Australia is only racist for some
By Bert Hetebry
My family arrived in Australia in 1954. It was a white Australia we came to, essentially a sort of reflection of an English society.
We were Dutch, and my parents held fast to many of the Dutch traditions, attending a Dutch church, celebrating St Nicholas instead of the commercialised English/Australian Christmas, at least until the kids started to kick up a bit... the gifts we got were worn out by the time the kids down the road got theirs. And so, in the early days we felt ‘different’ but as time went on, schooling, mum’s Aussie cooking classes, dad’s improved employment all made us fit in, even to the extent of enjoying AFL and cricket.
So we were different, but gradually fitted in: we did not stand out, the colour of our skins did not mark us, the clothes we wore fitted into the accepted standards and our accents softened.
We were made to feel welcomed.
European immigrants will tell of similar stories, but only if they easily slipped into being or at least able to pass as an almost true-blue Aussie.
I worked in transport for the last sixteen years of my working life, and among the various crews were a disparate bunch, workmates from all corners of the globe, covering many cultures. The uniform, the corporate identification, in part papered over the differences but for many there were some uncomfortable times. The first aid room was used as a prayer room for Muslims, head scarves were tolerated, and it all seemed very harmonious.
Some people could not hide behind the corporate image. Skin was too different.
The Kiwi contingent did not have too many problems, there were quite a few of them, but the African and Asians did stand out a bit and were often sidelined, were bullied in subtle ways, snide remarks, noises, name calling (always in jest of course, not meaning anything by it).
To the white majority there was no sense of racism: we were not sidelined, bullied, harried, made aware of not fitting in because we set the rules, we set the standards, look like us, talk like us, be like us and all is good unless they were gay, or otherwise different. There was a ‘flat earther’ who copped a bit of flack.
And so we come to Laura Tingle’s comments about Australia being a racist nation.
Dammit, she is right!
But for most of us true-blue white Aussies we cannot see it, those privileged white people in exalted positions of power cannot see it, they fit in, they set the standard of how to look, how to sound, how to think. They cannot see the marginalisation of First Nations people, except to look down their noses, complaining about all we have done for them, the buckets of money we have grown at them, what is your problem, can’t you just be like us?
They cannot see that the ‘people of colour’ arriving from war torn homelands or intolerant religious leaders or desertification of arable lands where life has become impossible to live are human beings wanting to live a peaceful existence away from the fears of their homelands.
And the problems lie deep inside us.
We are racist. We are inherently racist.
We are bigoted. We are inherently bigoted.
We are biased. We are inherently biased.
We ALL are. And until we recognise that within ourselves we cannot address those inherent racist, bigoted, biases we have.
As an immigrant kid growing up in Australia I was told all the good things about the Dutch. They were THE BEST! Strangely, two school mates, one Russian and the other Latvian were told that they were the best. The Aussies of British descent knew they were the best. They after all were the dominant culture.
So we had this challenge, to fit in, to learn to play cricket and AFL, although we were pretty good at soccer too.
Each of us had our little bits of ‘home’ to keep us in touch with our roots, mostly church, Calvinist, Lutheran, Russian Orthodox as well as ethnic clubs, sporting groups and music, food. Saturday schools were interesting too, keeping language and learning more about traditions. So we learned of our ethnic and racial roots which set us apart and yet allowed us to fit into what was at that time essentially a nation which welcomed immigrants, so long as they were not too different. The White Australian Policy was still there to filter out undesirable inferiors.
We grew up in a white society, First Nations people were not counted as part of us, we considered them more like fauna. Pushed to the fringes of the towns and cities, looked down on, waiting for them to quietly disappear. Even after the referendum where we finally recognised them as part of the Australian population, as people, they remained at the fringes, unable to ‘integrate’ into mainstream Australia.
The Colombo Plan did allow people from Asian and Pacific Island nations to study in Australia, but those numbers were very much limited.
Our inherent racism gave us a sense of identity, that we were perhaps a little bit different than those around us, but we felt we were pretty good so we fitted in, so much so that outside of home we almost became hyper Aussies, almost more Australian than our Aussie mates. We followed our favourite footy teams and urged the Aussies on playing any other nation’s cricket teams.
Those we did encounter with darker skin than us were seen as inferior, they lived on the fringes, were a dirty bunch, unwashed, unkempt and often drunk. Very easy to judge and dismiss.
And this attitude is still evident today. The coroner’s inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker uncovered many instances of racism directed at the First Nations peoples. Police in NSW used stop and search tactics in the most disadvantaged area of their jurisdictions, the imprisonment rate of Aboriginal people is a national disgrace, the treatment of Aboriginal boys in Youth Detention Centres has been cruel, an institutional form of torture.
Discrimination is evident even in traffic offences, the rate of Aboriginal drivers getting traffic fines through camera sourced infringements is lower than their proportion of population but traffic stop infringements are far higher. A work colleague found he was not stopped anymore after he removed the Aboriginal flag sticker from his car.
Recent waves of immigration, especially on humanitarian grounds has seen African immigrants come into the country. They can be truly scary. Just ask the former home affairs minister, now leader of the opposition. And we have all those Indians arriving, taking over the transport industry and tech stuff. You never know what weapons they carry beneath those turbans.
Yes, we all can submit to the fear of different races of humans suddenly appearing in our neighbourhoods… and then you meet them and hear their stories, listen to what has forced them to leave their homelands, just as my parents left theirs so many years ago. And we find they are not all that different after all.
Bigotry lies close beneath the surface in each of us. We really do not like it much when we witness a difference which kind of raises heckles. Men and women flaunting their homosexuality, people who we cannot clearly define as we would like them to be defined. men and women, not something else which does not fit in the narrowness of our thoughts.
Again, how different is it when we can meet those people and listen to their stories, the difficulties they have faced and continue to face at school or work, the fighting for acceptance of who they really are instead of who we think they should be.
The biases we carry, whether political, religious or just expectations which have been placed on us we carry through life. Today I had lunch with a friend who has always had her hair tied back but today it was loose and look great. From childhood she had been told her hair was too straight, too fine to have loose. The only other alternative was a perm. She is in her sixties and is still shedding the bias her parents had so deeply ingrained in her. Yes, she has worn her hair loose, but never confidently. I think the accolades she got at lunch – there were a few of us agreeing – may dispel that bias.
So how do we deal with our racism, bigotry and biases?
Some people never do, preferring to see the world as they idealise it, that the society they live in must be like them, look like them, be like them, conform to what they perceive as being ‘right’. Any difference is cause for fear, that things may not be precisely as they should be. That we will be inundated by different religions, imposing different standards, upsetting the comfortable applecart they live in.
Insisting on language, speak English ‘so I can eavesdrop, listen in to your conversations, you could be saying nasty things about me, plotting some nefarious scheme to dominate my world’, giving rise to fear and hatred.
Be a man or a woman, nothing else; otherwise, I will feel intimidated when I go to the rest room, you never know what may happen… That was the gist of a conversation with a Christian lady about trans people using the women’s rest room. When asked how many times that had happened or how many trans people she had encountered, she admitted ‘none’. She feared a threat that may or may not ever happen.
By acknowledging our inherent prejudices, or racism, our ingrained bigotry and biases we can deal with them. We can see that we are actually not like others either, that we are in fact different, and learn to celebrate the difference we see, feel and live alongside, to embrace the great diversity, colour and vibrancy that difference gives us.
And yes, there will be those who do not much like it, yet we see them feasting on the diverse cultures with culinary delights, the smells and sounds of difference, spices, music, art.
Yes, Laura Tingle was right.
And it is up to each one of us to prover her wrong.
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22 comments
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Kerri -
Bert -
Roswell -
paul walter -
Terence Mills -
Steve Davis -
Katie -
Darcy -
Astrid O’Neill -
GS -
Bert -
Clakka -
wam -
B Sullivan -
Bert -
Clakka -
leefe -
Patricia -
frances -
Harry Lime -
New England Cocky -
Andyfiftysix
Return to home pageAnd of course there is the old canard of “economic migrants”!
I’m sorry but name a wealthy Australian who stay here if it meant them losing their wealth?
Gina has taken up overseas residence to avoid Australian taxes in spite of the politicians who won’t kiss her feet.
Poor Gina, somehow having so much is never enough.
Brilliant, Bert. Right on the money.
Yes, me also. You can spend hours looking at the type of problem he is looking at.
I was born late 53 and have lived since 1960 in Adelaide. What a different world the late fifties early mid sixties. Neptune petrol bowsers operated by old farmers wives, the remarkable value of two shillings, open paddocks Then many others began to arrive and the process was about the same for each wave. Estrangement, followed by close mutual observation and the careful discovery of lines of mutual interest.
I actually wonder if a lot of anthropological behaviours aren’t here coming to the surface somehow? Cultural overlays? capitalism, sexism, racism totalitarianism looking for scapegoats. Apish , tribal. A time of stress, certainly a sense of a dislocation somewhere.
Whilst attending university as a mature age student, one of the assignments for the course that I was studying was to prepare a group research paper on racism in Australia. My group included a Vietnamese man, an Aboriginal lady, a Tongan man and myself, an Anglo-Celtic : all of us Australian citizens.
I had thought that fundamentally we were not a racist society until my fellow students started to tell me of the racism they suffered on a daily basis, particularly in housing (being denied rentals purely on their ethnicity). Their dealings with government were constantly frustrated as they were suspected of being dole-bludgers or in some cases illegals or as being less entitled than others. Banking and finance were a nightmare for this group as they were scrutinised with suspicion and unduly probed as possible loan defaulters. Only the Vietnamese Australian man had, after much difficulty, negotiated a business loan.
We duly submitted our joint assignment and we all completed our studies and graduated. Sadly and inevitably we concluded that Australia is a racist society in many ways and, as a white male I acknowledged that I was privileged purely on my appearance and my heritage.
After our graduation, we went for a drink at a local pub but I noticed that, of our group, I was the only one who felt confident in that environment.
Tingle was right and it’s something we all have to work on. For the likes of Newscorp to try and shut Tingle up and deny her the ability to express an opinion is quite worrying : the next question , are we a free society that allows freedom of speech and communication ?
Paul Walter, we’ve passed Peak Prosperity, so the internal contradictions of capitalism are coming to the surface.
The scramble for what’s left of a corrupt system will just get uglier. Marginalising “the other” will become the norm.
Terence, thanks for your anecdote — a small story telling a huge story.
There are racists in every nation not just Australia! It cannot be denied that Australia has its share of racists – like most nations in the world INCLUDING racism AGAINST white people by some black African nations! However, it should be pointed out that Australia deserves its current international reputation as being a fair-minded, friendly and welcoming nation and, as such, is justifiably widely regarded as one of the best, most egalitarian nations on earth.
Yes, like most nations developing over time, we are still ironing out some issues and have had historical (and current) problems with incidences of intolerance, however, Australia is still learning from our racist past when the English landed in our nation over 254 years ago and treated our indigenous aboriginal population with such disdain. However, Australia has matured over time and it is now important to point out that xenophobia and racism is, without a doubt, currently frowned upon by the huge majority of people in our multicultural nation. In fact, most Australians admit to the great advantages of living in a multicultural society where the interesting, diverse mix of cultures, cuisines and opinions have forged our nation into one of the world’s most diverse, tolerant and interesting countries!
Yes, Australia needs to improve the manner in which we treat our indigenous population but, unlike America, Australia has NEVER had and WILL never tolerate an openly racist organisation such as the notorious Ku Klux Klan nor have we ever enslaved our indigenous population nor openly segregated our population in the way Dutch-ruled South Africa once did. It is important to point out that RACISTS are not exclusively white people; I was personally subjected to racist remarks by a couple of black Americans whilst visiting the USA. It should be pointed out that racism and intolerance is not exclusively a “white Anglo Saxon problem” – the fact is that xenophobia and racism stretches across ALL nations, nationalities, colours and creeds INCLUDING Japan (which is one of the most notoriously homogenous nations on the planet) and also includes other less-than-tolerant Asian nations such as China.
I have travelled the world on many occasions and I can honestly say that Australia is now justifiably regarded as one of the most tolerant and accepting nations on the planet. Sadly, our history is marred by the notorious White Australia Policy which was a set of racist policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origins – especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders – from immigrating to Australia in order to create a “white/British” ideal focused on, but not exclusively, Anglo-Celtic peoples. The White Australia Program was at its worst during the post-war period when real efforts were made to exclude anyone who didn’t match up to the “ideal” of being white, Anglo-Celtic and Christian. Thankfully, this racist policy was removed in 1966 under the Harold Holt government.
However, to accuse “white European or Anglo Saxons” as being the only racists in the world is ridiculous and completely untrue. If you click on the link hereunder, you will soon learn that xenophobia and racism is STILL a problem right throughout the world. People (whatever colour, nationality or creed) are naturally incredibly protective of their OWN culture and way of life and will, initially, fight to protect that culture and the manner in which their parents and they choose to live as well as defending the culture in which they choose to raise their children. Fortunately, Australia has moved on from our dark past of exclusivity and, ever since Gough Whitlam’s “open door” approach, have welcomed people from all over the world which has helped to make our wonderful nation of Australia so diverse and interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_by_country
Well said, Katie.
I wonder if the speed in which multiculturalism was forced (yes, it was forced. Citizens never had a say in it) upon the nation may be a major factor in intolerance. Maybe if it had been a bit slower……
Katie your response to Bert’s article above is rather bewildering. It’s so hugely defensive. No claim is made anywhere about Australia being the only racist country in the world. Nor that white European Anglo Saxons are all racists. The statement made, as I read it, is that Bert recognises as a white male of European origins, he is more able to fit in, and is advantaged thereby. I think I’m probably older than Bert, and I’ve lived longer in Australia. I’m a white woman also of Dutch heritage. I recall as a small child starting in school unable to speak English, being surrounded by a crowd of jeering children shouting at me because I couldn’t yet speak English. And a kind teacher who tried to help. I was soon able to blend into my surroundings. Which is not the case for people of colour, nor the Indigenous people we disposed. Over a long life in Australia, living in Western Sydney, and having worked with and taught many people in TAFE, including being involved in many access and equity areas in TAFE, I have also had to consider Australia a racist country. I also recognise that I have been privileged by being white and of European origin. I have seen the inherent racism. I’ve been name called and abused from passing cars when walking out with my ethnic Chinese nephews when they were toddlers and small children. I now have Indonesians as part of my close family. Again, racism occurs. I am alert to it because of my professional background and my family ties. It’s possible that you just may not have experienced it, and that is why you’ve extrapolated that to your conclusion that Australia is a fair and equitable, non racist country. Even our legislation hasn’t got it right yet.
Please understand that your experience is not the experience that people of colour have in Australia.
And quite frankly, that a politician out for political advantage was soon able to convince so many Australians to oppose making a move towards righting the wrongs our Indigenous population have suffered, with the simplistic slogan of ‘Don’t know, vote No”, speaks volumes about us as a nation. People on the whole were more prepared to remain ignorant and reactionary in their inherent racism. I acknowledge that some had other rationales for a no vote, but most were inherently ignorant and racist. We are indeed still a racist country.
I left Australia to work overseas in 1994. My destination was Asia. My younger brother, who has always been a bigoted racisit pig like our father was, said to me “Why do you want to go over there for, there are already more f..king slope-heads here than over there.” Not only was that sad comment totally wrong in terms of numbers, it was also a disgusting thing to hear from my own sibling. My answer to him was “Because of sad racist comments like that”. He just looked at me with no comprehension wondering what was wrong with me, why I don’t behave like ‘everyone else’ did. Meaning like all the other racist Aussies.
My last three years in Oz were spent attending hospitality management college and we had many overseas students, mostly from Asian nations. I was president of the student association and many of those OS students used to approach me and ask questions they were too shy or scared to ask the teachers or other students. They found me to be the most approachable ‘white Aussie’ at the school because I never made derogatory or judgmental comments about anybody’s background, colour, or culture, except perhaps my own white priviledged unbringing. Sadly some of the other white students started asking me why I was being ‘nice’ to the the Asians taking the places at the college from other ‘Aussies’. They couldn’t get it through their heads either that I didn’t see them as ‘Asian’ but as fellow ‘humans’ a long way from home!
Thirty years on I still live overseas, married a women from a different culture and have spend over 25 years living in her country. I have travelled to more than 20 countries over the years and every single one of them has racism issues. It seems it is inherently ‘human’ to be racist towards others that are different from us no matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise.
Australia is no more and no less racist that most other countries on the planet. All of us can and should do much better.
WOW, interesting responses.
GS, thank you, Astrid, thank you, thank you Terrence.
We are inherently racist as human beings, our attitudes to others is embedded through our upbringing and the cultures we inhabit, and they can be many, home, religious, school, work, social. All influence the way we feel and interact with others.
What I was trying to say is that we need to address the inherent racism, bigotries and biases we carry, but we can only do that in addressing our own racism, bigotries and biases. And yes, all nations are racist, some to a greater degree than others, but we can only be responsible for our own attitudes, and we will live lives that reflect those attitudes.
I find it appalling that at a gathering of writers a journalist expresses a personal view and is held, feet to the flames for expressing it, not as a journalist but as an individual.
Spot on Bert.
Growing up in 50s-60s in a small town in the ‘bush’ on the urban fringes of Melbourne, until I went to high school I never met any non-anglos except the ‘Dutchies’ across the road, and Ron (with a strange German name) the taxi driver. My siblings consisted of a brother, four years older, a sister three years aolder and a sister a year younger. All us young’ns were simply ‘river rats’. We had a set of Australian Encyclopedia, with beautiful stories and pictures of ‘Aborigines’, it intrigued me and made me want to travel to the far reaches of Oz to meet them, but I didn’t have the means. I knew there had been ‘Aborigines’ throughout our locale, but they were all gone, and there was no sign of them, nor any discussion about them. In my very young bush explorations and adventures alone, I moved stealthily, observing the terrain, the bush and its animals, and their nests, holes and habits. I felt and moved as if I might be as an Aborigine, and that gave me skill and pride.
At that age, the only human misadventure I had was with Johnny the ‘Dutchie’ from across the road. He was one boy amongst five sister siblings. He towered over me and was cruel and mean to me and others, including animals. A boy neighbor next door was also cruel to animals and to his younger brother. I didn’t isolate myself from them, but took my own counsel, being careful of them, figuring that within the confines of their homes and minds, for some reason they had adopted resentment through a type of insecurity or other. Neither of them would accompany me on my bush adventures.
We (mostly the boys) also built camouflaged cubbie houses and ground bunkers, from which we would make incursions upon one another, and sometimes have mini wars involving the hurling of sticks and stones. Of course we made shanghais and sling shots. Those cubbies and bunkers were for members and invited guests only; strictly no adults. They contained secret and ritual objects. Once, Ian came to my bunker, and brought with him, magazines. Magazines that contained page after page of posing naked white women …. Wow! Weird, alien, powerful, hypnotic and irresistible!
Upon transition to high school, a half-hour bus ride to a large suburban hub, and one of its several high schools, what a wonderment. A new world of beautiful weirdos, with weird names and words, strange and often beautiful looks, and a smorgasbord of different skills and idiosyncrasies. And so it went, different classes, with different subjects, electives and different teachers and the competition and behavioral differences of mobs and sub-mobs. I was elected by the students of Green House to be their House Captain, but never really knew why. Nevertheless I mused that the prefects were assigned by a committee of the SRC in conjunction with Senior Masters and the Principal – all lurking regimentation, spit, polish and badges.
Half way through year 10, having just attained ‘dux’ of mathematics, the family moved to Canberra. Broken hearted, I had to say goodbye to my adored and adoring girlfriend. Upon my arrival, the powers that be decided I should join year 11. A new curriculum, about which I had no idea. At the lockers, I was punched in the face by Monkey Lopez, who accused me of being from Queanbeyan. I arranged an assignation with him at the bus stop after school, where I gave him a good hiding. Within months he adored me. After the bus stop set-to, in the wee small hours I escaped via my bedroom window, and hitch-hiked back to my stomping ground in the bush of outer Melbourne. After a few weeks, I returned to Canberra at my father’s behest, and for the time being left school and was allowed to go to work.
I loved playing pool, and the owner of several poolrooms, Tom (Anastasia) Mitropoulos, gave me a job running one of his venues. He was a kindly Greek fellow, who came to Oz as a migrant in his twenties, first cleaning public toilets for a living. He made excellent strong sweet Greek coffee. Once he took me to a night of cards (Manila) at the second floor of a big shop in Goulburn. All the knobs of the Canberra Greek business community were there, along with their thousands of dollars on the table. They played on to the small hours, calling Tom, Papagalli (chattering parrot) as he earned his keep. Emmanuel, the kingpin lost thousands. Tom told me later, Emmanuel habitually lost, perhaps as a weird way of showing generosity and honour to his mates.
We returned to Melbourne, and life went on weirdly, sometimes a threadbare rug, but more often a rich tapestry. Although upon returning, I felt lost, nothing was as before, I continued wrangling my way through learning, work and social circumstance. For all that, ultimately traveling Oz, and the world, experiencing the beauty of weirdness, the pointlessness of acceding to fear, and that the lasting rewards most often came from the unknown, rather than from straining at plans and castles in the air.
But for my kin, I don’t know what happened with and to all those people. When I have cause to think about them, I summon a mirage and all the attributes I have assigned it from the separate reality I call my mind. It cannot be real for anyone else. As I tell a story of them, unless they are present and engaged in my story, it cannot be real to anyone else. It is just a story of me and my mirage. And so it is for all of us. We cannot possibly know the affect of all the changes on everyone and everything, the affects over time of atrophy, entropy and death.
As we move about, carrying with us our accumulated mirages that we might call our culture, and opt to settle in a place, all we have to offer is our appearance, our accumulated skill and experience. Should we be known by these, or would we be expected to tell the story of our accumulated mirages to see if they accord with the accumulated mirages of the enquirer.
This was perhaps once they way, but as towns and cities grow big enough to accommodate rules and strictures, many mobs and sub-mobs and those left out to be invisible, for those that come and go, the reckonings are left to experts who develop their own language and sophistry by which to report to those who make the rules and strictures and designate punishments. And those experts, to avoid tens of millions of stories, dwell only in their peer-agreed perceived commonalities, giving rise to an almost endless alphabet soup of ‘ists’ and ‘isms’ so that common morality and variations on morality might be discussed, and agreed – or not.
Of course Oz is no different to any other place where towns and cities have grown big and where travelers come and go. No-one wants to be punished. So they want to know the rules and strictures, and what went before them. Especially if they have little experience, and are drawn to accede to fears, they may tend to resort to the stereotypes of the vast soup of ‘ists’ and ‘isms’, and by them become shied.
Sartre said fear was our main driver, and that we might be afraid of being free. Chomsky said, within a narrow spectrum freedom of expression exists, but it’s a very narrow spectrum. Like St Francis, ours is not to compare and judge or we might lose sight of who we are. And yet, as Jung reflected on his thoughts upon his return from his temporary death flight; he observed that we are compelled to pigeonholing.
Could it be that politicians, like religious leaders, are in increasingly desperate need of diversions to steer us away from their wiles and bungling, and even the long and weirding way needed to attain future betterment. They might even generate a Mo and Curly act to give the impression they are in an existential fight to obtain the continuance of their service to each and every individual in their generated world of individual’s rights. Of course, as Mo and Curly battle it out, the mainstream media has a field day of sensation, leaving the majority of individuals exhausted and prone to the simplifications of ‘ists’ and ‘isms’.
Seems that as we are conned into the absurd notion of attainable perfection, we just can’t help ourselves.
Racism is not natural, it is learned trait and, as such, can be unlearned.
The tragedy of our racism is the invisibility of the victims who were not Australians till 1967(hard to believe but 500000 of us voted NO to them being Australians) The consequences of being able to ignore the poorly dressed people shuffling through the back streets of the capitals was encapsulated by the victorian who, ignoring Winmar and Tipungwuti said ‘I never noticed Aborigines till those shiny black Africans arrived’. Before you can unlearn racism you have to recognise and admit it. With 60$ not prepared to let Aboriginal people have input into the constitutional right for pollies to make laws that ONLY affect Aboriginal, our special racist views will be around, and growing, long after I am gone.
Once more I would like to point out that there is only one race of humans that exists on this planet. Genetic science is a very recent field of scientific endeavour. It wasn’t available to assist Charles Darwin in his studies of natural selection, nor was it sufficient to discredit the eugenists and other fake ideologies looking to support their discrimination of people they had no justifiable cause to discriminate against. The past is a foreign country. Not only do they do things differently there, they didn’t know what we know now.
The human genome wasn’t mapped until just before the end of the 20th Century and it reveals that there is no evidence to support the belief that humans can be grouped into different races.
Racism is not genetically inherited. Racism is not a gene, it is a meme. It is not a natural cause. It is an ignorant, artificial and now known to be false belief spread by culture that has to be taught from one generation to the next. It could not exit if it wasn’t religiously indoctrinated from generation to generation. Throughout the history of racism kids have always been asking their parents why they are not allowed to play with their friends any more.
Surely widespread recognition that racists are prejudiced against their own, the one and only race, would help stop this madness as we could then deal with the real cultural and social discrimination that is always the causes behind our many, many social problems. The people officially designated by our government as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, were denied a much needed voice to Parliament although the evidence is clear that as a social demography they were getting unfairly treated by our social system. Instead of responding appropriately and passing the legislation to give them a voice, the government made it conditional on the constitution recognising them as an exlusive group with inherent privileges. Isn’t that Constitutional recognition of racism with complete disregard for historical reality. How is that going to reconcile social prejudices.
To all the people who believe racism is genetically inherited and that the colour of a person’s skin or eyes or hair, or the length of their nose or earlobes or that their historical ancestry indicates in any way a genetically inherited morality, I say you are dumb, stupid indoctrinated racists who can’t be bothered facing the real reasons for discord in this world.
Yes, B Sullivan, scientifically you are right.
Colloquially, racism is a term used to define difference, not genetic difference but the very things you list in your closing paragraph.
We grow up with stories like Pinocchio, where the longer nose is a feature of a liar, the caricatures used in cartoons and that have been used to demonise enemies during times of conflict all work to define difference, making those different less than ideal, and that ideal depends on which group is using the caricatures.
And yes, I agree with you, but when we talk about difference, no matter how it is presented, whether in colour of skin, curliness of hair, sexual definition, disabilities and so forth, it is the personal response which matters in day to day dealings.
No amount of legislation or political browbeating will solve the problems, but individual action makes a difference.
Yesterday I was shopping and a lady paid for another person’s groceries because the card would not work…. insufficient funds. The woman who could not afford her groceries was able to feed her family through the graciousness of the other woman. It’s those sorts of things which make a difference, empathy on a person to person basis.
Bert.
Yesterday 31/5, Melbourne Uni’s Pursuit Digest contained numerous articles on the subject and its relevance to Melbourne Uni. The principal article regarding its recently published book, Dhoombak Goobgoowana A History of Indigenous Australia and Melbourne University. Volume 1: Truth. I was able to download for free an EBook version through links in the article. I will add it to my library of like books by Henry Reynolds, Bill Gammage and Rebe Taylor etc. I am very much looking forward to reading it.
Here’s a list of links to the various articles:
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/this-has-so-rarely-occurred-in-the-university-s-history?utm_campaign=pursuit&utm_content=%E2%80%9CThis+has+so+rarely+occurred+in+the+University%E2%80%99s+history%E2%80%9D_ReadMore&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pursuit_weekly_digest
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/universities-can-change-names-without-distancing-themselves-from-troubling-histories?utm_campaign=pursuit&utm_content=%E2%80%9CUniversities+can+change+names+without+distancing+themselves+from+troubling+histories%E2%80%9D_Headline&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pursuit_weekly_digest
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/one-of-the-most-affecting-and-unsettling-things-i-have-ever-seen?utm_campaign=pursuit&utm_content=%E2%80%9COne+of+the+most+affecting+and+unsettling+things+I+have+ever+seen%E2%80%9D_ReadMore&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pursuit_weekly_digest
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/for-the-first-time-the-curriculum-in-australian-classrooms-has-a-focus-on-truth-telling?utm_campaign=pursuit&utm_content=%E2%80%9CFor+the+first+time%2C+the+curriculum+in+Australian+classrooms+has+a+focus+on+truth-telling%E2%80%9D_Headline&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pursuit_weekly_digest
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-boorong-pride-themselves-upon-knowing-more-of-astronomy-than-any-other?utm_campaign=pursuit&utm_content=%E2%80%9CThe+Boorong+pride+themselves+upon+knowing+more+of+astronomy+than+any+other%E2%80%9D+_Headline&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pursuit_weekly_digest
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/in-this-way-the-beginning-of-a-highly-contested-history-of-the-university-began?utm_campaign=pursuit&utm_content=%E2%80%9CIn+this+way%2C+the+beginning+of+a+highly+contested+history+of+the+University+began%E2%80%9D+_Headline&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pursuit_weekly_digest
My parents came from Poland (separately) some years earlier than Bert’s, and my experience was in many ways very different. Partly due to physical attributes (such as naturally darker colouring), partly to personality (AuDHD, “tomboyish” – ie not interested in traditional gender roles, solitary, etc), partly to familial circumstances, and partly due to the name (Slavic names stick out). The xenophobia was constant at all levels. I still recall vividly the first, bewildering “go back to where you came from” thrown at me by the father of a classmate (at age 7) during a sports carnival; no-one said anything to him and a fair few actually laughed, including my then teacher.
But what I experienced is merely a pale shadow of the issues faced by Aboriginal people or those of African or Asian descent.
This whole nation is founded in racism; you have to be blind and wilfully ignorant to deny that.
WAM, you are absolutely right, racism is a learned behaviour.
Little children are not racist, they don’t see the difference between black, brown, white, yellow or any other colour, they accept everything on face value and only make exceptions when it comes to cruelty.
My sons went to a well known Brisbane boarding school, there were quite a few boys from PNG and my boys were friends with some of them, one boy my oldest son introduced me to was the darkest shade of black that I had ever seen on a human being, asking my son, later, about his friends skin colour he told me that he didn’t look at his skin but at his personality, his humour and his acceptance of my son as a person. To say I was proud of his view is an understatement.
My sons did not learn to be racists, but I came from a home where my mother vowed and declared that she wasn’t racist but did not like black people, nothing would convince her that this view was a racist view.
I grew up (in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’d) in a central western town in NSW, the only ethnic people that I ever came across in all the years I went to school there was a Chinese family who owned the only Chinese restaurant in the town. They were seen as different, not like us. It must have been a very lonely existence for them.
There were no brown or black people in the town. It was a typical white Australian town of its day.
@Clakka:
‘Yikes. There appears to be nothing new except the never-ending growth in the word-salad explanation of complexities, abstractions, complexes and the human condition.
With no small irony, I am brought to recall, at the time of the Vietnam war and the evacuation of Saigon, Graham Kennedy on talk-back radio discussing the pros and cons of radio vs television, told the story of a lady who called in, saying,
“Just before the midday TV news, I went to the kitchen to make a sandwich and cuppa, I returned to see Vietnamese dropping to their deaths from the undercarriage of departing US planes. I vomited, and could not eat my sandwich.”’ https://theaimn.com/eyeless-in-gaza-some-thoughts-on-an-art-world-split/#comments
That (second) put-down of my work in this forum serves as a reminder that there are other kinds of ‘isms’ poised ready to attack, denigrate, and crush others. Twice is a pattern, and with respect to Bert Hetebry I believe that below his wonderful piece and support for Laura Tingle is as good a place as any to say so.
@Michael Taylor: Thank you so much for having me and for all your kindnesses.
frances
Sunday Reads has a beautiful illustration of Tingles superior journalism,in an essay titled’Discourse Correction’..not about rascism,but about the journalistic shit perpetrated by her detractors.The sooner Murdoch and his ilk are out of our lives, the better off we’ll all be.
I stand with Laura Tingle.
Australia is racist since at least the 1851 Gold Rush, the Australian Constitution (1901) and especially after Isaac Isaacs CJ (1906?) declined a HCA appeal by a disenfranchised South Australian Aboriginal man to have his voting rights returned. This decision gave legal tolerance to about 70 years of systematic government(s) sponsored racism disadvantaging Aboriginal persons without recourse.
it all started with terra nullius.” Abbos dont count”
” every single one of them has racism issues. It seems it is inherently ‘human’ to be racist towards others that are different from us no matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise.” I think thats a crass generalisation. Broadly an extrapolation of eugenics.
You guys obviously have never been told to go back to your own country. I was , only in australia. That bitch is well and truly pushing daisies. My fellow children of migrants have taken australian values to heart, truely a sick reflection of what it means to fit in.
Been in thailand for over ten years on and off and they are truly a welcoming race.
“Australia is no more and no less racist that most other countries on the planet.” BS meaningless statement. Everyone is a bastard therefore its ok?
Laura needs to be awarded an OA for actually stating the bleeding obvious.