Indigenous leader Warren Mundine has slammed young, Aboriginal activists for perpetually whingeing about racism even though they have never experienced it.
From protesting about Australia Day being held on January 26 to taking offence at a magazine cover, the 61-year former national president of the Labor Party has had enough.
The entrepreneur and media commentator, whose World War II veteran father Roy experienced genuine racism raising 11 children during the 1950s and 1960s, said young, indigenous activists, and their fellow travellers, were addicted to accusing others of racial discrimination.
Indigenous entrepreneur Warren Mundine has slammed young Aboriginal activists for perpetually whingeing about racism even though they have never experienced it
From protesting about Australia Day being held on January 26 to taking offence at a magazine cover, the 61-year former national president of the Labor Party has had enough.
‘What gets my goat is they’ve never experienced it,’ he told Daily Mail Australia today.
‘All they do is whinge about nothing.
‘These days, you’ve got to have safe places – they’re just making up things to whinge about.’
In a News Corp column, he described the phenomenon as ‘one most pathetic things I’ve seen’.
‘I’m sick and tired of hearing young precious petals complaining about racism,’ he said.
In a new controversy, left-wing activists have taken offence at the progressive Meanjin magazine, which crossed out the indigenous name in its title and replaced it with ‘Me Too’ to make a point about women being sexually harassed by powerful men.
The magazine had published an article by controversial feminist Clementine Ford.
The entrepreneur and media commentator, whose World War II veteran father Roy experienced genuine racism raising, said young activists were whingeing for the sake of it
Meanjin’s editor Jonathan Green, an ABC presenter who previously edited the Sunday Age, was forced to apologise for his ‘blindness’ mistake, which sparked outrage on social media.
‘I regret it. It’s a reminder of my privilege to not see what now seems so obvious,’ he said this week.
Mundine said this episode highlighted how Aboriginal outrage activists were searching for something to complain about.
‘All they did was change the name on the front of a magazine. We’ve all become a bunch of whingers,’ he said.
‘What are you sorry about? Get on with life.’
Left-wing activists took offence at the progressive Meanjin magazine, which crossed out the indigenous name in its title and replaced it with ‘Me Too’ to make a point sexual harassment
Mr Mundine, who is a board member of Australian and American companies and was previously the deputy mayor of Parkes Shire Council in the New South Wales central west, contrasted the situation with Aboriginal people from another era.
His own Catholic father Roy worked as a military engineer in Darwin when Australia’s northern-most major city was bombed during World War II.
When he returned to the Clarence Valley in northern NSW to be a road worker, he was required to seek permission to drive to work at night as an Aboriginal man.
‘My dad was a bloody hard worker,’ Mundine said.
‘He was in a segregated society. For him to get a job, he had to get a certificate of exemption.
Albert Namatjira, an internationally renowned artist, was charged with supplying Aboriginal people with alcohol l in 1958 in an era when indigenous people were classified as fauna
‘He didn’t a a full wage as anybody else but he didn’t complaint about anything, he just got on with his job, worked and he was able to buy a home.
‘That was his way of fighting back: he built a home, built a family, got us all educated – we’ve all done well in our lives.’
Before various state governments began dismantling racist policies towards Aboriginal people during the 1960s, in the same decade they were finally recognised as citizens by the commonwealth, indigenous people couldn’t buy property.
Albert Namatjira, an internationally renowned artist, was charged with supplying Aboriginal people with alcohol in 1958 in an era when indigenous people were classified as fauna.
‘They wanted to be treated as equal citizens and they wanted to be part of Australia,’ Mundine said.
‘Kids today don’t even know that. All this elite little group, who have never faced any of this stuff, they sit around and whinge.’