Thank you for publishing this very thoughtful and useful article. Let's hope some of the habitual OLO commenters with entrenched views about race read it carefully before they pick up their drums and begin their tribal chants to re-display their prejudices. It is high time that most of them re-considered their positions, and dropped their campaigns in support of their simplistic beliefs about race, history and religion. This author shows us the value of thinking as against resort to prejudice, cliches and slogans.

One of the better articles about race relations on OLO. Thank you.

Your very astute observation and comments about constantly being reminded about racial differences rather than our similarities rings true. It is counterproductive. One example is the response to threats of banning items of women's clothing, all it does is get people's noses out of joint and encourages the wearing of scarves/burkas just to make a statement, many of the women having already decided not to don the 'offending' robes prior to the perceived slight on their religion or culture. I reckon cultures and ethnic groups eventually work these things out for themselves especially in later generations.

The article reminded me of the Michael Jackson impersonation discussions. One of the anomalies of race relations is the fact that it is considered racist to mimic a darker skinned person even in good faith. This protective attitude could be construed as racist in essence because it is implying darker skinned people are 'lesser' and thus cannot be mimicked even in humour. The out of proportion response to the Red Faces skit and more recently the mimicking of your favourite footballer (much to the footballer's own delight) was deemed racist or at best 'unwise'.

There is no similar backlash to mimicking of white celebrities or white races and many such as the Irish often take the mickey out of themselves.

Perhaps the true test of tolerance will be when there is no longer any outrage after one of these humourous episodes, when all manner of races and ethnicities can be mocked equally. A sign of real acceptance in Australia's egalitarian, secular and still slightly larrikin culture.

Australia's egalitarian, secular and still slightly larrikin culture.
pelican,
you're showing your age now, I recall it being like this about 40 years ago, before this great attribute was hijacked by the loony left & its supporters.

Until the majority of the population can swipe aside the blinds & look straight through the feigning indignation crowd we'll have to put up with the nonsense. Open your eyes & mind to reality rather than reality Tv & all will get better.

Tanveer,The elites use racial differences to keep us confused and divided while they rip us off via Wall St scams and creating our increases growth and inflation as debt.

The boat people scare is a just a distraction.Far more illegals arrive here on a plane with a passport.The real issue is the theft of our wealth via this debt based monetary creation system.New money to equal our productivity + inflation should not be expressed as debt.This means that the more growth we have,the more debt we incur.This is why there are riots all around the planet.See 'Secret of Oz' by Bill Still.

Perhaps using the historical issues of colour and ethnic difference as a basis for invoking exceptional consideration is being replaced.
Perhaps the new delineation is wealth.
Health care, education and housing are now joined by access to healthy food and clean water as items whose cost separate us.
This is world-wide. Ethnic differences might be noticeable in countries like England and Australia, but the poor in China's urban slums are Chinese, and in Africa are Africans.
Religion plays an increasing divisive role. Islam gets more bad press than Judaism, but the difference between their fundamentalists is hard to pick. Christianity has its intolerant evangelists, and militant Hindus are not unknown.
I think we are all scared of an increasingly uncertain future so we try to band together, to form tribes. These can cut across skin lines, and even across creeds, much easier than across divides in wealth.
Perhaps within both the haves and the have-nots, it matters less what you look like, or even what you believe, than whether or not you are a have or a have-not.