A friend of mine just got back from a semester abroad in Austrailia. He told me that racism is quite pervasive there. Particularily of the anti-black variety. Is this so? Before this I had only heard good things about the folk from down under.
Its likely as true as Americans beign very stupid. Some might be, likely most are not.
Why is it so likely that most are not? I’ve always wondered about this too.
Assume a bell curve like distribution of racism. Very would imply you’re on the high end of the curve right? Well then, the majority wont be very racist.
If you’re comparing differing societies that would be different as a very racist person from country X could be a median racist in country Y.
I have a friend from Australia who visited me here. He had never seen an actual black (African) person in real life before he came to visit. When he saw a guy walking down the street with a foot high affro he couldn’t stop laughing because he didn’t think that hairstyle could have possibly been real. He said that many of the Aussies called the Aborigines black.
Historically, Australian Aborigines have faired very poorly under white rule (go watch Rabbit Proof Fence for a great movie about the historical treatment). If I were to judge the entire culture by him (as well as the few other Aussie friends I have), I wouldn’t be able to conclude that it is a racist country. In fact, I would say it is much less racist than the US simply because there is not as much cultural diversity there as there is here.
I cant comment much about rural Australia but I would say that from what I have seen of Sydney/Melbourne, racism is usually never an issue in the circles I move in. Both cities are VERY cosmipolitan and the univeristy I am currently attending is probably at least 60% Asian as it is. Racisim certainly isn’t instiutional. However, there are enclaves where certain races dominate and gangs form. But I think this is more a product of poverty than race. The dispossessed will latch onto any minority that they can blame for their woes.
Perhaps your friend got the impression from the “people overboard” fiasco we had a while back. Personally, I think it was vastly overhyped by the media and shamelessly manipulating the public. I would guess that any other country would have reacted similarly. In fact, looking at the entire “outsourcing” debate going on over in America, there are some startling parallels.
I cant comment much about rural Australia but I would say that from what I have seen of Sydney/Melbourne, racism is usually never an issue in the circles I move in. Both cities are VERY cosmipolitan and the univeristy I am currently attending is probably at least 60% Asian as it is. Racisim certainly isn’t instiutional. However, there are enclaves where certain races dominate and gangs form. But I think this is more a product of poverty than race. The dispossessed will latch onto any minority that they can blame for their woes.
Perhaps your friend got the impression from the “people overboard” fiasco we had a while back. Personally, I think it was vastly overhyped by the media and shamelessly manipulating the public. I would guess that any other country would have reacted similarly. In fact, looking at the entire “outsourcing” debate going on over in America, there are some startling parallels.
My ex and her family were extremely racist. They didn’t have much good to say about the aborigines nor, after they came to the US, did they have much affection for blacks.
Well, firstly, i’d be interested to hear why a country that is less culturally diverse would be less racist. In fact, i can see some good reasons why a less culturally-diverse country would be more racist.
More importantly, i’m not sure where you get the idea that Australia is not a culturally-diverse country. The Australian Department of Immigration, Multiculturalism & Indigenous Affairs website details some of the important immigrant grops that now make up Australian society:
Note, this does not even include the original inhabitants, the Australian Aborogines.
The cultural diversity represented by all this immigration is probably most noticeable in the big cites like Sydney and Melbourne, where many ethnic groups have established enclaves and institutions. The last time i lived in Sydney, i had a much of the city’s Portuguese population just to the south of me, and its largest Italian community just to the north. The suburban south-west of the city, where i went to high school, has large groups of Lebanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Greek people. There is a small but thriving Jewish community in Sydney, and many Chinese, both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers. The inner western suburb where i used to live had a noticeable African presence, including people from Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya.
Having made a case for Australian cultural diversity, i will now address the OP’s question. I don’t think Australia is any more racist than, say, the United States, but this is not a particularly reassuring observation. There is still plenty of racism and xenophobia in the country. The longest-term victims of this, of course, are the Australian Aborigines, who have been pretty abominably treated for most of the past two centuries, both at an individual and an institutional level. Recent attempts to correct the problem have been a step in the right direction, but much of the native population still suffers from third-world levels of disease and poverty, with a life expectancy about 15-20 years below the Australian average.
Asian immigrants, especially the Chinese, suffered much racism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and there were constant dire warnings about how Australia was in danger of being overrun by the “yellow peril” from Asia.
In the post-WWII period, much racism or ethnic prejudice tended to focus on the more “swarthy” European immigrants, especially those from the Mediterranean regions. Greeks and Italians, but also Slavs, Hungarians and Ukrainians, were referred to as “wogs” and were the constant butt of jokes and abuse.
Such prejudices against these groups subsided somewhat in the 1970s, as attention began to focus on immigrants from Asia, especially from Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand). Australia took more Vietnam refugees per capita than any other country except the United States, and this relatively large influx attracted considerable antipathy from bigots, with frequent use of terms like “slant-eye” and “slope-head” to refer to Asians. I’m not proud to admit that i and my friends used terms like this when we were teenagers, and plenty of it still goes on today.
Of course, no matter how much society as a whole improves, and how much institutionalized racism is stamped out, there are always going to be bigots and morons who insist on judging others by their skin colour or ethnic background, and who insist on blaming “immigrants” for their own problems. These people tend to have their prejudices reinforced by a media that often plays into the stereotypes.
For example, a few years ago i was watching a story about immigration on one of the Australian current affairs shows. They illustrated this story by showing footage of people walking down the street in a Vietnamese part of town. This is standard media practice among the less reputable outlets, despite the fact that people from east Asia make up only about 28.4% of Australian immigrants (16.3% from northeast; 12.1% from southeast). By contrast, 21.5% come from Oceania (of which the majority, 17.6%, are New Zealanders); 19.6% come from Europe and the former Soviet Union; 10.3% come from southern Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka); 6.7% from North Africa and the Middle East; 10.6% from the rest of Africa; and 2.9% from the Americas (Source). Given this diversity, why persist in illustrating immigration stories solely with pictures of Asians?
I should add that i haven’t been in Australia in the period since the 2001 terrorist attacks or the 2002 Bali bombing, but some of my friends at home tell me, and the media outlets confirm, that anti-Islamic and anti-Middle East sentiment has been rather prevalent, and has led to various incidents, from verbal abuse to violence.
I see your point: the preconceived notions they perceive are wholly from the media rather than through personal experience. I know if the only exposure I had to black people were through gangster rap videos I wouldn’t think too highly of the people as a whole. Luckily, I know better. I have also had European friends who think Mexicans never work and always smoke pot which I can’t ever imagine being true (sole exposure to hispanic culture through Cheech and Chong’s movies). Even though these views are ignorant they weren’t hateful about it. However, I tend to only talk to people who are educated and know that the preconceived stereotypes offered through the media only show a portion or a charicature of the people they are portraying. I am probably projecting my general friend’s views onto the population as a whole. The sample size was small.
Said friend in my analogy was from Melbourne originally but currently lives in Sydney. He had never seen a black (African) person outside of television. Another who lives in Perth has never seen a Black person nor any Hispanics/Latinos or Native American Indians. They both said there are a lot of Asian people in Australia but it isn’t as culturally diverse as it is where I live in the states. Again, my sample size is small. But even your sites only speak mostly of Asian and Europeans which still shows that it isn’t as largely diverse as the United States currently are. However, this type of conversation will likely show up in Great Debates. You are welcome to start a thread there, but that is all I care to say on the subject.
People sometimes say that Australians are homophobic and racist, but I’ve been living here a year now and haven’t seen it other than a couple comments.
dorkus I don’t know where your friend was hanging out in Sydney and Melbourne because IMO it’s impossible to live in a major city in Australia and never see an African.
I think there is a deep streak of racism in Australian society. Somebody’s voting for Pauline Hanson after all. That said, I’m not sure it’s any worse than the US or NZ.
equating African with multiculturalism is highly inaccurate. The reason we dont see as many blacks/Hispanics/Native Americans is because they mostly immigrated to the US. The major ethnic groups that I see in Australia would be:
Italians
Greeks
Lebanese
English
Vietmanese
Indonesian
Pacific islanders/NZ
Hong Kongese/Singaporeeans/Taiwanese/Mainland Chinese/Korean (here to study)
Our Uni campus is so prodominantly Asian its scary.
Well, that guy with the hat is.
The other one isn’t.
Another difference may be that IMHO that Australians go in for a lot less PC speak than Americans. Thus, some things that sound overtly racist are just the common words/expressions used.
Now you can argue that the use of these words constitute racism in and of themselves. However that is a different discussion. My point being that Australia is a different culture, and if you view that culture through US glasses there will be areas where preconceived notions are incorrect. Really need some cross cultural communication skills.
Why assume a bell-shaped curve for racism?
There is no “high end” on a bell shape curve.
A bell shape would not indicate that a mjority is racist.
If I am mistaken on any of these three statements, please show me the error of my thinking.
During a summer of race riots in the US in the mid 1966’s, a friend from Canberra was doing post-doctorate work here in Tennessee. He definitely left me with the impression that race wasn’t a big issue in Austrailia.
1966 was a long time ago. Our Freedom Ride happened in 1965 and how anyone could say with a straight face that race wasn’t a big issue in Australia then is beyond me. if it wasn’t a big issue it bloody well should have been!
Zoe you misread what I said. I said that the degree of racist thinking likely follows a Gaussian distribution. I then said that very would seem to indicate the say top 10-25% of that curve’s distribution. That would make 90-75% of the people under the rest of the curve not very racist.
You might also note that I said you would have to compare differing societies to get be able to say that the “average” racist thought in country X is better/worse than somewhere else.
Since we’ve got no data to back any of this speculation up it’s a pointless discussion.
Compared to other countries, I would say that Australia is a very racialy tolerant society.
We do not have anything like race riots, just the odd little gang scuff.
That said, you are more likely to find racist attitudes in the country, but that would not come with actions, just attitude. As you probably know Australia is highly metropolitan, so the feeelings of the bush(country) are proportionally not that great.
Unfortunately since the ‘war on terrism’, there has been an increase in events displaying racial hatred towards people of middle eastern appearence. Much of this is fuelled by the popular media.
So on the OP it is not true that Aussies are very racist. I mean, compared to the Japaneese we are nowhere near racist - fucking Japaneese.
While I would be loath to indict the entire population of Australia as racist (I’ve known and lived with Australians who were all non-racist and non-homophobic), the country did ban the immigration of non-Europeans until the 1970s in what was unofficially known as the “White Australia” policy. OTOH, the Ozzies nowadays have a very racially diverse ethnic mix, at least in the cities, and the voting public of Australia got wise to Pauline Hanson for the clown she is.
In any event, it is foolish for the descendants of slaveholders and Indian killers from a country whose nonwhite inhabitants still suffer from institutional bigotry (i.e., Americans) to point fingers at anyone else as racist.
A minor hijack–I would be curious if inhabitants of other nations on the SDMB could say how high the level of racism is in their countries.