Australia may not be any more racist than other similar societies, but there are plenty of racists here, as the bulk of comments in this discussion demonstrate. New elected WA MP Ken Wyatt would undoubtedly agree, given the hate mail he's received since being elected.

Is Australia racist? Probably no more so than any other former European colony that was founded on invasion, expropriation and extermination.

Are there still significant numbers of unreconstructed racists in Australia? Well, der!

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recently declared that racial discrimination is "embedded" in the Australian way of life.

Our Constitution has no entrenched protection against racial discrimination.

The Racial Discrimination Act was suspended by Howard, and remains suspended, in order to continue the NT intervention.

Would we care if acts preventing discrimination against disabled people, women, various religions, were suspended in order to carry out a government "intervention?" Yes, we'd probably be outraged.

Racism isn't something "natural." It's constructed.

Pelican,

I heartily endorse your post of Tuesday, 31 August 2010 12:18:47 AM.

To paraphrase Kipling:

They little of Australia know who only Australia know.

Compared to most of the world Australia is a haven of racial, ethnic and religious tolerance.

Could we do better?

We can always do better. But that's a truism that applies everywhere at all times.

But, taken as a whole, WARTS AND ALL, we do pretty well.

Here is a review of a book by German Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin:

'German banker comments raise concerns about new 'intellectual racism'

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0830/German-banker-comments-raise-concerns-about-new-intellectual-racism

[quote]
The book critiques immigration policy in Germany, a hot topic around Europe, and makes genetic arguments about intelligence linked to ethnicity, suggesting that immigrants are not as gifted as Germans and that the country is losing its identity, becoming “smaller and stupider.”
[/quote]

[quote]
The controversy comes amid a gradual mainstreaming of anti-Islamic feeling in Europe, including inflammatory depictions and often exaggerated projections about a continent on the verge of becoming a “Eurabia,” as the genre is often called, say analysts.
[/quote]

[quote]
Last fall Sarrazin said the birthrate of Muslims threatened Germany’s future and that he wished that it was “Eastern European Jews” that were reproducing quickly since “their IQs are 15 percent higher than that of the German people."
[/quote]

[quote]
Yet a distance between official and popular sentiments in Germany were affirmed by such editorials in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten yesterday, suggesting Sarrazin “is only getting so much attention because he is saying what many people feel and experience every day.”
[/quote]

[quote]
The pending book kicked up a firestorm last week as portions of it were serialized in newspapers, with passages such as this one: "I do not want the land of my grandchildren and great grandchildren to be predominantly Muslim, where Turkish and Arabic are spoken in broad sections of the country, where women wear a headscarf and where the daily rhythm of life is determined by the call of the muezzins."
[/quote]

Don't forget CJ that some of Wyatt's hates mail come from his own people because they despise the party that has given him the opportunity. That's an inconvenient truth for those unwilling to look at the plank in their own eye.

CJ
The hate mail received by Ken Wyatt was appalling and the knowledge that most Australians have not sent him hate mail provides little comfort. As a white women I know what it is like to be at the receiving end of cultural prejudice. Racism is not owned by white people and exists with much greater impact elsewhere. I think we are pretty lucky even if we are not perfect.

Defending Australia on the racial front is in no way excusing racial attitudes and behaviours merely pointing out that we have to get this in perspective.

My concern is that the more we talk about how racist white Australians the easier it is to ignore inter and intra cultural tensions, that due to political correctness are never addressed.

Other than the obvious skin heads/Ku Klux Clan types, the strongest hatreds are often between people of the same ethnic background but of different religious sects or regional hatreds borne of a long history of civil unrest.

Real acts of racism are diminished in Australia because we are too ready to wield the 'racist' stick instead of getting on with discussing why there are tensions, where the tensions are and what we can do about them. It is not productive to pretend that cultural differences do not cause tensions in some situations. Most of the time our multi-cultural society potters along rather well. Australia has been here before and tensions diminish once second and third generation children are integrated these problems will reduce. It is difficult to create a monster out of people you go to school with, eat with and work with.