BOLT THE (PATRONISING) RACIST

In his column today Bolt attempts to portray George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin, an African-American youth, dead, as a person who cared for African-Americans because he and his wife had ‘served as mentors to two teenaged children of an African-American woman’. This, infers Bolt, is proof that Zimmerman was not a racist – that plus, according to Bolt, the killing was a ‘black-on-black’ incident (Zimmerman is Hispanic) which somehow proves it wasn’t racially motivated.

Bolt’s comments highlight two things about Bolt. First is his astonishing ignorance about racism in the US and, in particular, the racial tensions that exist between African-Americans and Hispanics; and secondly, that ‘mentoring’ others based on race is often a patronising form of passive racism that can often lead to a more aggressive or even violent form of racism later.

Bolt himself is a classic example of this form of passive racism.

Bolt once told me that in his seventh grade at school his best friend was an Aboriginal fellow student. Since knowing about patronisation often being a passive form of racism, I’ve no reason to doubt this – especially given Bolt’s present devotion to attempting to obliterate indigenous heritage and denial of Aboriginal identity.

ANDREW BOLT THINKS PREDOMINATELY WHITE COMMUNITIES PROTECTING ABORIGINAL CULTURE IS THE ‘NEW APARTHEID’

In Andrew Bolt’s racially contorted mind, a local council that proposes to set up a playgroup for Aboriginal families that live within the community is seen by him as practicing a new apartheid.

He writes:

Apartheid comes to an inner-city Melbourne council:

YARRA Council is set to invest in playgroups as it overhauls the system to cope with a baby boom.
The council has voted to employ its first full-time playgroup co-ordinator to establish and support a wider range of playgroups, including the first in the municipality for Aboriginal families....The council has ... voted to establish an Aboriginal playgroup at a cost of $4000, subject to consultation.

Once you’d swear such a council must be of the far-Right. Now you know it must be of the far-Left,

Bolt then asks:

…but what’s the difference?

The difference is simple, Bolt. The Left recognises the special needs of indigenous children and respects their heritage, while the far-Right, as represented by the transparently racist views you peddle, wants to obliterate indigenous culture and erase Aboriginal identity.

There's no apartheid here, merely a responsible community safeguarding the future of Aboriginal heritage from the ravages of rednecks and racists.

That’s the difference.