The Racist of Oz.

“All Australians are racist.”

Really?

“Yep.”

All of us?

“Yep.”

Even the black ones?

“Ye-Na-Ohh.”

I think it’s a funny statement to begin with. All Australians are racist. Cos when you think about it, stereotyping an entire nation of people like that seems, I dunno, a bit racist?

Of course some of us are definitely racist. Some people can’t stand anything different to themselves. I understand that psychology. But if they don’t like anything that’s different to them, how come so many racists own dogs?

“Yeah, but dogs are different.”

No shit they’re different, they’re dogs.

You reckon after all the time they spend together the racists would have learnt, don’t judge someone ‘til you’ve at least sniffed their bum.

Australian racism has been highlighted in the world media in the last few years. 

Once, because of a massive error in judgement from Hey! Hey! It’s Saturday! producers  . I couldn’t help but think that maybe that was a bit of a test. After seeing that people actually tuned in to watch Darrell Sommers and Red Symons heave the corpse of their careers back on to prime time, the producers went “I wonder what else they’d sit through?...” Granted, it was a mistake, but at least Darrell and Red have gone back to dipping fries.

The other event(s) that brought racism in Australia to the attention of the world media was attacks on Indian students. I was actually warned by an Indian guy in the UK to be careful when I returned to Australia because of the rampant violence. The reality was that it was a few thugs that beat up a few Indian students because they didn’t want them in this country. But he tragedy of the situation was that following the attacks, enrolments by Indian students in Australian uni’s halved. I think it’s a real shame that it doesn’t work the same way with thugs. You beat one up in the street and 50% of them disappear. It’s a shame because you randomly beat up a thug in the street, and all that happens is that you yourself become a thug. I just wish it’d worked that way with Indian students. A thug punches one in the street, and the thug becomes a diligent student with a strong work ethic and solid family ties. The characteristics, ironically, whose absence drives people to a life of thuggery in the first place.

But I do think there’s a real innocence to Australians racism. I think that because we’ve never had a war in this country, that there’s never been too much political turmoil or good reason to hate other people in Australia, our racism really is the froth on the top of a hate-latte. Soft, fluffy, and of no real weight.*

Here’s a perfect example of it to close.

A few years ago, I came home for a visit. I was watching the cricket one day, it was Australia versus South Africa, and none other than PM Kevin Rudd was in the commentary box. (This is where our priorities lay at the time. Bugger the war, bugger the poor, what we need to discuss is the seagull at silly mid-on). The game was rolling along, when a decision was referred to the third umpire, who was Indian. The third umpire ruled against the Australians, and our Prime Minister just goes…

 “Well, we’ll be reviewing his Visa.”

*I think racism in Australia arises from our lack of national identity. We’re not just straight-talking pie-eating tradies and glamours living carefree by the beach, which is how we are portrayed in the media. The reality is that Australia’s much more complex, much more multi-cultural, much more interesting than that. But because we haven’t yet defined exactly what it means to be Australian in the 21^st century, we define ourselves by what we’re not, rather than what we are. It’s much easier that way. Unless of course you happen to be ‘different’.

PS By the way. I appreciate I’m a white, middle-class male; What would I know about racism?