are also feeling that frustration.''

The issue is not new. In 2007, the then immigration minister Kevin Andrews created a storm when he admitted the Howard government had squeezed the African component of the refugee program because ''some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life''.

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