Mate, wheres all your worldly experience?

On what basis do you provide all these assumptions?

Dont try and reverse engineer satire and humour, youll find there is no dark side to it nor dark intentions, we love to laugh at ourselves and others.

Every monority group, ethnic group and type and class of person has a long list of jokes about them. Absolutely everyone.

I know plenty of aussie jokes, queensland jokes and kiwi jokes, country people jokes, the list goes on and noone is spared when it comes to humour.

2 mates come to mind when i think of racist jokes. A mate at uni was lebanese and was one of the funniest blokes ive met, he had more lebo jokes than anyone, and he laughes his guts out at them. See, when your comfortable with who you are in your own skin, you can laugh at things that are meant to be satire. I also went to school with (along with being Koori myself) plenty of Kooris that loved the jokes about aboriginals, and whilst the odd joke may have been in bad taste, you dont feel very targetted when almost every group, minority and the like have a whole bunch of jokes associated with them.

Do irish people get upset that they are stereotyped in jokes as being dumb? no. Do most groups realy get upset and take it personal? lets be honest here, unless they are exremely insecure with themselves jokes are just cheap laughs that 99% of us love.

Was this a uni assignment or something, or a debate where you where forced to be the negative? Why would you bother otherwise? I hope you do more with your time mate, like pull apart some real issues, instead of looking for cheap angles.

Civic Engagement at local levels is a key to developing community safe communities.

The Realist needs to look deeper. We are not talking about the jokes as much as the harm of labels and the way minority groups and citizens who are different, are as you said Ryan;

"stereotyped negatively and excluded on a social level".

This is because;

"Words operate as actions holding influential power over the social conscience".

We will never clean up the violence on the street until we clean up the structural violence.

In this case the violence of government administrations, such as a police force, that minimise people’s issues or concerns through labels and perceptions based on negative stereotyping the profiles of our citizens.

Improving our awareness on these issues is critical if we intend to become an inclusive rather than an exclusive society.

Many people don’t trust the police because of the way they are treated or percieved.

While I respect the work of police, I find they do not engage at a local level with citizens, unless there is a crime… meaning; the police at community levels often lack the research, depth and understanding necessary to profile the complex relationship that culture has in local community affairs.

This breeds apathy and a double faced profile on fear. ie: People are scared of a/the perpetrators and scared of police. They often become Jammed or Trapped between Two Worlds. A Twight-lite Zone.

Worse still, many might feel Powerless and become Disconnected from those who might BE ABLE to assist them solve problems the most.

People are often vitamised because they don't always go to the police.

It also means the police end up working at crisis levels (after a crime has occurred) more often, than with crime prevention itself.

Dam good article Ryan, keep up the good work.

This character would have us believe that racial jokes come only from people who are NOT Middle-Eastern or Australian aboriginal. Nonsense of course: there is abundant stereotyping of Caucasians by middle-easterners and aborigines. And there is a lot of hatred directed against ‘mainstream Australians’ by Middle-Easterners and aborigines.

Natour himself is doing a bit of stereotyping by writing this pathetic, bleating article.

I heard people of ‘Caucasian appearance’ (read white Australians) mentioned several time last night on the news with regard to people the police were looking for in connection with offences.

Get a grip, sonny, and get that huge chip of your shoulder!

This subject is old hat – done to death. No substance to it whatsoever.

While the article may be overstating the case, I do wonder about the usefulness (or otherwise) of those descriptions you see in media reports of various crimes.

For example, when that Sudanese refugee was bashed (and later died) outside a hotel in Parramatta, the report said that the suspects were "some of middle eastern and some of pacific islander appearance". How unhelpful is that? How many people in Sydney answer that description?

And here's an even better one: about 6 months ago a man tried unsuccessfully to assault a couple of young girls in a park in Sydney. The description in the media was of a caucasian man in his thirties or forties wearing an orange t-shirt. Again, how useless is that? There could be half a million people in Sydney who would fit this description if they put on an orange shirt.

So I often wonder whether the media just puts these things in to create the illusion that they are providing useful information, when in fact it is nothing but "filler".

Cheers!

“We only need to consult statistics to find Aboriginal people have unacceptably high incarceration rates when compared to mainstream Australia.”

The only valid test is to compare the “participation rate” to the "incarceration rate". If female pensioners were as reckless and willful as aborigines they would have similar “high incarceration rates”.

However, I bet anything you will find the far fewer a proportion of female pensioners are involved in the execution of felonious acts than aborigines.

As for profiling, it is a cost effective way of managing social risk. Again, why would we expect police to squander their time on a social profile which is inherently known to be comparatively “criminal free”?

I want the police to spend my taxes, prudently. Focusing their attention on apprehending criminals, not apprehending non-criminals.

Beyond that, Realist and Leigh has already answered all that I would wish to say.

Middle Eastern muslim males are not Milquetoasts; try and steal a bit of their footpath and you’ll understand what I mean.

An incident at Auburn where police tried to detain some Middle Eastern males may have shaped the way police respond to encounters with Middle Eastern people. In that incident the males used their mobile phones to call for ‘support’ and before too long a crowd of Middle Eastern people had formed. A muslim lady even turned her garden hose on the police. I wonder why police now call for back-up when dealing with testosterone-charged Middle Eastern males.
Mr El-Masri, adopting the hairy-chested Middle Eastern muslim male demeanor, declined to volunteer a DNA sample during a police investigation a couple of years ago. He became indignant and said that as a good muslim he was in his motel room during the time of the alleged incident. Juxtapose his reaction to the reactions of the males living at Wee Waa, NSW. When a lady was raped in that country town the police asked males to volunteer DNA samples. In the spirit of cooperation the males of the town volunteered and I don't recall any white males of anglo Australian appearance running to the newspaper crying about discrimination. The same cooperation was evident on Norfolk Island. Not so long ago there was a murder on Norfolk Island and police asked for males on Norfolk Island to volunteer DNA samples. Did any white men of anglo Australian appearance run to the media screaming discrimination?

As a muslim (for the next 6 hours) it hurts me to say that as a group muslims with a Middle Eastern background are immiscible with Western culture.

As Mark Twain once said, "Youth is wasted on the young." I can appreciate your youthful zeal - but wake up and smell the roses. Groups within society develop negative idiosyncratic labels because large numbers of people in those groups regularly transgress society's rules. In plain English, the two ethnic groups to which you refer (Aboriginals and Lebanese) have a poor track record of social responsibility in the minds of the general public. Can we generalise about this fact? You bet we can!

The Report of the National Committee on Violence found: “In the area of Aboriginal affairs …it is possible to state with conviction that the level of violence existing in Aboriginal communities is of a scale that dwarfs that in any sector of white Australia…Aboriginal Australians are at least ten times more likely to be the victims of homicide …and overwhelmingly the perpetrators of this violence are Aboriginals…[The numbers of] Aboriginals in prison has been systematically documented – and the rate is up to 23 times that of non-Aboriginal Australians.”

This relates to your politically correct observation that “Aboriginal people have unacceptably high incarceration rates..” What's unacceptable, Ryan? There are more of them in gaol because more of them commit more crimes than the rest of us do.

Pull your nose out of your textbooks and get out there on Sydney's streets on any Friday or Saturday night. It's the Lebanese that supply the cocaine and ecstasy to all the nightclubs; it's the Lebanese who systematically sexually harass women, to the extent that many nightclubs just don't let "Lebo’s" in anymore; it's the Lebanese that bash taxi drivers for picking up passengers waiting on a taxi rank, rather than stopping for the ‘Lebo’ standing in the middle of the roadway.

Talk to any First-Class Sergeant in charge of any police station and you will find their top three problem groups - based on the hard reality that they deal with every day of their working lives – are (1) Lebanese, (2) Aboriginals, and (3) Chinese triads. This is not some politically incorrect labelling, Ryan -- it's reality!

Doc Holliday, you’re funny.

Pull our nose out of your..... and get out there in Sydney’s banks on any Thursday or Friday. It’s the WASPs that get involved in multi-million bogus currency trading scandals at NAB and which systematically bring down Enron, HIH, Arthur Anderson and Barings Bank. It’s the WASPs who bribe Saddam Hussein’s regime with $300 million in wheat kickbacks and then hold whitewash royal commissions to absolve themselves of responsibility. It’s the WASPs who launch wars to find non-existent WMD. It’s the WASPs who <insert hyperbolic generalised ridiculous claim here>.

Talk to any first-class Sergeant in the armed forces and will find the top problem group, based on the hard reality that they deal with every day of their working lives – WASPs keep sending them off to die in pointless wars in Gallipoli, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. This is not some politically incorrect labelling, Doc Holliday – it’s reality!

PS – Doc, if the Lebs are supplying all the illegal drugs to the nightclubs, what is the ethnicity of their customers? Or would it be too politically incorrect of me to ask?

PPS - Doc, don't you think that there might be more to the issues under discussion here than the ethnicity of the perpetrators of these crimes?

PPPS - You can see from my opening paragraphs how ridiculous it is to reduce complex matters to single-issue causes. If you persist in doing so then you are cruelling your own credibility.

Those who claim it is racist to profile, that is describe a person of interest by his/her racial profile have something to hide.
And by using the racist card in my opinion are acting in a racist way.

Is there any evidence that ethnic labelling actually helps the police locate suspects, possible victims or witnesses?

Or is it just one giant assumption?

Yes you are right strayan, I believe it is important to add to the literature by scientifically demonstrating that a physical description including ethnicity, (which entails such irrelevancies as... oh, say skin colour and hair colour) is a useful aid to the visual identification of police suspects.

Perhaps while we were conducting such a study, we could also verify that the sun does rise in the east, ice cream's melting is associated with increased temperature and that precipitation does in fact, increase the chances of one becoming wet in the absence of an umbrella.

This ridiculous PC aversion to statements of fact does no-one any good. Human beings categorise things - that is just the way we are built. It IS possible to separate out a simple physical description from associated assignations of stereotyped racial characteristics. To expect law-enforcement officials to effectively police without letting them use racial generalities of physical appearance as a heuristic, is tantamount to tying both hands behind their back. When a crime has been committed and seconds count, expecting police to fall over themselves in a frenzy of circumlocution in order that no-one be offended is ludicrous. The term 'of middle-eastern appearance' is no more racist that my being described as 'a 6 foot Caucasian male of lean build with short brown hair.'

Back to school for you Ryan..

I have lived all over Sydney, including the greater West and I can tell you that the terms "middle eastern" and "pacific islander" appearance are very useful identifiers in avoiding becoming the victim of crime.

Anybody who has spent a considerable length of time in the west (no, not your trip down the M4 on the way back from the Blue Mountains or your five minute stop in Auburn for a kebab) quickly comes to learn which groups present a likely threat.

If you're walking down the street at night, and you see four males of Tongan extraction coming the other way, you quickly cross the road. Similarly, if a hotted up hatchback with a group of Lebanese-looking chaps with white baseball caps or heads shaved at the sides slows down beside you, you start planning your escape.

You can talk about social theories all you like, until your own safety has been at stake, you have a lopsided view.

One gets the feeling that this incident has more to do with bruised egos than anything else.

The blokes being questioned by police were both high profile persons and maybe their noses were out of joint because they were not recognized for who they were. And they were asked to show identification.

It is easy to play the racist card

Doc Holiday summed it up pretty well.Would Irfan Usef like to explain why many like El-Masri hide behind the veil of racism instead of confronting the real anti social attitudes that eminate from the Muslim community?

The police were in a very high crime area which often threatens their lives.Are we going to police these areas or just go the way of France?El-Masri cannot have it both ways.He cannot be a well paid footballer supported by the riches of our disciplined society and expect the police to treat areas of high crime with kid gloves.

If crime prospers,then El-Masri will become a poorly paid third world football player.Why does he not play sport for money in Lebanon for example?Hazchem is his own worst enemy.

Arjay, gee you really get off on putting the boot into Muslims don't you. r u sure you're not getting a little fixated?

Police officers have a tough job and you know the only thing they ask for on the street? RESPECT.

I heard on the radio someone who "knew one of the police officers" said that Hazem was reaching for his wallet when Houda stopped him. Hazem then watched on in silence as Houda interrogated the officers' motives.

If a police officer asks you for ID, you show respect and give it to him. You don't interrogate him. Houda, being a lawyer, can run rings around a police officers intelligence and probably did. Police often use their intuition and nose. Houda probably belittled the police officers by "putting them on the stand" there and then.

If you disrespect and belittle police officers, then I don't care what tears of victimisation you want to cry. Get over it. Show some respect next time.

Houda and Hazem should get the chip off their shoulders, stop nit picking, and look at the big picture. Just the other week we had Muslim radical Yvonne Ridley over here from the UK for an Islamic conference in Melbourne. She is on record as saying:

"boycott the police and refuse to co-operate with them in any way, shape or form. This goes from asking the community copper for directions to passing the time of day with a beat officer."

Excellent article.

Thanks Ryan

Rainer I am fixated on the greatest threat to our freedoms since WW2.If you think that the chaos and violence in Europe and the Middle East is a normal progression of intelligence then we as an so called smart species are headed for destruction.

Religion is a doubled edged sword.It gives us comfort from a reality that daily lurks on our shoulders and inspires notions of the"chosen people" which create this suspicion and hate .The reality is called survival.Nothing defies this .Only family love and bonds make it palitable.

Arjay has a closer understanding than some here.
This is not a movie, the end is not yet written, goody's do not always win.
Some with hate in their hearts are intent on destroying the whole western world , that is killing or enslaving us all.
While every religion has at one time or another used hate as a tool fueled by fear this time we face far worse.
A section use pages from the middle ages that in all truth are no more likely to be true than any book of any God to ask people to both kill themselves and murder .
It is long past time we faced as one humanity we are in fact in no need of a God.
And have no right to kill any other human being.
I doubt our enemy's, for that is what they are care about humanity at all.
The end of this problem is far away but the pain is just beginning.

If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck and if it looks like a duck;

Then surprise surprise IT IS A DUCK !

Purely being seen as an Indigenous person or Lebanese instantly puts police in the frameset of being aware of what they were trained for in the academy. That is to believe the stereotype, "they will be rude to you and you will not respect them."

It is a vicious cycle of hate.

The case in Queensland (palm island) demonstrates this. Even though evidence shows one thing, the force (police) support their own rather than the justice for the victim.

What hope is there? We must stop looking at each other with colour and state to challenge our own prejudice first. As the majority, white Australians should begin this process as they obviously have trouble accepting the reality of Land Rights, Indigenous rights and ownership.

Why were no rioters in Cronulla arrested for wilful damage to people and property while several Palm Islanders are serving time for the same.