If you’re black in Aus, at least you can have a conversation with somebody without being judged. That can’t happen if you have an NZ (or American) accent. And you have no chance to do anything about it, because you aren’t even aware anything has happened.
And here on this board I had somebody tell me that being coloured was not comparable to going to a different school. FFS: I’m from Melbourne, I went to school in the 70’s: which school I went to was /much more important/ than my skin color.
My city has doubled in size in the last 50 years: many of the inhabitants are migrants, and come from many different cultures: it’s much harder to make generalizations about what is important in Melbourne than it used to be. But it’s still the case, even with Black African Gangs in the popular press, that American ideas of ‘race’ don’t mean much here.
Old culture Australians have an issue with NZ accents. You’ve been told that by an actual Australian with an NZ accent. It’s been confirmed by an actual Australian without an NZ accent. I hope you have enough sense not to tell Americans about lived experience: don’t try it on Australians.
Well zombies are discriminated against most of all – just because one zombie tried to eat a person’s brains the next may be executed on sight. #RottingFleshIsOnlySkinDeep
But on topic: I remain skeptical that being from NZ is a bigger problem than being black.
I noticed that you even mentioned the American accent: I’m find it pretty preposterous to imagine Australians are racist against whites from basically anywhere else but cool about black people.
I don’t think that’s always true. My cousin is African-Australian, and he has had to deal with a lot of racism in his life. It’s true we don’t have exactly the same history of race relations the US does, but there is still plenty of racism happening.
Here’s something I saw on sale in a shop window, in central Victoria, no more than 11 years ago.
It’s an odd thing, for an American who’s moved to regional Australia. I’d gotten used to a certain amount of…variety, I suppose, in skin tone, living in various parts of the States. Now? In a town of 100,000 or so, I’ll see black skin maybe once every few weeks. It’s kind of weird, and feels (to me) a bit creepy.
It’s different in the capital cities, I suppose, but once you get out of them, there’s not much.
