I think a lot of "why don't people pull themselves up by their bootstraps" classism/racism glosses over the fact that children REALLY can't do this. (Not that it's fair to expect it of anyone, but noone's going to deny it's stupid to expect it of say a baby)
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially in terms to Indigenous Australians. There's a certain infantalising, in a way, of Indigenous Australians, and at the same time there's a culture in mainstream Australia of expecting all Indigenous Australians to now be "okay" - like, no one denies the killing of/dispossession/Stolen Generation, but because it was "in the past" everyone is now expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and move on.
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I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially in terms to Indigenous Australians. There's a certain infantalising, in a way, of Indigenous Australians, and at the same time there's a culture in mainstream Australia of expecting all Indigenous Australians to now be "okay" - like, no one denies the killing of/dispossession/Stolen Generation, but because it was "in the past" everyone is now expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and move on.