Anyone available to do an "Ask the Aussie" thread?

In My Humble Opinion
81

That sounds about right.

There’s plenty of real, ugly racism in Australia, but there’s also a greater tendency to make light of racial and ethnic and cultural issues. There really are situations where people can say the sort of things you’re talking about and not mean anything by it except to make a good-humored observation about people’s differences.

Casual stereotyping of Jewish people is very common in Australia, and i think one of the reasons is that, while Australia has a small but thriving Jewish community, it does not have the sort of national presence or history that Jewish Americans do. I had a friend whose wife was notoriously tight with money, so he used to refer to her as Mrs. Goldstein, and no-one really thought anything of it.

Of course, i don’t claim to know how actual Australian Jews feel about this sort of thing; i’m sure some of them are as offended as an American Jew would be. One reason i don’t know is that i hardly know any Australian Jews; i met more Jews in my first few months in America than i met in my entire life in Australia.

Sometimes the different attitudes to “harmless” casual racism have trouble bridging the cultural barrier between Australia and the United States. Harry Connick, Jr., was recently a guest judge on a stupid Australian variety show, and one of the acts was four white guys in blackface. Connick was clearly quite upset, and the Aussies were just as clearly perplexed as to why he was upset. And these Aussies were not uneducated rednecks; they were, i think, all doctors. Many (not all) Americans tend to be more finely attuned to the historical significance, in their own culture, of things like blackface minstrelsy, and to understand why a bunch of white guys painting themselves black might be offensive. Australia, lacking the particular history, doesn’t always engender the same sensibilities.

I also know Australians who recognize that the word “nigger” is very offensive in the United States, but still don’t quite grasp the historical significance, and don’t quite understand exactly how beyond the pale it is.

But even moving beyond what might be interpreted as fairly innocuous things, there’s plenty of genuine, hateful racism in Australia. When i was in high school, in the 1980s, it was in a part of Sydney with a lot of Asian immigrants, especially from Vietnam. Like most of my friends, i used to refer to them as “slopeheads,” and complain that they should just go back where they came from and/or learn to speak English. Luckily, a bit of travel and some growing up allowed me to leave that shit behind, but it lingers in the culture. It just tends to shift from one group to another.

In the 19th century, and right up through WWII, Chinese in Australia were subject to much hostility. In the immediate post-WWII period, the immigrants most often targeted by racism were Mediterraneans, from places like Italy and Greece. Then, after the wars in Indochina and the subsequent increase in immigration from Vietnam, Cambodia, etc., south-east Asians became the racists’ punching bags. And, in the last decade, attention has begun to focus on people of Middle Eastern descent. A news organization in Australia recently fired one of its own cameraman for calling a news subject, in the course of filming him, a “fucking terrorist.”

Actually, in cases where you need a word to describe all of Australia’s indigenous people as a single group, there’s nothing wrong with Aborigine, or aboriginal Australian, or indigenous Australian. If you are referring to specific groups, there are more specific words for particular regions (Koori. Murri, etc.), and there are also even more specific words for particular tribes.

It’s certainly true that the “Abos”, as you say (and there are more offensive terms, too), have had it very tough, and i also agree that New Zealand has been far better on this score than Australia. Things have improved recently, and the apology a few years ago for the Stolen Generations was a good move, but plenty more needs to be done, and the attitude of many Australians is still quite hostile. I think, in part, that hostility sometimes develops from a guilty feeling; Australian know, for the most part, how badly the Aborigines have been treated, and it’s one area where it’s hard to fob the blame off onto someone else. Some react with concern; others get defensive.

It’s not simply a color thing, because black people from Africa, and African Americans tend to get treated pretty well.

I have a friend who works out in my gym. He’s an African American guy who was in the US Marines for over 20 years, from the late 1970s through the late 1990s. During that time, he made multiple trips to Australia, and all he can ever tell me about it is how great a time he had, and how he never sensed even the slightest racism during his time there. I’ve tried to point out to him that he is a somewhat unusual case, and that there is plenty of racism in Australia against other groups, but he just won’t hear it. He says he felt far more comfortable, as a black man, in Australia than he felt in the United States.

82

The idea of “A Fair Go” is deeply, deeply entrenched in Australian and NZ culture

I’d definitely agree with this. One of my favourite Mambo T-shirts shows a Godzilla-like monster completely destroying a city- wreckage everywhere, general chaos, and I won’t swear that said monster isn’t breathing fire. The caption is “Were any Australians hurt?”

Why this is funny (he says, going on to explain the joke) is that news reports on international events on Australian TV will embarrassingly often attempt to try and relate said event to Australia. “An Earthquake in China has killed 17,000 people and completely destroyed a small city, rendering a further million people homelesss. No Australians are believed to be amongst the casualties.” That sort of thing.

There’s also a huge cultural cringe issue here too… On one hand, we tend to look at home grown “entertainment” and deride it as complete shit (because it generally is, IMHO) but on the other hand we wonder why our entertainment industry sucks so much and why our TVs and Radios are full of American or British shows, movies, and music.

Whilst I agree with the spirit of what you’re saying, I think the average Australian- even the really bogan ones- know a hell of a lot more about the US than the average or even above-average American knows about Australia.

Read some of the questions SDMB members ask about Australia in threads- some of it’s really frightening, like they’re actually amazed we have the internet or electricity and speak a civilised language.

I’ve spoken often of my experiences with people in the US- people who really should know better (like tourist guides, hotel maitre d’s, and people with degrees)- admitting they don’t know where Australia is, or anything about it beyond maybe the fact there’s a place called Sydney there. Somewhere.

Bravo. I don’t think I can add anything to this other than to say I agree pretty much completely with you and my experiences match yours pretty much 100% from the sounds of it. The only thing I really disagree with is:

From talking to people, I get the impression rather a lot of White Australians feel the Aborigines deserve the problems they’ve got for basically “failing to get their shit together” like everyone else. It’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that, of course, but it is sad and also nearly impossible to objectively explain to a “foreigner”, IMHO.

83

Yes. That part of East Timor’s history at least was relatively peaceful.

84

I was interviewing last week and only noticed the Uni that one applicant went to, and that because it was the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and his previous employment was in New Zealand. As you say, largely no-one cares however I have been on panels twice where other panel members have complained about the standard of graduates of the University of Central Queensland’s Sydney campus. I got the impression that they would gladly have culled their applications simply because that is where they earned their degrees.

It wouldn’t occur to me to ask where someone earned a degree. In fact everyone in my unit at work has between one and three and, of the 14 people, I know where 3 received theirs because it has come up in conversation for other reasons.

85

Sort of. Australians get a lot of American television and the U.S., as a major player on the world stage, gets a lot of press in Australia. That said, those bits and pieces are not always the most accurate or complete picture of America. In my experience, the average Australian thinks they know a ton about the U.S., but what they “know” is often inaccurate, dated, or sensationalized. When I was living in Australia, I had several conversations with people arguing with me about how the U.S. government is set up, what the health care situation is like, and similar subjects. They were often arguing from a very superficial understanding based on a few news reports they’d seen, but they were convinced they knew all about how things are in the U.S.

Americans don’t know a lot about Australia, that’s true. When I first met my husband, I had coincidentally watched some late-night viewing of a documentary on cane toads. When he said he was from Australia, I said, “Oh, you all have a problem with cane toads, don’t you?” He thought that was very funny. That, and random knowledge of Australian wildlife that all American kids are grilled on throughout childhood, was probably the extent of my exposure to Australia.

86

Absolutely.

It seems to me, though, that Australia’s notion of a “fair go” and its egalitarianism are often fairly shallow, and that if you scratch the surface, you can often find just as much of a “fuck you, i’ve got mine” attitude as in any other country. The terms are also easily hijacked by demagogues, morons like Alan Jones or John Laws or Howard Sattler, who preach the spirit of the fair go while appealing to populist anti-government and anti-immigrant sentiment, and who claim to stand up for the little guy while secretly taking money from banks in return for polishing the corporate public image.

Australia certainly has considerably more egalitarian manners, and is considerably less formal in many ways, than the United States. As an undergraduate university student, i called all my professors by their first name; except in pretty unusual circumstances, that just doesn’t happen here in the US. And there are plenty of other areas of life where a general sensibility of equality prevails. I really like it, and i think it makes for a pretty relaxed culture in many ways. I’m just not always convinced that it runs very deep, at least among certain sections of the population.

Absolutely true. I just made the observation because we’re talking specifically about Australia.

Also, i think there is much more excuse for American ignorance about Australia than vice versa. Let’s face it: for better or worse, the United States is about the most important nation on the planet. The decisions it takes on trade, on economics, on foreign policy, on the environment, affect every other country in significant ways. It is the largest national economy in the world (although slightly smaller than the European Union), the world’s largest debtor nation, and the most powerful military force in the world.

Australia, for all that i love it, simply isn’t that important. The population is just over half that of California, the economy is about the same size as Mexico’s, and the country is half a day and a full hemisphere away. There are a good dozen countries that are more relevant to the day-to-day lives of most Americans than Australia.

87

Question for the Australians…

Your country was in the news here a couple months ago. Seems that there might be another serious movement afoot to make Australia a republic, like the one that ocurred (but failed) in 1998-99. Is this real, and if it is, do you think it’s more or less likely to succeed this time around?

He should have looked horror-stricken — then stared off into the distance, muttering in sotto voce, “Cane toads . . . oh God, the cane toads . . .”

This can be frustrating, and I don’t understand what motivates someone to do this. Years ago I had a baffling discussion with an English person which touched on the powers of the US federal government versus the state governments, the President, what Congress and the Supreme Court do, and all that stuff. During this discussion it didn’t seem to matter much that I was an American, living here my whole life, that I take a keen interest in American history and politics, and that for the most part, overall if not always in nitty-gritty detail, I know what I’m talking about here.

But no, no, this person was convinced that the US president has the power to fire a state governor, for example, and other intransigent falsehoods. Very frustrating.

88

I don’t know what’s being proposed currently, but the 1999 referendum was designed by the then Prime Minister (John Howard) to fail. There was a clear majority of public opinion in favour of a republic, but those wanting a republic were divided in what kind of a model they wanted.

In simplistic terms, there were at least three kinds of models being proposed:
(1) a minimalist model, under which the President would be appointed by the Prime Minister, possibly with some involvement by Parliament.
(2) a model similar to that in the Republic of Ireland, with the President elected by popular vote, but having limited powers, possibly codified in the Constitution.
(3) a more radical model, with an elected President having similar powers to the President of the U.S.

The referendum specified a version of model (1). This is one of those few cases where my wife and I voted different ways: she voted for it, because it at least got rid of the monarchy; I voted against it, because it put more power into the hands of the PM, and (once it was in place) you wouldn’t get any further reform.

So because a large segment of the supporters of models (2) and (3) voted against the referendum, it lost. And (as I said), this was the result that Howard wanted, since he’s a monarchist.

If the present government puts up a referendum, they’ll probably put up a version of model (2): a popularly elected President, with powers broadly codified in the Constitution rather than based on common-law royal prerogative. And such a referendum will pass, IMHO.

89

Huh. There was? I must have missed it.

I mean, sure, over the years it has reliably popped up as a topic (usually on slow news days) but I dont’ recall anything serious about it in recent history. If I did see something about it on the news I’d have attributed it to the usual media shit-stirring, to be honest.

90

The article I read on this was in the Washington Post, I think, earlier this year — but I’m having a hard time now searching the website for it.

However, going by this January 2010 article in The Australian, it may be that the issue has already been postponed again, for the near future.

91

You are in the habit of making very absolute statements. “Never on-campus” for example. It’s just dead wrong, but you say it because you say you haven’t met someone who does or did. Yet you must know that there are residential colleges. It’s just lazy. You say in that whale thread that Australians don’t genuinely care about whaling, yet actual polls show that they do, very deeply. You make these off the cuff but very firm statements that would be bad enough in any context but in the context of telling people from outside Australia who don’t know better, it’s appalling. When your tone changes, mine will.

92

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’ve already explained that. And pretty much every other Aussie respondent in the thread has backed me up- the numbers of Australian students living “On-campus” at universities is small enough to be statistically insignificant (or “never”, in shorthand) as a percentage of students at that campus. It goes without saying there will be some, and I think pretty much everyone knew that when I made the post. Like I said before, this is an informal messageboard, not a Peer Reviewed Journal Article. People are going to use shorthand, and I am fond of hyperbole as I find it a useful, and under-appreciated literary device. I don’t deliberately use it to annoy people or be “lazy”, as you put it.

There’s still no reason for you to act the way you do.
And like I said, you’re the only one of the other Australian posters on the boards who “corrects” me in that way.

I honestly don’t mind you disagreeing with me, since we clearly have very different experiences and different opinions, and that’s fine. But rather than just coming in with a short, brusque tone that basically says “WRONG, YOU CRETINOUS FUCKWIT!”, you could say “That’s not my experience” or “Interestingly, I’ve noticed the opposite” or something that manages to convey your difference of opinion/view in a more respectful manner, and then go on to share your own thoughts on the subject. Surely everybody’s happy then?

93

But you do need to be a touch more careful about rounding down to zero.

94

That sounds like the truth but I think if you reflected for even a moment you would see that you are going out of your way to argue with Martini Enfield.

For instance I know that people live on campus because once, playing poker, I won rooms for the night at the University of NSW before a concert at Randwick. But I wouldn’t argue about his statement because compared to the whole “going away to college” mentality in the US the number of rooms is insignificant. Most big city Aussies I know, including myself and my kids, did their tertiary education while living at home at the nearest place they could find.

Similarly, I don’t know where you dredged up the whaling reference, but I imagine that he has made some reference to how much people actually care about whaling and you choose to compare it to poll results. Well if I were asked about whaling I would be against it, however I have never had a discussion about it with anyone I know, nor have I ever heard anyone talking about whaling. In fact it was one of the subjects we talked about recently at work under the heading of “things the media talk about that no-one gives a shit about.”

I have no dog in this fight but I thought it was interesting that, while my experience is the same as yours, I didn’t feel any need to correct Martini Enfield and wondered why you felt that you had to.

95

I would consider it highly unlikely that there will be another referendum for a decade, probably longer.

Australians really do like electing politicians. Sure we grumble about there inadequecies, but we have chosen to have rather a lot of them. In a population of 20 million we have three tiers of government and 9 parliaments. A self-styled true republican wants to put a fourth layer, which we need like a fourth arm pit. What we really need is one layer of governance less.

The fundamental problem with the republican movement is that while a majority of the country wants an Australian to be our Head of State, there is no consensus on the model to appoint them, nor much more importantly, of the powers of the office.

We are also hampered, in a good way, because the current system of government has proved to work very well.

Australians do not want a politician to be our Head of State, emphatically. I would have ranked William Dean, (22nd Governor General and ex High Court judge appointed by Keating, though vitually for his entire term Howard was Prime Minister) would have been close to an ideal example. There is simply no way William Dean would have won, or probably even contested a election.

However a “true Republican” wants only the option to directly elect our Head of State. The problem being if you do have a direct, popularly elected Head of State, then you are guaranteed that you’ll get a politician. There are a lot of serious Australian Republicans for whom the penny hasn’t dropped that what they want, and what they are voting for are incompatiable.

I’m a minimalist “McGarvie model” republican who voted Yes in 1999 and will vote No to a proposal for direct, popularly elected Head of State, should there is another such plebicite in my life time.

The 1999 referendum failed because sentimental republicans voted “No” in the hope of a more radical or populist proposal winning a future referendum and as a consequence pissed away their only opportunity to succeed for a generation.

96

Do you see the irony in saying “never on campus” and “Australians don’t honestly care about whaling” and then whining about how being pulled up sharpish is disrespectful? You are disrespectful of the facts, and you are disrespectful of views of others that you presumptuosly and incorrectly report upon, yet you are so thin skinned you get all hurt when you get a dose of disrespect back.