Racism In Australia
It is heartbreaking to hear that one of the most persistent aspects of today’s debate regarding racism in Australia is the refutation of its existence. The social taboo against openly voicing racist beliefs has steered the development of approaches that present the marginal groups’ negative opinions as justified and reasonable. This compels the political efforts in addressing racism and thus reinforcing it. Although many people claim that Racism towards Australian Aboriginals is just a thing of the past, it still exists to date. Basing on complaints received by the Australian Human Rights Commission, it is a fact that racism still exists. It is distressing to hear that the current Aboriginal people share stories of the culturally unsafe systems of racism and lack of understanding and support in Australia. As a resilient nation, I don’t understand why individuals advocate for the existence of a government, society, and a healthy system that is not responsive to the need of its first nation’s people.
Racism refers to the attitudes and beliefs that a certain group of people are superior in relation to other groups that are regarded as inferior. It can be based on cultural background, ethnicity or race. The inferior group are treated differently and unfavorable. Regardless of overcoming racism in the past, it still exists in the modern world. In the past year one in every five people living in Australia have been victims of racial discrimination. This is attributed as an increase based on the previous year’s statistics (Aquino, 2017). It is constantly reinvented in every single generation in all aspects of life including workplaces, in sports, and in schools to add on this, the ruling class have vested interest in taking resources and land from the aboriginal people. In other words, the ruling class are continuously dividing people as they shift the social problem blames to other individuals. An example of this is the Australian capitalists who have continuously profited themselves by underpaying the Aboriginal workers. In some instances the indigenous workers have had their wages withheld indefinitely. In this scenario racism is used to justify paying one group of people less than another. This has therefore played a significant role in promoting racist ideas among workers. Based on McGlade, (2017) race discrimination and racist violence is still a significant problem today in Australia. Irrespective of the progress made to eradicate discrimination, it has continually affected indigenous people rather several Aboriginal lives are belittled by lack of recognition of their right to racial equality.
Indigenous Australians continue to face both institutional and interpersonal racism. According to the research of National data from the challenging racism project that was released in 2011, further information was shed concerning the prevalence of racism. The research found out that Aboriginal Australians were the majority respondents (Dunn et al, 2008). Several of them were barred from land ownership and economic opportunities and this resulted in lower social economic standards. In the past the indigenous Australians had established complex societies across the continent. It is found that they supported themselves economically through agriculture, hunting, and gathering and thus developed a vast sophisticated means of living. What is more is that their economy was able to sustain people with plenty of varied food. They also traded extensively with each other and this benefited all communities in Australia. Unfortunately, the capitalist and the colonial government embarked on a violent mission whereby they relentlessly campaigned to drive away the aboriginal people. Majority of the indigenous Australians died of starvation whereas others were killed. Today, Australians are deceptively taught that the Aboriginal people never utilized their land in the past. This racists Justification are upheld in the mining industry to attack on the legitimacy of the aboriginal communities. What is more is that they are still dealing with the effects of the past government policies and the past laws. This laws policies and laws have caused a lot of problems upon the communities and individuals thus high rate of mental illness as well as family separation.
Education is another factor that has influenced a variety of quality life in Australia. Compared to the non-indigenous counter parts Australia’s Aboriginal have faced the long history of education inequalities. It’s so unfortunate that the very education system that should be used as a tool redress racism it’s the same system used to advocate for inequalities. According to Dunn et al (2008) one among five children experience racism in Australia on daily basis. The utmost common practices are a group of students from superior communities telling other students from the inferior groups that they don’t belong to those Education institutions or the students from the inferior communities being teased and left out in some school activities. Although, a group of kids together now has been formed in schools in order to curb racism in education institutions, racism still continue to manifest in the education system.
The experiences of racism vary considerably depending on particular groups within the cultural communities. According to an article of a research carried out by the Australian Human Rights commissions (2001) it found out that religious minorities and ethnic such as Arabs, Africans, Jews, Turkish and Muslims are the most likely groups to be subjected to racism. The differences in terms of skin colour, cultural religious practices, and dress code increases their chances for racism. Despite the extensive work carried out by the Australian researchers and government organizations to campaign against racism, it has continued to escalate within the country. Indigenous people are still subjected to racism. Racist attitudes towards the aboriginal people have been confirmed as continuing by the self-disclosure of racist attitudes by the non-indigenous Australians.
The old-fashioned racism has been subdued into the current generation as modern world racism. This is due to a number of similarities that both the modern and old fashioned racism share. For instance both types of racism show similarities in terms of expressing animosity towards the inferior community. It seen that in both cases the inferior groups were subjected to discrimination. They were denied rights to enjoy the social and economic advantages from their land. In other scenarios the inferior communities were denied the rights to join the education system of the superior communities. As result, the illiteracy and employment levels increased among the inferior community. Another similarity is that both of them are founded on a belief of cultural superiority. Whereby a certain groups values are upheld against the deemed inferior group. In both cases the beliefs of the inferior communities was the foundation of racial discrimination against the inferior communities. They had been denied rights to expression and involvement in the cultural activities. Additionally, they have showed similarities in terms based on the impact the have to the inferior groups. Both types of racism have had negative implications to the marginalized community. Based on the similarities, it can be argued that modern racism evolved from the old fashioned racism.
Old-fashioned racism differ from the modern racism in various ways. Symbolic racism and modern racism theories best explains the differences between the two. One of the differences between the two is that one is based on an empowered racist whereas the other is a dissatisfied one (Lajevardi, 2018). Majority of the modern day racist always remain silent on their belief until they are justified by the society on the contrary, in the old fashion racism the superior groups were free to express their believes without the fear of being contradicted by the society. Another difference is that the modern racism is founded on negative racial stereotypes which acts as the major ingredients. On the contrary old fashioned racism which is based on social welfare programs.
Consequently, racism is seen to have an adverse effect towards the community that has been subjected to it. It has affected the life expectancy as well as the physical health of individuals. Additionally, it has shuttered the sense of worth as well as their confidence hence limiting their ability to perform in their work places. On another perspective racism locks out individuals from enjoying the opportunities available in their indigenous land. Based on a research carried on the Aboriginal Australian young adults it showed that majority of the adults faced poor mental health, depression, suicide risk as well as high anxiety levels due to exposure to racism (Chiang et al , 2018). Ultimately, racism is denial of human relationship yet to many people it remains unnoticed or unobserved until when violence is involved. Those who do not experience it often fail to comprehend how offensive and bad it can be on people. In general, the damage that racism cause to the society and individuals is immense.
However, we cannot overlook the interventions that have been put in place by the government to stop racism. The Australian government has developed strategies to help implement the national Anti-Racism in Australian. This movement is designed to create public awareness of racism, its effects on individuals and the community at large. Additionally, the movement aims at promoting a clear understanding of what racism is and how it can be prevented to add on that it empowers individuals to seek redress when it occurs. Nevertheless, this strategies have not been adequately implemented to help curb racism in Australia. It is difficult to eradicate the impact of stereotypes and negative images inherited from the past.
Conclusively, racism towards Australian aboriginals still exists to date. Indigenous Australians are still being subjected to racist policies in the country. The ongoing raids by the police are seen to target only the aboriginal communities. The situation of racism is concerning as it continues to be an alarming issue in Australia. Generally, racism has an adverse impact on the development of Australia.
References
Dunn, K., Forrest, J., Ip, D., Babacan, H., Paradise, Y., & Pederson, A. (2008, September). Challenging racism: The anti-racism research project, state-level comparison. In 4Rs Conference: Rights, Reconcilation, Respect, Responsibilty (Vol. 30).
McGlade, H. (2017). The McGlade Case: A Noongar History of Land, Social Justice and Activism. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 43(2), 185-210.
Australian Human Rights Commission. (2001). I want respect and equality: A summary of consultations with civil society on racism in Australia.
Aquino, K. (2017). Racism and resistance among the filipino diaspora: Everyday anti-racism in Australia. Routledge.
Chiang, S. Y., Fenaughty, J., Lucassen, M. F., & Fleming, T. (2019). Navigating double marginalisation: migrant Chinese sexual and gender minority young people’s views on mental health challenges and supports. Culture, health & sexuality, 21(7), 807-821.
Lajevardi, N., & Oskooii, K. A. (2018). Old-fashioned racism, contemporary islamophobia, and the isolation of Muslim Americans in the age of Trump. Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, 3(1), 112-152.