Society/Culture Are Australians more racist than other nationalities?

[Fire]

My fiancé is of mixed race from america. She says she gets far fewer dissaproving/disgusted glances when we walk in Melbourne than in New York.

It's more of a passive racism she's talking about. A lot of people tend to only look at whites in a western society to determine levels of raceism; but there is a real non-white racism problem ingrained in many american minorities, for instance, and I've noticed that they tend to have some backwards views about many things, most personally 'betraying your brothers'.

 

[Todman]

A lot of people tend to only look at whites in a western society to determine levels of raceism; but there is a real non-white racism problem ingrained in many american minorities, for instance, and I've noticed that they tend to have some backwards views about many things, most personally 'betraying your brothers'.

I was in the US for a month and didn't witness anything untoward.

 

[madmug]

Yeah I think you missed the point by a fair margin.

Hinduism isn't even a single religion, btw.

Neither is Christian or Islam.

I was just answering a post. But if you just want a negative argument, then go for it. On you own.

 

[Fire]

I was in the US for a month and didn't witness anything untoward.

I was there six months backpacking across pretty much all of it, though I sadly had to skim the south. I rode greyhounds all over the place; I spoke to many black people in particular and got a reasonably broad sense of the attitudes and stories they had to tell.

I'm white and while I didn't receive much disapproval myself, but my fiance was stared down a few times. One particularity awkward occasion was by a black man who was washing a car of her friends. He spent more time staring daggers at her as we held hands than he did looking at the car under him; and that's not an exaggeration.

Anyway that's not just a white mans opinion, that's what she told me for what its worth.

From my own experience of it all, its not so much overt, but more subtle and underlying.

 

[telsor]

Bullshit. Australia has a dark core of racism at it's heart that we're only now starting to come to terms with. It just has nothing to do with immigration or anyone who has come here post settlement.

So you're sure it's there, and will see it in anything, whatever the intent/belief of the perpetrators, because you know what's in their hearts and minds better than they do, right?

 

[smokingjacket]

So you're sure it's there, and will see it in anything, whatever the intent/belief of the perpetrators, because you know what's in their hearts and minds better than they do, right?

Hardly, it's more of collective guilt complex that needed to justify itself. It's about the collective psyche of the country.

The land we live in is stolen, and the people we stole it off, for the most part, are miserable about it because the land represents much more than just a title deed to their respective cultures.

It's not like we have recently learned this either. The early settlers and explorers who had contact with the Indigenous people of this country wrote about it extensively, it was just that they justified the theft on the grounds of bringing "civilised" peoples in to farm that land, because the current inhabitants were "inferior." Thankfully in times past people were much less prone to self censorship and so it's all there in print if you want to look for it.

Even after the frontier wars ended and the willpower and resistance of the various indigenous groups were broken in all sorts of ways, the Australian people have mostly preferred to deal in this charade for centuries rather than acknowledge the tremendous wrong done to the indigenous people of this country because it would be antithetical to the very fine values of the country of fairness, democracy and mateship that we think are our founding truths.

 

[Catfish Alley]

What about Australian's who heritage doesn't go back to frontier times? Some of them are racist but they have no reason to have a guilt complex with regards to aboriginal people.

 

[telsor]

Hardly, it's more of collective guilt complex that needed to justify itself. It's about the collective psyche of the country.

The land we live in is stolen, and the people we stole it off, for the most part, are miserable about it because the land represents much more than just a title deed to their respective cultures.

It's not like we have recently learned this either. The early settlers and explorers who had contact with the Indigenous people of this country wrote about it extensively, it was just that they justified the theft on the grounds of bringing "civilised" peoples in to farm that land, because the current inhabitants were "inferior." Thankfully in times past people were much less prone to self censorship and so it's all there in print if you want to look for it.

Even after the frontier wars ended and the willpower and resistance of the various indigenous groups were broken in all sorts of ways, the Australian people have mostly preferred to deal in this charade for centuries rather than acknowledge the tremendous wrong done to the indigenous people of this country because it would be antithetical to the very fine values of the country of fairness, democracy and mateship that we think are our founding truths.

So it's like the christian notion of original sin...You're just born guilty, no way to avoid it. Except unlike the Christians, there is no way of absolving ourselves of this guilt.

 

[smokingjacket]

So it's like the christian notion of original sin...You're just born guilty, no way to avoid it. Except unlike the Christians, there is no way of absolving ourselves of this guilt.

Not at all. The only people at fault are those who continue to perpetuate the idea that "we" rightfully deserved the land, in whatever modern form that may take.

There's plenty of ways that we can right the wrongs of the past. Reconciliation and at the very least giving indigenous Australians a greater share in the prosperity that has come at their expense as a start. That applies to anyone who has migrated here at any stage. It doesn't matter if you came here in 1790 or 1990, you've benefitted in some way. It's not about catholic self loathing it's about recognising out own history and the damage done.

Thankfully we were taking positive steps in that direction but recent events seem to be a bit of a hark back to the past.

 

[telsor]

Not at all. The only people at fault are those who continue to perpetuate the idea that "we" rightfully deserved the land, in whatever modern form that may take.

There's plenty of ways that we can right the wrongs of the past. Reconciliation and at the very least giving indigenous Australians a greater share in the prosperity that has come at their expense as a start. That applies to anyone who has migrated here at any stage. It doesn't matter if you came here in 1790 or 1990, you've benefitted in some way. It's not about catholic self loathing it's about recognising out own history and the damage done.

Thankfully we were taking positive steps in that direction but recent events seem to be a bit of a hark back to the past.

So we need to self flagellate ourselves over what someone else's ancestors did, and give more and more in that hope that maybe something short of everything we have might, possibly, earn forgiveness of the 'crime' of being born here without any indigenous blood?

No thanks.

 

[clogged]

Not at all. The only people at fault are those who continue to perpetuate the idea that "we" rightfully deserved the land, in whatever modern form that may take.

There's plenty of ways that we can right the wrongs of the past. Reconciliation and at the very least giving indigenous Australians a greater share in the prosperity that has come at their expense as a start. That applies to anyone who has migrated here at any stage. It doesn't matter if you came here in 1790 or 1990, you've benefitted in some way. It's not about catholic self loathing it's about recognising out own history and the damage done.

Thankfully we were taking positive steps in that direction but recent events seem to be a bit of a hark back to the past.

I think we have to accept, in the world we currently live in, that someone was going to come here and dispossess the aborigines. It may as well have been us. As a compassionate people, we can attempt to redress that dispossession as best we can. We're not acting like the Han in Tibet or Xinjiang, or the Javanese in West Papua.

I wouldn't bother arguing this with telsor though. Bloke is a dullard.

 

[Todman]

I was there six months backpacking across pretty much all of it, though I sadly had to skim the south. I rode greyhounds all over the place; I spoke to many black people in particular and got a reasonably broad sense of the attitudes and stories they had to tell.

I'm white and while I didn't receive much disapproval myself, but my fiance was stared down a few times. One particularity awkward occasion was by a black man who was washing a car of her friends. He spent more time staring daggers at her as we held hands than he did looking at the car under him; and that's not an exaggeration.

The half castes are the ones that cop it from both sides......not black enogh, not white enough , not asian enough.

 

[raghav]

Not at all. The only people at fault are those who continue to perpetuate the idea that "we" rightfully deserved the land, in whatever modern form that may take.

There's plenty of ways that we can right the wrongs of the past. Reconciliation and at the very least giving indigenous Australians a greater share in the prosperity that has come at their expense as a start. That applies to anyone who has migrated here at any stage. It doesn't matter if you came here in 1790 or 1990, you've benefitted in some way. It's not about catholic self loathing it's about recognising out own history and the damage done.

Thankfully we were taking positive steps in that direction but recent events seem to be a bit of a hark back to the past.

Can you elaborate on that and give a more definitive example of what you are stating eg., what more needs to be done on reconciliation and what prosperity in particular are you referring to?

 

[Todman]

So it's like the christian notion of original sin...You're just born guilty, no way to avoid it. Except unlike the Christians, there is no way of absolving ourselves of this guilt.

smokingjacket does have issues

 

[Number37]

No doubt racist Australians are the minority, but they are given the voice to spew their nonsense and thereby make Australians as a group racist.
Exhibit A: The last 5 federal elections have had racist policy dictate who is the winner.

 

[smokingjacket]

What about Australian's who heritage doesn't go back to frontier times? Some of them are racist but they have no reason to have a guilt complex with regards to aboriginal people.

The reasons why different cultural groups and individual migrants hold racist positions are incredibly varied. Everything from their own cultural chauvinism, exaggerated cultural traits when adapting to a new country and just picking up on what's acceptable in Australia, amongst others.

 

[TheMightyEagles]

I've lived in a number of countries and traveled to plenty more, and from my experience, Australia is the least racist country by a mile.

Most major cities in developed countries are by and large tolerant since they are international. But its another story altogether outside of those big cities. Take the United States for example. You are unlikely to run into much racism in LA or New York, but smaller cities such as Dallas or Memphis or Charlotte are another story altogether. You still get people around there who think mixed marriages are sinful, for example. My experience is country towns in Australia are much more welcoming.

There are still plenty of countries with entrenched institutional racism, such as Malaysia or Japan. Then you have countries like China, where race causes all kinds of issues on a social level. Even Han Chinese themselves risk being ostracised and bullied there when moving from the North to the South or vica versa, or moving between the mainland and Hong Kong / Macau.

Agree with what others have said that things have been rough for our Aboriginal people. I don't think its due to lack of good intentions though. Rather these things take time and Aboriginal culture is just very different to what we inherited from the Poms. Native title was a step in the right direction, and I'm hopeful things will continue to improve over our lifetimes.

 

[smokingjacket]

I think we have to accept, in the world we currently live in, that someone was going to come here and dispossess the aborigines. It may as well have been us. As a compassionate people, we can attempt to redress that dispossession as best we can. We're not acting like the Han in Tibet or Xinjiang, or the Javanese in West Papua.

I wouldn't bother arguing this with telsor though. Bloke is a dullard.

True enough I guess. Whether the cultural and environmental destruction would have been as bad under a different power, with different priorities can certainly be argued though. Might have been worse too, would have required some really nasty Belgians though.

Generally though it's irrelevant. I was merely stating a fact, that this country was founded on the belief in the racial inferiority of the indigenous people of this country which thereby justified their dispossession. It happened, it was us, if you're Australian, that's our history, and not an ancient history either. I'm not suggesting we all have to personally apologise to every Aboriginal person you see for all time, but telsor's suggesting that because he personally never shot a Koori he should feel no empathy is equally trite. More than anything it shows a distinct lack of belief in this country. When Paul Keating first started talking about these issues he did so because he felt the nation had matured to the point where we were able to critically look at our own history and mythology. Maybe the country has matured but some individuals have yet to.

 

[telsor]

I wouldn't bother arguing this with telsor though. Bloke is a dullard.

I'm sorry you're unable to win an argument with me. Doesn't make me a dullard, it means that, at best, you're just incapable of forming a compelling argument.

 

[The_Reaper]

Anyone who actually thinks this believes that the rest of the world is like Scandinavia and Canada and that Anglo-Saxons are responsible for everything bad on the planet.

 

[clogged]

I'm sorry you're unable to win an argument with me. Doesn't make me a dullard, it means that, at best, you're just incapable of forming a compelling argument.

This is laughable considering you're the master of weaselling and deflection on this board.

 

[clogged]

I'm not suggesting we all have to personally apologise to every Aboriginal person you see for all time, but telsor's suggesting that because he personally never shot a Koori he should feel no empathy is equally trite. More than anything it shows a distinct lack of belief in this country. When Paul Keating first started talking about these issues he did so because he felt the nation had matured to the point where we were able to critically look at our own history and mythology. Maybe the country has matured but some individuals have yet to.

The reason for this belief is obvious isn't it? They believe what happened was good and would do it all again if they could.

That's why they create these fallacious strawman arguments about feeling guilty. They would have gladly pulled the trigger.

 

[raghav]

Have to agree with the OP on this subject, I don't believe that Australians in the main are any more racist than many other nationalities around the world. In fact, given our multicultural society I believe that we are demonstrably very tolerant of others who come to this country to live.
Far too many critics, including members of the media and social commentators, play the racist card irresponsibly and without justification. One only has to peruse the pages of this board to find instances of that happening on a regular basis, this is particularly relevant to posters who have some difficulty interpreting racism with religion.
The main criticism of Australians in this regard would undoubtedly be in relation to indigenous Australians and whilst this is clearly evident in many cases I believe that too often it is given far too much priority at the expense of finding solutions. There never seems to be any shortage of critics and commentators who are quick to highlight the numerous indignities and poor treatment suffered by indigenous Australians but they are found sadly lacking when it comes to offering viable solutions, and that includes very senior indigenous Australians.

 

[Richard Pryor]

Generally though it's irrelevant. I was merely stating a fact, that this country was founded on the belief in the racial inferiority of the indigenous people of this country which thereby justified their dispossession. It happened, it was us, if you're Australian, that's our history, and not an ancient history either. I'm not suggesting we all have to personally apologise to every Aboriginal person you see for all time, but telsor's suggesting that because he personally never shot a Koori he should feel no empathy is equally trite. More than anything it shows a distinct lack of belief in this country. When Paul Keating first started talking about these issues he did so because he felt the nation had matured to the point where we were able to critically look at our own history and mythology. Maybe the country has matured but some individuals have yet to.

I think "feeling empathy for the less fortunate" is a better way of looking at the issue than "feeling guilt for being more fortunate".

I think a lot of people get hung up on feeling like they're being blamed for something when these issues are discussed and want to emphasise that the aftereffects of the history aren't their fault personally more than they want to deal with the issues.

 

[Gus Poyet]

I think there's a lot of pick and choose bigotry in Australia based on personal experiences.

You'll have people who like our indigenous population but hate Indians.

They will like one type of Asian people, but dislike another.