On racism in Australia

Dr. Charlie Teo, an Australian-born neurosurgeon of Asian descent, recently gave a speech on being Australian. He addressed the common denial of certain politicians, and in fact of a large segment of Australia’s population, that there is in fact a lot of racism in Australia. He pointed out that you cannot believably state that there is no racism in Australian unless you are of Indian or Arab appearance. I would add to that list Asian or African or Indigenous appearance at the very least too. That is because people of these backgrounds, with phenotypically prominent features in their face, skin colour, clothing, etc. are the ones that are often the recipients of the racism that occurs in Australia. But Australians in general aren’t racist, are they? Australians in general think they can make “non-racist” racist remarks by prefacing a racist statement by the words “I’m not being racist, but…” then following that up with an overgeneralisation or stereotype about a cultural group of people. It is such a common phrase in Australian parlance, really, but the preface doesn’t exonerate the content of the message.

The population of El Salvador is said to be over 99% ‘mestizo’, that is to say there are less than 1% “indigenous” Salvadorians or Mayan and/or pipils. Who in El Salvador does this matter to? No one! Because almost completely the people of El Salvador consider themselves Salvadorians rather than part Mayan with part Spanish ancestry – yet all of us, in varying proportions, are exactly that. You see it in the skin colour and physical features of the people. In terms of identity and culture, however, they call themselves Salvadorians only. Isn’t that a better method?... And yet maybe it isn’t about one method being better or another being worse, but perhaps it’s a cultural thing to think this way.

I remember when I was in Peru for the first time with some Australian-born girls and they were surprised by the way people describe each other in Latin American countries: skin colour, stature, hair colour, eye colours, nose length, personality, and other physical features – mostly in that exact same order! We were often trying to find people within a local hospital we were undertaking a medical school elective in. The oncologist was the white, tall guy, a bit chubby, with black hair, brown eyes, big nose, and was such a lovely man. The gynaecologist was the dark, short guy, who was overweight, had black hair and eyes, and was an arrogant prick. Found these guys in no time with those descriptions! Maybe our culture hasn’t been too marred by “political-correctness” and that’s why we can communicate so freely, but what else is the point of communicating if not to get a clear message across? I don’t know.

A few months ago I attended an indigenous culture awareness course, of which I’ve written about before. Before us non-Australian-indigenous folk was a man of Australian Aboriginal descent teaching us things about the differences between certain aspects of indigenous and non-indigenous culture. One of the rules of the course was that there were no “stupid” or “offensive” questions; all discussion and questions were allowed. As tends to happen in these kind of conversations, people soon start talking about “them” and “us”. The speaker at the front kept speaking about “us”, so a student of the course asked him a question: does he consider himself Australian at all? The question was based on the fact that we all, the speaker included, were living in Australia and sharing the experience of what living in Australia is. The speaker answered, “I consider myself an Aboriginal man”. Well, yes, but did he identify as both Australian and as an Australian-Aboriginal? The speaker laughed mockingly and said, “There is no Australian culture! What is Australian culture? Eating sausages and drinking beer?” There was an all-round “Ooh!” heard from around the room… I guess no-one likes to be stereotyped.

Is racism rife in Australia? Probably. Is this surprising? No; why should it be? Because suddenly it’s no longer acceptable to acknowledge flaws of the past (or present). What this reminds me of is of certain oppressive governments that seek to rewrite the history books that retell of their defeats or of their gross inhumane mistreatment of masses of people. If those histories or those actions are so reprehensible, then the wisest thing may not be to deny its existence, but to admit it and accept it as a challenge, to set it as the target away from which we must aim our future. If we are lucky enough not be part of a minority group, then what we can do is to personally not discriminate minority groups. But if we are part of a minority group, we must recognise also that this does not entitle us to be racist in return to “the oppressor”. We may not be able to change Australia, a whole country, but if we each make a commitment to change…