The Tuskegee Experiment – Australian Edition
April 16th, 2008 by SocProf and tagged Health, Health Care, Human Rights, Indigenous peoples, Institutional Racism, Social Exclusion, Social Identity, social marginality, Structural Violence
Via the Independent,
“The Australian government has launched an investigation into claims that aboriginal children seized from their parents during the 1920s and 1930s were secretly used as guinea pigs for leprosy treatments. The allegations surfaced at a Senate inquiry this week into plans to compensate the “stolen generation” of aboriginal Australians who were taken from their families as part of a government programme.”
I guess after all that has already been disclosed regarding the “stolen generation”, this is not a surprising discovery. The eerie parallel with the Tuskegee experiment flows from the same logic: that of dehumanization of the “other” whoever that other happens to be. And even when the legal system of discrimination is dismantled, its effects do not disappear as institutional discrimination is harder to uproot and eliminate than individual discrimination. As a result, Australia ends up with this level of stratification:
“Australia’s 450,000 aborigines are the country’s most disadvantaged social group, with a life expectancy 17 years lower than their white counterparts. They are three times more likely to be unemployed, and 13 times more likely to be imprisoned.”
So far, the Australian PM, Kevin Rudd has issued a historic apology for past mistreatment. How about so real social policy for current social ills that affect the Aborigines disproportionately?
Posted in Health, Human Rights, Indigenous Populations, Institutional Racism, Mass Violence, Structural Violence | No Comments »
