Monday, October 17, 2011

A Multiculturalist Explains It All

ON THE radio this morning, Andrew Bolt and Steve Price, the columnist’s Sancho Panza, chatted with Dr Christina Ho, senior lecturer in multicultural matters at Sydney’s University of Technology. The subject was “white flight” from elite public schools, as the headline in the Silly put it, and the specialist in societal frakking did not disappoint, least of all in her subjectivity. Of her research and conclusions, which hang on comparing the number of non-Anglo/European faces in specific schools with the ethnic composition of surrounding suburbs, she could quote chapter and verse. However, when asked if those disparities were no more than the consequence of some students working harder, being coached and coming from families that regard achievement as the norm, you could almost hear her little feet scurrying for the all-purpose cover of the personal impression.
“When you go to [elite schools’ entrance] test days, you do not see a lot of Anglo students.
Therefore “part of it is that there are a lot of Anglo-Australian families who aren’t sending their kids to do the test. There are probably a lot of reasons why that is the case . . . it must have to do with some level of discomfort about schools becoming Asian-dominated, therefore putting off white families.”
It must, must it? Hmmm.

Forget for a moment Dr Ho’s grievous slur on pale, round-eyed Australian natives like Young Master Bunyip, who has been gifted with generations of thoroughly Australian blood on his father’s side and, from his mum, una prima colazione di un maiale of Calabrian, Sicilian, Neopolitan and god-only-knows-what-else many centuries of invaders left behind. So incensed was he at being disparaged as “Anglo” – a term he associates chiefly with pale Poms and a Radio Birdman number -- it was all the Professor could do to stop him ringing up Judge Mordy and demanding that Dr Ho be strapped to a stool and dunked in a vat of David Marr’s spittle.

The fact that white people look alike to Dr Ho is a minor point. Of much greater interest is her timing, because there is absolutely nothing new about her research, the gist of which was published quite some time ago. Back in May she penned a little essay for the Australian Review of Public Affairs (ARPA), and it summarises exactly the points which saw this morning's Silly go off half-cocked about white intolerance. Could it be that departmental budgets and promotions are being thrashed out for the 2012 academic year, a process in which the benefits of a higher profile and a little fresh ink can be of great assistance?

The ARPA piece includes an observation that can only lead to the conclusion Young Master Bunyip’s furious reaction was the correct one: Dr Ho really does need a stiff dose of judicial intervention. When it comes to stereotypes, she is a champ, as an interview, also in May, with The Conversation makes pretty darn clear:
The high proportion of Asian students at selective schools was also helping to create student bodies with a cultural mix that do not reflect broader Australian society and was fuelling resentment by others that Asians were ‘taking over’, she said.
That could be addressed by broadening the selection criteria to include more sports, arts and humanities topics, she said.
If Andrew Bolt were to say something similar of Aborigines – that they are good only at football, dot painting and exploring their own culture – he would be heading back to court chop chop. But when those sentiments roll from the lips of a mistress of the multiculti, no problem.whatsoever.

8 comments:

  1. "But when those sentiments roll from the lips of a mistress of the multiculti, no problem.whatsoever."

    Yeah, but that's because there is no problem whatsoever with her comments. Of course this is said as a white man.

    The local selective school around here is James Ruse, and the kiddies all have a dusky or yellow hue to their skin. It is rare to see a white kid crossing the road or waiting at the bus stop on their to this school on my morning commute (maybe they get driven???). But you will see a lot of Asian kids wearing the fatigues of the cadet program, so maybe their interests and values do extend beyond the merely academic...

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  2. Well if anyone's offended then they need to complain. Without a complaint, nothing can happen. I'm not offended. I don't really give a damn. The lack of pale faces at selective high schools is actually a problem for the Asian students. too complicated to explain here, that's my analysis.

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  3. You are quite correct professor. You have painted a unique mental picture for me. At 8am every morning on MTR I will now always see Mr Steve "Sancho" Price riding his mule with Don "Bolt" Quixote into the Global Warming sunset, stabbing at those god awful wind mills and skewering stray wayward and intellectually challenged socialists that happen to pass by. Chop Chop! Love it!

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  4. Marin Luther King Jr's children are now in their 50's. With race-obsessed academics like Dr Ho still around, I doubt we'll see children judged on the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin in their lifetime.

    At the rate we're going, it'll be another few generations yet.

    Shame, that.

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  5. PhillipGeorge(c)2011October 17, 2011 at 10:29 PM

    Prof,

    there is a school called Balwyn High [aka Buchanan College} that about 30 years ago had maybe a dozen faces in it that people would have 'sourced' from Asia. Today the School is maybe 55% "Asian" ethnicity in makeup?
    Does this mean enclave or ghetto?
    What if Prof, Dr Ho is partly, just partly, right? What if there is some innate tendency for a Caucasian to want to marry another Caucasian?
    What if there is some slight tendency for men to want to marry women?

    So is it sexist and racist to point it out?
    Constanta ac Fidelita reads the School's motto.

    Rates of intermarriage between identifiable people groupings has some significance to social lubrication.

    The idea that one has to hug, embrace, celebrate, something just because it is different is ridiculous.
    Point is Prof where people want to stick their dick bears some relationship to where they want to send their children.
    Sex, and all barriers to it, actually matter. Ho is not speaking rocket science - which obviously the Chinese are quite good at.

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  6. Jeebus, all she left out was driving class!

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  7. I love the academic rigour of her analysis.

    Not for her the well-recognised coaching factor, the well-recognised Asian endeavour to 'get on' - we see the obsession in Japan on our screens, we have thousands of people here tell us that the fight for places is severe (in NSW 4,000 applicants per year in the 90's to 15,000 plus today). Not to even mention that first class education - more than just "comparable" with private school results. No, the "academic" tells us to ignore all that because she "doesn't see too many white faces at the exams". I admire her racing around to check all the exam places to check out the 15,000, but really?

    M Ryutin Sydney

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  8. The existence of these elite public schools is a virtual admittance that the regular variety 99 % attend are crap.

    My parents didn't even know the option was there - not like they go out of their way to advertise it.

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