Youth Marginality and Marginalization: A conversation on the Crisis facing South Sudanese youth in Australia

Kuir  ë Garang (Editor)

 

Photo: Refugeeresearchonline.org

September 20, 2025

The following quotes are from my conversation with Dr. William Abur and Dr. Santino A. Deng. 

"You know, there's no any child that can be born as a bad child, for example. No, a child can be a difficult child...based on where the child is raised, based on the environment, based on the family situation, based on the school, based on the community, what the children do. So now with this current climate of the technology, some of the parents don't even know what the kids are doing as Dr. Santino mentioned it before. They can be in a room and the parents are happy. saying, well, my children are inside, they are not out. But they don't know what they are doing, who are the people that they are engaged with. And that is a bigger issue within a number of families. The conversations also don't break through. You know, the relationship between the young person and the parent, when that relationship is broken, it is hard for the parent to be able to play their role.

 The other burden that the parent are facing, most of the parent are struggling with work and the life generally. So they don't have enough time where they can be able to engage with their kid and especially with a teenager to be able to find out how they are going, you know, what is happening. Because it is important, we human being, need check-in. We need check-in to be...

 For example, children, those teenagers or younger children, they need check-in, you know, someone to come and have a conversation with them and say, hey, how did you go at school? How was the day? How did you go at work? How was your day? Those kind of check-in are very important. Psychologically, they are very useful. And this is where you find out that, okay, the person may be open up to talk about, you know, there was incident that happened at school.

 Or there was this that happened that made me upset. That is lacking that conversation. The basic check in. I would say the parent need to step up to be able to do just a simple check in a simple evaluation to check in your kit. Even though they are inside, you need to be able to knock knock at the door and come in and say hey, how is your day? How are you going?"  ~ Dr. William Abur.

 

~ Dr. William Abur.

"I think when we talk of parents, there are a lot that they can do and I am mindful and I understand that some parents might be struggling with other things, language barriers among others and the web, juggling web and so on. And sometimes being maybe some single mothers is really struggling with, you know, with the primary parenting support and trying to put the put on the table as well. But there are a lot that they can do. I have done some work a few years ago, maybe about seven years ago here in one of the school. And I was asked to do some work with a kind of the children that go to school, young people themselves and teachers in school so that I can get their perspective.

 It was one of the schools that was getting overwhelmed and have never been exposed into diversity before. And what came out of that report that I did was a lot of young people were saying, some of the things that I was mentioning earlier, saying that most of the time when they have issues at a school, they report to the teachers, most of the time they're getting ignored, even sometimes.

they get blamed for being the victim. so what happens sometimes they may end up fighting, taking law into their own hand because nobody is actually responding to their complaint and they become more victim and get expelled. Sometimes they get discouraged and told, you can't do this subject. Actually, William know very well that they work in some school here, maybe told that, this is too hard for you, you can't do it.

 Some parents proved some of their teachers wrong and said, I have to do it or go into another school and actually succeed. Some young people, may give in, but support become very crucial. I came across some example where young people were supported by their parents and some relatives and they actually succeed in so many ways. So what they told me was young people in particular."  ~ Dr. Santino A. Deng

                                                          ~ Dr. Santino A. Deng

 

Most immigrant communities face a host of challenges when they settle in a new countries. This is a historical problem. Meaning South Sudanese in Australia are not the only immigrant and refugee group to be in such a situation. South Sudanese in Canada have faced, and continue to experience,  similar problems among the youth. 

These problems, which Dr. William and Dr. Santino have addressed, include the following: 

1. Being neglected by teachers and school administrators
2. Being faulted when they are not at fault
3. Stereotypes and prejudgments
4. Racist treatment by the police
5. Overrepresentation in the criminal justice system
6. Cultural disconnect between home culture and host culture
7. Lack of appropriate, community role models
8. Lack of parental attention due to pressure from work and life
9. Misconstrual of what it means to be an Australia, Canadian or American
10. Incentivization from gangs and criminal to run criminal errands

Youth workers and scholars who study youth issues are familiar with these issues. They are characterized by overt and subtle issues of social marginalization and institutional neglect. 

On Sunday, I had a conversation with two South Sudanese Australian researchers as the beginning of what I think will be a protracted conversation. 

I wanted to unpack these problems from the perspective of researchers and from the Australian context. These researchers are Dr. William Abur, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne and Dr. Santino A. Deng, a researcher working for the government of Victoria, Australia. 

I asked them to lay out the issues within the Australian context, and to propose possible expert solutions. 

The following is our conversation.

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Kuir  ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of TPR. Follow me on X: @kuirthiy Instagram: @Kuirthiy

Are we just savages driving escalades and BMWs in our so-called real world?

Destruction in Gaza, Palestine. Photo: Euromedmonitor.org

 

"For Sowell, therefore, you must take cues from history. If you cannot find a historical precedent, then stop looking for that kind of a world."

The west's fervent and uncritical support of Israel even when Israel commits a genocide makes me think about human equality.

Is equality a mirage?

Given the persecution of the Jewish people in Europe in the last 2000 years, I feel saddened by the fact that those who know what means to be hated and persecuted by simply being who they are, now premise peace and co-existence on bombs.

I teach young people. I do research on young people. In these activities, my aim is to work toward a better world, a world in which everyone would feel respected, a world in which what fails you is your inability.

That is the world I want to leave behind for my children and the youth I teach. This world is yet to be realized.

But there are conservative thinkers like Thomas Sowell (see: Social Justice Fallacies, Intellectuals and Society, Intellectuals and Race), John McWhorter (Woke Racism) and Coleman Hughes (End of Race Politics) who think differently.

They either say such a world is already here, or they believe it is an impossible world. A utopia of Saint Thomas More variety. Meaning a search for a just and equal world is fantastical, a childish wish. They want us to live according to what the world throws at us. In other words, we must live in the real world and accept things as they are.

Violence. Military brutality. Military invasion. Genocides. Murders of civilians. Wars. Economic equality.

Photo: Palestinian Return Centre

Within this framework, Israel is said to be adapting to a world it cannot change. Israeli genocidal destruction of Gaza is, by this account, a response to a real world Israel did not create.

This is a world in which equality is a pipe dream.

For instance, equality is a natural impossibility for Thomas Sowell. We shouldn't dream of a world that is not and has never been. Pssst: Sowell uses history to make his point. He makes this point in Black Rednecks and White Liberals and Conquest and Culture.

For Sowell, therefore, you must take cues from history. If you cannot find a historical precedent, then stop looking for that kind of a world.

As such, for the Sowells, the Hughes, and the McWhorters of the world, racism is, largely, a passé.

To be realistic, they are right or wrong based on one's ideological camp. You will find their supporters and haters in boat loads. Sowell puts this well in Intellectuals and Society:

“The coincidence of real world challenge and intellectual challenge, which [H. G] Wells and others have tended to treat as almost axiomatic, depends on the initial assumptions of one’s social vision.”

To Sowell, the left forces their vision (as the anointed – McWhorter would call them “The Elect” and Hughes would call them “Neo-racist”) on the rest of us. Conservative intellectuals, according to Sowells, remain faithful to the facts of the real world.

But here is where they seem naive. They think their assessments are simply objective. That they write about facts, common sense, and the real world.

Here is Sowell again:

Why I’m not enthused by the election of Mark Carney...yet

Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney,

waving at supporters after his election victory.

Photo: Financial Times

Mark Carney is a protest candidate. He was not elected for his policies, necessarily. He was elected for likeability as a contrast to Trudeau (who he advised informally). He was also elected for demeanor as a contrast to Pierre Poilievre, the 'Canadian Trump', who has, for the good of Canada, lost his seat. Good riddance!

Poilievre talked of change but he's been holding the same parliamentary seat since 2004. The people of Ottawa-Carleton and Bruce Fanjoy said, 'yes, change indeed!' And change they engendered!

Carney, for better or for worse, symbolizes calm, order and the status quo Trudeau had apparently compromised. Trudeau had made Canada 'unfamiliar.' On principle, status quo scares the hell out of me. But given Trump's menace, I'll give Carney the benefit of the doubt! After all, he talks like that smooth-talking uncle whose words make issues less painful!

But I'm not celebrating...yet. I'm not dismissing him either.

For those of us living at the margin and studying those who live at the margin, Carney's victory is something to approach cautiously. He is a man who has never done groceries. He has no clue how the average Canadian lives. He is now elected to learn what it means to be Canadian. The man had three passports. A true globalist.

He was recently called out about lying about his first call with Trump. He had said Trump 'respects Canada's sovereignty'. That was a lie. He failed to tell Canadians that Trump repeated the call for Canada to become the 51st state in their first phone call. Why lie to Canadians about such a fundamental issues?

Recently, he first stood by liberal candidate, Paul Chiang, who had called for a conservative candidate to be abducted and taken to the Chinese consulate for a bounty. Really? Chang would later resign as a candidate even after Carney stood by him!

I'm glad Carney won. No doubt. But I'm not enthused by his taking over in Ottawa...yet. He is too close to the centre that he risks becoming centre right. Poilievre even complained that Carney has copied his platform. Carney wants to be different from Trudeau so bad that he will risk pandering to the conservative, old guards within the liberal party. Yet, he was Trudeau's informal advisor. There are conservatives who find it 'respectable' to be called 'liberal.' Carney was once asked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a conservative that molded Poilievre, to be finance minister.

Celebrate. But celebrate with caution. Carney is a neoliberal, a neocon of Obama variety! I'll wait to be impressed! I work with children and youth and my daughter plans to attend university in Canada. I'm yet to see a policy on Carney's platform that would give them something about which to smile.

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Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of TPR. 

Self-esteem and Discrimination

As someone who grew up in war conditions and lived as a refugee for a long time, I'm  sometimes considered by many people in the 'west' to be prone to (or have)  low self-esteem, be poor or illiterate.  Living as refugees or displaced persons, who depended on the good will of others put people in a situation where they don't think much about themselves. But that's not everyone though.

As I stood by our front desk at my place work talking about Race and Identity in relation to my book, Is 'Black' Really Beautiful?, the issue of why many African peoples in North America become so over-sensitive when racial issues come up! For many rational people, this owes its origin to slavery and racial segregation.

But one of my coworkers, a person  of European descent, was surprised to realize that her 'black' friend, a very intelligent woman, easily becomes irritated by simple things she [friend] considers racist. The friend considers any mention of a watermelon racist; and complains a lot about 'white privilege.' This means that discrimination is considered something 'whites' don't face because of 'white privilege.' In any discussion between 'blacks' and 'whites', 'white privilege' issue comes up!

While racial discrimination is not something anyone can deny, it's sad to make everything about race. Racism has been taken to the extreme extent that any expression of racial pride by people of European descent is considered morally suspect. These people are human and should be allowed to express, freely, the pride in what they've done and who they are.

We shouldn't make ourselves emotional prisoners of Europeans utterances. We shouldn't feel emotionally hurt when things like watermelon are mentioned. We can't feel emotionally paralyzed if we're called monkeys. When are we going to have emotional strength! Don't we have things to say that can make Europeans emotionally hurt? And if they can't get emotionally hurt then we need to learn from them to be emotionally strong.

Inter-racial relations work well when we are honest with one another. This sounds utopian but it works!

This mindset has been adopted by some South Sudanese.  Simple things are tribalized. This speaks a lot about how we feel about ourselves. When we misconstrue what other tribes say about us, then the chances of us living together in peace are compromised. Instead of understanding issues in the manner others intended them, we simply rationalized them in the way we want regardless of the plea by the people who first spoke the words to us or about us.

Instead of focusing on important issues like police brutality or discrimination in the justice system, we complain about being called monkeys or calling people racist when some, like my co-worker, mention watermelon or fried chicken. We can't put our emotional health in the hands of others but then blame them when they can't take care of our emotions.

Developing strong self-esteem can help one in distinguishing between actual Racism and misunderstanding. We can't call someone racist when they are being proud of themselves or when they say something that offends us even when  they didn't mean to offend us.

A person who's well grounded, with strong self-esteem, thinks beyond the simplicity of everyday insults; and works towards changing the bigger things that affect the lives of the discriminated groups in a significant manner.


TO BE CONSIDERED...