Hey whitey...

White people. Love us or hate us we're here to stay. I recently read an article about a white power group that held some kind of white power music festival somewhere in Queensland. The festival was called 'Hammered' and was run by the North Queensland chapter of the white supremacist group 'The Southern Cross Hammer Skinheads.' As much of a charming bunch that these guys sound, that, to me, was a little shocking to read. Sure; I've seen Romper Stomper and Ed Norton was great in American History X, but I sometimes forget that neo nazis are real people, living in real places. Not just overseas in Europe and America. Not just characters dreamt up by some script writer. They are real and are living all over Australia. I had kind of resigned people that scary, dangerous and small minded to other places. Anywhere but in my backyard. But yes, they are out there. Ceaselessly dedicated to hatred and intolerance. One spokesperson for the Hammer Skinheads defended the festival stating that 'black power groups have their festivals so why can't white power groups?'. The answer, as far as I'm concerned, is because of the hundreds of years of imperialism, slavery, murder and persecution perpetrated by white guys. It's hard to act all sheepish and innocent when you read a little history. White guys had a terrible modus operandi for a long time of scarring foreign cultures irreversibly. Usually cultures of people with different coloured skin. You can reason that all that was a long time ago, that it wasn't the current generation that got up to that kind if thing or that we're all really sorry, but if you ask me us whiteys have a few generations more of shutting the hell up and taking whatever the rest of the world wants to throw at us. It's just a shame that just when it seems things are getting better with the state of racial relations the world over, a group like the 'Hammer Skinheads' have to go and hold 'Hammered' and piss everybody off, anglo saxon or otherwise. Oh, and Coalition troops shooting brown people left and right in the Middle East doesn't exactly help either but let's not get into that.

There is another bone I have to pick with the current crop of white supremacists, however. During the Cronulla riots in 2005, an embarrassing blight on Australian history, I did notice that these white bogan knuckleheads had taken it upon themselves to claim the good old Southern Cross, symbol of Australian patriotism, the mark that stands next to the Union Jack on our national flag, the constellation that fills the Southern night sky, as their own banner of intolerance. The white Australian rioter's were using tattoo's of the Cross as their badge of honour while trying to club foreigners over the head with beer bottles. To me the Southern Cross has always represented Australia, Aussie patriotism and the symbol of our racially diverse country. Now the Cross has become such a mark of white intolerance that tattoo artists have been stated as saying that they have seen a massive drop off in popularity for Southern Cross tattoo's, mainly due to their association with white, beer swilling thuggery. You have to feel sorry for any honest, non-racist that got the tattoo pre 2005. I say tolerant, free thinking people need to take the symbol back as their own.