Whilst I'm unhappy in what we've done in the past, I'm disgusted what's been hidden. But glad it's come to light to hopefully allow us to progress as a country.
Whilst we can't fix the past, we can stop hiding the crimes that were done.
While their relationship to their Maori peeps is far from perfect, and not without controversy, it's also clear how embracing that culture has made them a stronger people overall
It's likely harder with so many diverse mobs here, but the point remains just as valid
I have traveled to many countries and I know racism is still everywhere but I have never seen so much racism as I saw in my Australian trip. It was disgusting. And that too in a broad daylight in a sporting event.
Immigrant to Australia at age 11, not by my choice (plus automatic loss of prior citizenship). Totally seconding your observations. It felt like I had landed in the Wild West. I was so shocked by how Australia treated, and still treats, non-Anglos and most especially the Indigenous people.
I was in my early 20s, and I was shocked too, working in a countryside hospital, to hear how people called their black colleague in his back. It was 2005 but to me it felt like the fifties 😵💫.
So am I. We didn't see what we saw and we didn't hear what we heard, Rob. Obviously 😉. Racism and xenophobia 100% never happen here. I never heard people complain about immigrants to me, an immigrant. I definitely never worked at a place where the term "Little Black Sambo" was used.
Yes. It was an isolated place, they didn't know much outside of their area and seemed to have had no idea the rest of the world existed. I was shown how to plug in and turn on a vacuum cleaner. When I come from a country that surpasses Oz in many areas (social justice, technology, appliances) 😄😆🤣.
Same, only I was 19 and very happy to escape Detroit. Even coming from Detroit which had suffered race riots and multiple murders daily, the amount of open racism was shocking and it seemed the further north I went, the worse it became.
And people will tell you over and again, "Oh no, there's no racism in Australia."🤔
Generally white middle/upper class Anglo Australians who don't mix outside their stratum, walk around with their eyes closed and don't consider their own attitudes racist...
Oh yes, I've come across them in the last few years when I started mixing outside my chosen social circle. It was shocking to me that humans could think other humans are less than them. They also don't understand their own privilege.
Jane Elliott did fantastic work first in primary school & later replicating this exercise for adults in workshops. Her workshop videos are also very worth looking up. We showed them to high school students in English class.
and don’t forget the bigotry of insular, small-minded people
though nothing compared to the racism experienced by Indigenous Australians, as a blonde/blue-eyed immigrant with a thick accent in 60s suburban Sydney, my mother was refused service & our house vandalised as they took us for Germans
I actually have German/Italian background so I regularly got Hitler saluted, asked if I liked burning Jews etc. This from people who, as you say, treat the original inhabitants of the place like total shit after their own ancestors genocided them. Astonishing hypocrisy. They probably LOVE Trump.
Comments
Whilst I'm unhappy in what we've done in the past, I'm disgusted what's been hidden. But glad it's come to light to hopefully allow us to progress as a country.
Whilst we can't fix the past, we can stop hiding the crimes that were done.
At the end of the semester, I walked up to my Aboriginal colleague, hugged her and said, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know".
She said many folk have come to her over the years with the same apology.
Criminalise the victim
Those peoples deserve so much better.
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/creative/guilty-of-being-aboriginal/m7gxyo8vr
While their relationship to their Maori peeps is far from perfect, and not without controversy, it's also clear how embracing that culture has made them a stronger people overall
It's likely harder with so many diverse mobs here, but the point remains just as valid
Not that they are the only racists. Just that they dominate Australian society and it's the dominating sociopaths in any society who do this.
Generally white middle/upper class Anglo Australians who don't mix outside their stratum, walk around with their eyes closed and don't consider their own attitudes racist...
She got so much racist backlash, death threats.
https://youtu.be/dLAi78hluFc?si=weqURYsgcMvlQNOs
though nothing compared to the racism experienced by Indigenous Australians, as a blonde/blue-eyed immigrant with a thick accent in 60s suburban Sydney, my mother was refused service & our house vandalised as they took us for Germans
Is that yours.
I haven't got one of those but I was taken from my Mum at birth.