Look Imasquare’s comment wa simply baseless, ignorant bigotry. There’s no fatul basis behind it. The pattern is the same as all bigotry. Sure there’s no evidence but I know from ‘observation’ that most abbos are drunks etc.
I had hoped this board was a bit above that and it wouldn’t be readily tolerated. Whether directed at black people or white it’s still just racist nonnsense without a shred of basis in reality.
I think imasquare does have a point. It’s quite obvious and non-controversial to say that there are certain sections of western sydney that systematically and quite uniformly racist against aboriginals just as it’s uncontrovesial to say that there are still portions of the deep south in the US which behave in a systematically racist manner towards blacks. He has made the mistake of equating personal observation with nationwide trends but for something as deeply hidden and personal as racism, anecdotes are practically the only data that we have. A person who is secretly racist inside could appear to all intents and purposes to be completely tolerant to those who don’t know him well and only reveal their racism to close acquaintances who they also know to be racist. Thus, it wouldn’t be surprising that actual non-racists would rarely encounter racist acts in everyday life.
I certainly don’t see it as “perpetuating stereotypes”, in no place did imasquare state that he himself held those views, just the community he was in regarded such views as normal.
Just my recollection, that when TF was appointed National’s leader there was some controversy about his lifestyle as a then Roman Catholic batchelor. It was notably atypical for the holder of that office. Perhaps I overstated it.
Such as “Australians are not racist”.
Yes, and if the refugees arriving on boats before the 2nd last election were all anglo-saxons, Johnny would still have won the election. In a pig’s ear.
I don’t know if you were being sarcastic or not… but how exactly do you go around trying to prove something like that? Do you just ask every Australian if they think they are racist? If you do that, then of course barely anyone is going to reply yes. Most people who are actually racist don’t even know they are racist. Especially for a question like are people willing to vote for an aboriginal prime minister, it becomes incredibly hard. A person could act perfectly normal towards aboriginal people in real life and not show a hint of racism. Yet when it comes to the voting booth, will completely refuse to vote for one just because of his race. Theres simply no way to find out if that happens because we have nothing else to differentiate these people by.
There’s actually been some fairly sophisticated psychological work done on prejudice and it’s suprisingly more prevalant than most people assume. Check out the Implicit Association Test for a (fairly controversial) way of finding out implicit biases that people hold.
Anyway, the only real way we can figure out whether people think in a truely racist fashion in via anecdotal evidence. imasquare presented his own observations about the community in which he was living and presented no views of his own on the matter. I think it’s grossly unfair of you all to be jumping on him like this.
Ah, that clarified it a bit, sorry for missing this bit. It wasn’t there when I replied.
and
and
[A survey in 2001 reported that in Australia 44% of people who spoke languages other than English had recently experienced insults and name calling, while for Indigenous Australians 37% had experienced insults - with an alarming 36% experiencing racism in the education system. This is alarming because the educated are meant to be the least racist.
Traditionally racism in Australia most mostly experienced by Aborigines, and by Muslims, Asians and Jews to a lesser extent. Today it is no surprise – and this exhibition registers this – that Muslins are now the principle targets of Australian racism, with intolerance of Asians, Jews and Aborigines also persistent.](http://www.pica.org.au/art03/Australiens-IanMclean.html)
None of these are very hard cites: there’s not a great deal of hard data that I could find one way or another, but you piss off Imasquare’s comments too dismissively.
My experience is that nice middle class Australians will talk all day about how racist they aren’t but they tend to live in a bubble.
O if I say that most homosexuals are child molesters that’s acceptable then is it? Because for something as deeply hidden and personal as racism, anecdotes are practically the only data that we have.
Has anybody made such a statement?
I’m calling you out to. Can we have a reference for that claim please? I;m amazed how much personal bigotry is being presented as fact here.
No I don’t. This is GD, not My Pointless and racists Opinion. He and you made statements of fact. I would like to see them either supported or restated as what they are: baseless opinion coupled with argument from ignorance
Princhester I’ve looked at your references and not one them even comes close to supporting the racist and bigoted claim that >51% of white Australian despise aborigines. So what was the point?
What statement of fact would you like to see? Psychological studies? Surveys? Reports of racist acts? Assume that Imasquare’s observations are correct, what objective evidence would be required for you to change your mind?
We’re talking about the possibility of an aboriginal being elected PM. You don’t need 51% of people to be racist for that not to happen. In the last election, Howard won with a 3% lead over Labour and that was considered a decisive victory. Assume we had a hypothetical situation in which the race was run exactly the same and all the policies were identical, except that Howard was now an aboriginal. All it would have taken is 1.5% of the population to switch from voting for Howard to voting for Latham purely because of the fact that Howard was black and Labour would have won the election.
If we assume that hidden racism is independant of voting preference (it’s probably not) then, that means if less than 5% of Australians are secretly racist, theres almost no chance of an aboriginal becoming PM.
I’ve seen the statements of fact. Now I want to see some evidence to support the claim that they are facts and not baseless racist opinions and bigoted generalisations about an entire population.
That is nothing more than an argument from ignorance Shalmanese. “We can’t prove it wrong so it must be right” doesn’t justify stating it as fact in GD. I could use the exact same argument from ignorance to justify the existence of God or the belief that most homosexuals are pederasts.
Arguments form ignorance don’t cut it here. It’s not up to me to tell the person presenting something as fact how to verify the claim. It’s up to him to have some evidence before making the claim.
This place is suppose to be about fighting ignorance, not constructing arguments form ignorance.
No, we are not. We are talking about a specific and clearly racist claim that >51% of white Australians intensely dislike and loathe Aborigines. That was the claim made, and one presented as fact. It’s clearly racist and clearly without any basis whatsoever.
Whatever gave you the idea that I was objecting to anything other what I quite clearly said I was objecting to. Someone made a sweeping derogatory attribution to an entire racial group. Moreover they claimed that it applied to >51% of that racial group. That’s racist and since this in GD they need to be able to back it up with something.
Since they obviously are unable to I’m calling it for what it is: ignorant racist nonsense with no basis in reality.
You know, having lived in Australia most of my life, and also having lived in the UK (two years), Canada (two years), and now the US (five years), i’m honestly not sure where this notion of Australia as an unusually macho, gender-conservative place comes from.
This is not to say that there is no machismo, and no gender conservatism. There’s plenty. But, in my experience at least, it’s no worse than in many parts of the UK, Canada, and the United States. All of these western societies have significant numbers of men who buy into a macho worldview that sees women as inferior or, at least, as needing to be protected and patronised. And all these countries also have significant numbers of men who believe in women’s equality and who would (and do) have no trouble voting for a woman candidate if they feel she represents their political interests.
Much as i hate to say it, being a leftist and all, in Australia it’s often actually the left end of the political spectrum that acts most deliberately and connivingly to freeze women out of important positions. The macho attitude of many trade union groups feeds into the Labor Party, and adds to the “old boys club” attitude that pervades so many Labor Party branches.
Well, i tend to agree about Howard. Plenty of people thought he was dead and gone.
But Hawke? One of my earliest political memories (apart from Gough’s “May well we say ‘God save the Queen’”…speech) is of watching the news with my mother sometime in the late 1970s. Now, my mum was no political junkie, but we were watching Hawke being interviewed on TV one night, and she said to me, “He’ll be Prime Minister one day.” And, from his early ACTU days, it was apparent to many Labor Party folk that, as long as Hawke could get his drinking and rowdy behavior under control, he would be a prime candidate for Prime Minister.
Let me start by saying that Imasquare’s statement that “a majority of Australians despise aboriginals” may well be an exaggeration. I’m not sure about “majority” and I’m not sure about “despise”.
I’d stick by “a significant proportion, certainly more than sufficient to influence elections, of Australians are sufficiently prejudiced against aboriginals that they wouldn’t vote for one”.
If you want to understand the problem with this debate, think further about this comment of yours.
What we are talking about is an alleged prejudice that (assuming for the sake of the argument that it exists) is known, even to those who have it, not to be socially acceptable. To suggest that someone is wrong to say that a body of persons in modern day Australia don’t have racist tendencies because they can’t prove it by way of a policy document to that effect is simply ludicrous.
Blake, consider this analogy:
Take the following facts as read: You live somewhere where a significant proportion of adult males have improper thoughts about underage girls. They know this is socially utterly unacceptable to even talk about, except when standing round in the Pub with like minded mates. These persons would never openly act on these improper thoughts except in circumstances where they can’t be caught out (like the privacy of a polling booth, say).
Now, prove it. Provide me with a survey. Can’t do it? Oh, then according to you it must not be stated to be true. But see above, it is. Dilemma, huh?
Some things, particularly regarding human nature, are not easily surveyable.
Complete tosh. Saying most homosexuals are child molesters is not even supported by anecdote, and is surveyable, and is not true.
Firstly before you call Imasquare or myself racist, you need to define Australians as being a race. Secondly, speaking for myself, my experience is that human beings are racist. So I’m being prejudiced against people, not people of a particular race.
Half the participants in this thread report that anecdotally they notice prejudice against aborigines. Aborgines report significant amount of prejudice against them. What would it take to convince you? Oh, yes, I know: a survey. You’re never going to get that kind of data.
So you go on living in your nice little bubble pretending something doesn’t exist because it’s hard to measure.
Let me turn this around: do you honestly think that aborigines don’t suffer from racism in this country?
You are confusing an argument from ignorance with an argument from non-ideal data.
There is a vast difference between saying: “most people in that room must have a blue hat on because I don’t know that they haven’t” and saying “I had a quick look round in that room, I didn’t have time to count, but from what I could see, there were a lot of blue hats and I think probably most people had one on.”
I’ll go further than that. I’ve called him out, I’ve asked for a a reference. None can be provided. That entitles me to say that it’s totally baseless.
Then can we please have a reference to support that claim?
No. it’s not a dilemma. It’s an argument from ignorance and no more. Caging it with hypothetical examples doesn’t make it logically valid or able to be used in a debate you realise? I could just as easily use the same hypothetical to claim that most white people have conversations with an IPU. It’s a classic argument form ignorance.
Yes it is supported by anecdote. Lots of it.
And prey tell how you would survey the incidence of homosexuals who are pederasts? Not the number who are convicted but the number who are practicing? Remember that racial vilification and racial discrimination are crimes in Australia too. Unless you wish to propose that most white Australian have been convicted of those offences then you have no way of doing such a survey.
race
A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution:
Well that took all of 5 seconds. Next!
You are also racist.
racism
Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
As soon as you start discriminating between people classified together on the basis of common white Australian history, nationality, or geographic distribution then and those who are not then you are being racist.
Half the participants in this thread report that anecdotally they notice the effects of Major League Baseball mind control rays. Mental patients say they are affected by mind control rays. What would it take to convince you?
Classic argument from ignorance. You stated something as fact. Now please support it with something other than anecdote. It’s not up to me to tell you how to collect some evidence for your claims. It doesn’t make something true because you can’t fricken’ provide nay evidence. You are actually trying to use an inability to provide anything but vague anecdote as proof that something is factual. Sheesh.
You go on stating ignorant racist opinion as fact because you can’t possibly provide anything to support it.
Let’s turn this around: do you honestly know what a straw man is?
Let’s turn this around: do you honestly think that anyone in this thread has said that Aborigines don’t suffer from racism in this country?
Let me turn this around: do you honestly think that any racial grouping doesn’t suffer from racism in Australia?
Dude do you have references to support your claims or not?. It’s a simple question. You’ve stated something a fact. This is GD. Do you actually have anything to support that assertion? Because is not the opposition has every right to ignore it as baseless racist assertion.
No. you are weaselling.
You made statement of somehting certain and factual. I called you out and asked for evidence. You can’t provide it.
Now you want to weasel and compare that to “I think probably most people had one on”.
That’s blatant weaselling.
You stated that it was a fact that “a significant proportion, certainly more than sufficient to influence elections, of Australians are sufficiently prejudiced against aboriginals that they wouldn’t vote for one”
You didNOT say “I think that a significant proportion, probably more than sufficient to influence elections, of Australians are sufficiently prejudiced against aboriginals that they wouldn’t vote for one.
Big difference and one that makes your claims that you can’t possibly collect evidence insufficient evidence an argument from ignorance. And now you;ve added weaselling to the list.
If you present something as probable and opinion then that’s fine. I’ll say that I *** think*** it’s wrong and that it’s a *** certain fact*** that you can provide no evidence for that opinion beyond anecdote.
Then we can discount it for what it is and move on.
This is GD man, not IMHO. Opinions based on nothin’ don’t count for much. Racist opinions will be called for what they are.
I’ll deal with the rest of your post later, Blake. I’m a bit short of time this evening. But let me say this:when you start to argue that ascribing a characteristic to human beings is racism, you’ve lost the plot.
Dude, the dictionary actually defines racism as ascribing characteristic to human beings based on race. I don;t know what bizarro defintion of racism you use, but I gave you the one I and the dictionary use.
WTF else could racism be if not ascribing characteristic to human beings based on race?
I may have lost the plot but at least I have a dozen dictionary editors who think the same way. All you’ve got is personal insults. Which I have reported you for BTW.
Never heard of eyewitness accounts then?
So Sevastapol, you haven;t left. Are you going to anser the question? Can you provide a reference to support your claim or not?
The plural of anecdote is not data, mate.