Lost and Found

Recently I was at drinks with a number of people from the Health industry. This included Nutritionists, Dieticians and other health professionals. A conversation came up about the recent increase in anti-social behaviour and violence along Mitchell Street Darwin, the local nightclub strip. A number of people jumped to the conclusion that it was related to Indigenous Australians.

The truth is that a lot of clubs won’t even allow Indigenous people in. I have been witness to it myself, making up all manner of excuses to not allow sober, well dressed and well mannered Indigenous people in.

There was an article about the Mitchell St situation in the NT News last week. A magistrate was discussing how two out of every three cases she was seeing were related to anti social or violent behaviour, and that three out of four of these involved young white males. We also need to remember that Indigenous people make up only 20% of the Darwin population.

What bothers me is that people automatically assume that this type of behaviour must be related to the Indigenous population. Of course there are some problems with Indigenous people, but obviously not as many as people like to think. I took it upon myself to correct what the health professionals were saying. They turned away to exclude me from their conversation.