Saturday, April 7, 2012

Tribal Loyalties At Their ABC

WAN BLACKTIVIST and Mordy-Litijus elder Anita Heiss asked ABC visitors if they thought her black enough and received a series of rather astringent responses. Free speech being a relative thing at the national broadcaster, the comments thread was soon suspended, with talking head Carol Duncan explaining via Twitter:
 
The comments that made it onto the site before the gag was imposed were pointed, critical and, in one or two cases, mocking -- all of which meant no more could be permitted at the Appropriate Broadcasting Commission.

Now isn't that peculiar. ABC comments are moderated, which means any racist ones -- if there were any racist ones, that is -- could have been picked out and the rest displayed on the public forum which those now-silenced visitors help to fund and support. But that didn't happen and, for the second time in a year, professional victim Heiss has found herself a beneficiary of officialdom's eager willingness to spare her feelings.

There is another outlet however, at least for the moment, at the site of Heiss' publisher, Random House, where the string of unmoderated comments grows by the hour. We can take them to be representative of the criticisms the ABC refuses to air, and they say as much of the ABC as they do of Heiss.

You can pop on over and add your thoughts to the chain. Just tell them the ABC sent you.

And if anyone has the energy, why not copy and save the comments for the web's future reference? Chances are they will not survive too much longer on the Random House page, which is a commercial entity and could not appreciate so many adverse remarks about the author of a book it is trying to flog.

There is no need to register at Random Online, as the site suggests. Just pick a name nobody else has used, provide an email address and speak your mind.

(H/T: Andrew Bolt)

UPDATE: In 2010, Heiss was gifted by the Australia Council with a $90,000 fellowship to produce "two non fiction literary works: a collection of essays and personal memoirs."

One of those, presumably, is her current effort with Random House. So, a question: Will Random House or Heiss pledge royalties and profits from Am I Black Enough to repaying taxpayers' generosity? Or is it that, while unsupported Australian authors fend for themselves, a select few who know how to play the system have their careers and lifestyles supported without condition or qualification?

Sometimes it really does pay to be oppressed.

UPDATE II: Something very peculiar is going on the ABC in regard to its Heiss interview. Yesterday a click on the audio panel allowed the interview to be played or downloaded. Today that function no longer works. Has it been disabled, possibly because Heiss' self-promotion has become an embarrassment? Keep an eye on the page. If the audio link is not restored, or if the page vanishes altogether, you will know the Appropriate Broadcasting Commission is at it yet again.

Those who wish to hear Heiss skite and preen are not without succour, however:


Heiss details her reasons for gagging debate in general and Andrew Bolt in particular at the 2:45 minute mark. Andrew insulted her whole family, apparently, not just one-sixteenth of it.

22 comments:

  1. I read all 50, maybe 100 comments at Random House last night. They were similar to the closed thread at the ABC an all were hostile to Heiss. Not one was racist by any rational definition; all were articulate and restrained. I was so proud of all the Australians, white and a number identifying themselves as Aborigines, who had voiced their anger at Heiss's exploitation of the issue and disregard for tribal Aborigines not included in the capital-city Aboriginal industry. The ABC exposed itself as a white activist organisation that sides with the city types. The commentary was shut down to protect the ABC from unexpected criticism of one of its pets. As a partisan organ of the ultra-left of Australian politics and having violated every paragraph of its charter to work for Australian taxpayers, the ABC must be broken up and sold off; it is beyond being able to be "reformed".

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  2. Excellent work, Professor! You are hereby permitted to select for your own purposes one chokky frog from the corporate lolly jar!

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    1. PhillipGeorge(c)2012April 7, 2012 at 10:33 AM

      Anonymous, if you have been covertly supplying the Professor with Chocolate inducements upon which valuable consideration can be quantitativley assessed the HSU might soon have a few warm seats you might be interested in, en route to something more substantial at FairWork.

      Delete
    2. "chocolate inducements"? Was the throbbing member for Dobell ordering up Indigenous hookers as well? Multiculturalism in action -- hot, horizontal action.

      Delete
  3. Does anyone have a link to the ABC audio interview with Heiss? The ABC lawyers seem to have got involved and have taken down the audio and there is no transcript. Someone somewhere must have downloaded a copy before the ABC got cold feet and censored the topic.

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    1. Ask Carol Duncan at "our" ABC Newcastle 1233, 1300 331233. Flirty Carol (still trying to be 23 as she once was in the 1980s) has been resident here since 2001, after various career paths including habitation of a bear suit and staffer at the apalling NSW Teachers Federation, both of which equipped her superbly for her present role as ABC 1233 afternoon presenter.

      Hence the sublimely bumkissing interview with Ms Heiss and the shock-horror downtake of comments once Ms Duncan and the rest of the luvvies at ABC Newcastle got the drift that it wasn't working as planned.

      People really should tune into ABC 1233 online. If you think Melbourne ABC is bad, this will have you severing your arteries at how deep a shade green can be.

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  4. I'm booked to see Anita Heiss soon at a public appearance with Martin Flanagan in Melbourne. Should be an interesting night, given this publicity. Martin's the guy who recently opined in the Age that at 'whitefella dinner parties', people express opinions & make witty remarks - as if that's apparently a bad thing...

    Bill Thompson
    Melbourne

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  5. Ask Flanagan when it was that he lost the ability to write about anything other than Aboriginal footballers? Week after week after week, nothing but blackball, blackball, blackball. If the Age was run by an editor instead of an undertaker, Flanagan would have been told long ago to find fresh topics. The Australian Financial Review has acquired a genuine editor (see an earlier post) and the improvement is obvious. An editor who does morer than distribute pink slips to the latest rounds of laid-off staffers might do the same at the Age.

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  6. PhillipGeorge(c)2012April 7, 2012 at 10:44 AM

    The Identity Crisis we had to have.

    Professor, in all of this the nature of split personality hasn't been addressed.

    Here are a group of, lets call them Greeneyed Gaytopians, who self identify as proud, insist on their distinction; and henceforth demand to be treated equally because they are "just like everyone else".

    Part A of their statement precludes Part B.

    Anyway, that song was just playing on the radio: "Don't want to sail with this ship of fools"

    there is only one solution, we are all Bunyips now!

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  7. A good post Professor; I got more laughs from reading those comments that the ABC refused to air than I can remember for some time. Truly, many Aussies display a great sense of humor even when the subject needs to be criticized as a public service.

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  8. From Gobsmacked of Gippsland:

    Here is a reply I just posted on the Random House Books site - it contains a couple of points of sufficient worth to justify its repetition here (he loftily opined), in relation to this very topical, controversial and important contemporary subject:

    If I tried to sell jam that was labelled as being "strawberry jam", but which had an actual fruit content that was only 1/16th strawberry, with the rest of the fruit content being apricot, apple, plum and peach, I could quite rightly be prosecuted by the ACCC under the Trade Practices Act for misleading and deceptive conduct (or whatever the current wording is under the new structures).

    I think that principle applies to people, too.

    As to the answer to the question posed by the book's title "Am I black enough for you?" - my response is that I have no actual preference in that respect - couldn't particularly care less, to be fairly frank.

    But if the REAL question is: "Do you challenge my claim to being aboriginal?", then the answer is resoundingly YES! As 1/16th strawberry jam cannot be passed off as being fully authentic strawberry jam, I reject the foolish, politically-correct assertion that the author, with her genealogy patently being not exclusively aboriginal, can similarly claim to be a fully authentic aboriginal.

    Everyone has an absolute right to know, understand and be proud of their heritage. However, only frauds acknowledge but a single strand of the many strands of their being and claim to be exclusively and entirely that single strand.

    Particularly when so doing entitles them to special treatment, benefits and advancements.

    I have Irish, English, Scottish and German ancestry. I am proud of all these strands that combine to make me what I am. And I am proud of all my Irish, English, Scottish and German ancestors.

    But I am none of these nationalities and it would be a lie to say that I was.

    I know what I am - I am Australian. That is all.

    And so is the author.

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    1. That reply sure gladdened my heart. it is so spot on, I feel.

      In our town the self proposed aborigines have earned themselves lots of what those comments exemplify,and things will never be the same again.
      Done their dash I'd say!

      Tony Abbott, make a policy NOW, as I WANT the free money tap turned off for urban aborigines and I want it YOUR FAULT when you sail into the Lodge!

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  9. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.April 7, 2012 at 11:15 AM

    Erk. Mme Heiss was so self-serving and smarmy and holier-than-thou and just so uncompromisingly WRONG, I just couldn't watch it all, Prof. Thus I didn't make it to your appointed 2.45 minute mark where she uses others to justify her attacks on Bolt. I really tried, though, but the seconds just dragged out. It was really cringe-making.

    When I was a child on a bush farm I was friends with an old visibly Aboriginal man who carved out little wooden animals for me and told me bush tales from his store of both white and black culture with no tinge anywhere of rancour. Everyone respected him. I doubt the same applies to Heiss, who has been doing her best to ensure that all Aboriginal people are seen through the prism of her own ego.

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  10. Wonder if I can order my copy in loose leaf double ply with finger breakthrough resistance?

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  11. Bring back that wonderful word "Mulatto" back into the vocabulary. If she named her book "Am I Mulatto enough for you?" we'd have a different conversation. There would be no argument. I like the strawberry jam analogy. It makes sense to me but I am sure it would offend someone out there...

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  12. Looks like that randomhouse comments link is no longer working. All was well this morn ~9am.

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  13. For the life of me I cannot see any comments at the Random house site. But I can see the ABC ons. Carol Duncan (objective evidence that the ABC runs like a sheltered workshop, if ever there was one) on twitter lets slip an interesting admission. As you note, prof, ABC comments are moderated. Sooo, per la Duncan, all the comments they did publish got through moderation so they are ipso facto not racist. It's interesting cos the comments repeat Bolt's material entirely so Ms Heiss is going to have to sue. I mean, isn't she? Surely she'll go the ABC.

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  14. The ABC audio link appears to have developed an extra character which is rendering it unplayable.

    The correct link is http://blogs.abc.net.au/files/anita-heiss-air-1.mp3

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  15. $90,000!!? What a Heisst.

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  16. To "close" comments usually means that no more comments are accepted. This is not what they have done. They removed all comments, every one of which had presumably passed moderation.

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  17. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.April 7, 2012 at 6:19 PM

    I'll pay that one, blogstop.

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  18. "Heiss details her reasons for gagging debate in general and Andrew Bolt in particular at the 2:45 minute mark. Andrew insulted her whole family, apparently, not just one-sixteenth of it."

    Her blonde-haired, blue-eyed paternal relatives in the Austrian alps?

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