On 3 December, an article by Remy Varga appeared in the review section of the Weekend Australia with this heading:

Do these men actually deserve your empathy?

Who were the two men? One might have guessed that the men and the empathy concerned ‘First Nations’ people, Aboriginals, in other words. But in this case, it was about two full-blood Aboriginals.

The article continues: ‘Two Aboriginal men, debased by the pain and humiliation of racism, killed nine people, including three children and a baby. Have we misunderstood this terrible stain on our history?‘

Before inquiring how killing nine people could be misunderstood and why it is a stain on Australian history, and not on Aboriginal culture, we should have a bit more information.

Varga writes: ‘[Jimmy] Governor, and possibly Joe, slaughtered Mrs Grace Mawbey, her 16-year-old daughter Grace, 14-year-old Percival, 11-year-old Hilda and schoolteacher Helen Kerz. Continuing the murderous rampage, they then killed another man, Alexander McKay, a woman, Elizabeth O’Brien, and her baby. ‘ How were they killed? With a tomahawk and a nulla nulla – slashed to death and heads bashed in. Jimmy Governor seems to have been the main agent of the murder and mayhem.

Remy Varga, a young woman (from her photo), continues: ‘But should we have empathy for killers? [Jimmy] Governor was far from the only Aboriginal man whose life was debased by the pain and humiliation of racial injustice.’ You could say the same about the Irish, Catholics, and other undesirables and deplorables victimized by the left. But do you think the question would come up if it concerned anyone else but an Aboriginal? Not on your life. Varga generously invites the readers to ‘make up their own minds’ by listening to the reconstructed detailed which will tiptoe past the violence inherent in Aboriginal culture.

Read the rest here …

See my tab about Aboriginal violence pre-settlement