I too was shocked when an indigenous colleague of mine was stopped by undercover policemen recently on the way to work and questioned in a very accusing manner. She was so upset that she did not have the will to ask to see their badges. They questioned her about where she was going, what she was doing and where she had been the week before. All this happened in George Street, Sydney. It has happened before and many of her indigenous friends have experienced the same treatment. I only wish I had been with her as I would have taken their names and lodged a formal complaint. But then again I am not indigenous so they probably would not have stopped us if we were walking together.

On the face of it, the Alice Springs incident concerning a small group of aboriginal women connected with life saving training was totally unacceptable and shameful.

I say 'on the face of it' because those of us not directly in the know will not be aware of the full story until and unless there is a public enquiry into the matter.

However, this incident is hardly a reason for the author to bring up her own personal problems with 'racisim', real or imagined.

Isolated incidents do not mean there is inbuilt racism in white or black Australians.

And, rather than jumping on the bandwagon, Irene should ask herself – unless she was present when her “indigenous colleague” was questioned by people who might have or might not have been police – whether white people were also stopped and why they were stopped, and whether the colleague really was stopped.

“Many of her indigenous friends have experienced the same treatment”, says Irene. Have they, really? Did they think to ask for ID? Seems to me they would know to do this if they were being hassled by police!

Second hand anecdotes can be very misleading and dangerous, Irene

I don't doubt it's awful to experience such ethnic stereotyping but it's extremely naive to suggest that we shouldn't behave towards people based on our experience of their race or culture.

We have to face facts. Aborigines are staggeringly overrepresented in the ranks of the criminal, the alcoholic, the violent and the panhandling.

This should not be, but it is, and it is understandable that people will shy away from Aborigines as a group., to varying degrees. Making judgements about people based on their race is ingrained in our DNA. Evolution has favoured it because it helped us make quick decisions about who was friend or foe in times when such decisions were life and death ones (and still are in some cases).

Most of the solution lies in improving the lot of Aborigines not misguided attempts to stamp out a survival mechanism developed over millenia.

Yeah, well Mr Right - guess what, I think on the basis of your automatic distrust of an Indigenous person's account of discriminatory behaviour by police - and your scepticism about the well-reported incident at Alice Springs - you're a prime example of the "insidious underlying racism" against Indigenous people that is still all too prevalent in our society.

Years ago I had a job which entailed encouraging young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people into work and assisting them with finding accommodation in North Queensland. It was virtually impossible to find employers who would give them a start, and my experience with real estate agents was pretty much as Megan Davis describes.

It seems that things haven't changed all that much in Australia's racist underbelly.

What people like our 'Mr Right' do not get is that the perception of Australia as a racist country is growing. It is time white Australians were educated or educated themselves out of ignorance. I have met people who have been put off travelling to the country because "I've met so many racist Australians" so the racism is surely affecting tourism.

Australia still holds muster as a country great at sports but its growing international reputation (in spite of the apology)is firmly promoted by so many travelling Australians: Advance Australia Fair...the perfect haven for white trash red necks.

Unfortunately its true that Australia's credibility is on the decline.

My son asked a female tour guide in Bangkok whether there was any group of tourist who were unpopular."The Australians" she sighed, rolling her eyes "They think the only purpose an Asian woman serves is as a sexual object."

I've met travellers all over the world who state they will never go back to Australia because of the racism they encountered there. Such stories put off many others who had thought about visiting.

Many also claim that Aussies are turning into a nation of wimps who jump at shadows and that restrictions, petty rules and inane regulations made them feel as though they were either in kindergarten or a police state.

Plus, as many frequent fliers know, Australian airports are notorious for the rudeness, almost martial restrictiveness, and unreasonable behaviour of their customs officials.

Its not good. Australia has not exactly been flavour-of-the-month with its nearest nieghbours for some time now, and now this feeling seems to be gathering momentum in other parts of the world.

I agree that Aboriginal people are treated with atttitude and disdain. I have 4 children who always dressed very well and I regularly donated the clothes that they grew out of, as the clothes were of good quality and in top nick, to a person who gave them to needy kids. One day she came over and I told her that I hadn't had time to take out the clothes that were not usable (as they were old and/or broken) she told me not to worry because they give those clothes to the Aboriginal people as they throw the clothes they get in the street. I told her that if sombody gave me their rubbish I would throw it out too. I couldn't believe that they wanted Aboriginal people to appreciate being given somebody's rubbish.

Australia is one of the most peaceful, tolerant and successful countries on Earth. For those people who feel Australia is intolerant then I invite you to move to Zimbabwa, Tibet or some other place in the world where there is real ethnic strife. When I think of horroric racism I think of Rwandwa, of Bosnia, or of the occupied terrorities.

People should reserve judgement when they don't have the full facts. Once after leaving Darwin airport I offered to share a taxi with an Aboriginal women who was on my plane. When she got in the taxi the driver asked her if she had money. She said no but wanted to go to an ATM. He refused her the lift and told her to get out. For us this might seem unfair but if you were the taxi driver and had often taken Aboriginal passengers only to be told at the end of the trip, sorry there's no money in the ATM then you would probably act the same way.

The article itself was counterproductive. I think mainstream Australians are tired of being told they're racist by Aboriginal activists who have personally benefitted enormously by the handouts while remote aboriginals suffer. There have been plenty of remote Aboriginals on TV (Insight program recently) who have said the intervention is working and should be continued. It only urban activists with a chip on their shoulder who continually bleat on about racism because they are the ones losing their long held positions of power.

“What people like our 'Mr Right' do not get is that the perception of Australia as a racist country is growing. I have met people who have been put off travelling to the country because "I've met so many racist Australians…”

Posted by dinkum, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 1:08:17 PM

“Perceptions” are not facts, but it’s small wonder that such beliefs exist when loose lipped Australians, doing down their own country, are always on the lookout for opportunities to smear the country’s reputation for their own devious political needs.
And, just who are these people who have met so many racist Australians? The above poster has chosen the wrong pseudonym in ‘dinkum’ – something he definitely is not.

“My son asked a female tour guide in Bangkok whether there was any group of tourist who were unpopular."The Australians" she sighed, rolling her eyes "They think the only purpose an Asian woman serves is as a sexual object."
Posted by Romany, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 2:36:57 PM

Another Fifth Columnist looking for ammunition against Australia instead of having a holiday. ONE female Thai has a poor attitude to Australians is all we know from this silly comment. Perhaps the Australians didn’t give her a second glance!

“I've met travellers all over the world who state they will never go back to Australia because of the racism they encountered there. Such stories put off many others who had thought about visiting.
Posted by Romany, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 2:36:57 PM”

Here again, who were these people? Why should be believe an unsupported statement?

“Plus, as many frequent fliers know, Australian airports are notorious for the rudeness, almost martial restrictiveness, and unreasonable behaviour of their customs officials.”
Posted by Romany, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 2:36:57 PM
This person has never been overseas, or is too busy looking for reasons to rubbish Australia, if he or she thinks foreign airport personnel are polite.

One half of me is saying I shouldn't even dignify this Mr. Right with an answer, while the other wants to object, for the record, that I do not and never have gone around looking for an excuse to rubbish Australians. What possible purpose would that serve?

The reason I commented is that it hurts me very much to be on the receiving end of comments by people slagging off Australia.

As to "who" all the people are? Well I didn't go around getting signed Affidavits. They are many people from England, Holland, Germany, France,(though, as the French think everyone is inferior perhaps they don't count?) China, Japan etc....whom I've met in countries like England, Thailand, Austria, Hong Kong, China, RSA etc. etc. But then if you think I'm fabricating anyway, I expect you'll think I'm fabricating again. Though the fact that I currently live in China (which is undeniably "overseas") is easily verified.

My son wasn't in Thailand for a little holiday but as part of his job which brings him in contact with people from all over the world. And the reason I quoted only one person was because that particular example, from a tour guide who encountered tourists every day, was particularly pertinent.

But perhaps the people I was referring to were all people who had encountered Mr. Right on his travels? From his comments on the refugee thread that would certainly account for why they took such a dim view. It encapsulates all of the racist intolerance they were talking about.

CJ,

I bet that was the only time in your life that you have ever had contact with aboriginal people. Its people like you who scream racism every five seconds who are part of the problem

I’m from a country town which still has the largest population of Aborigines in Australia. I’ve had aboriginal mates all my life and have had many in my home. In Victoria what I encountered was an awful lot of white guilt and mouthing of platitudes but the same people would run a mile before inviting an aboriginal person into their homes. You can’t even see that your program was no less paternalistic than the current intervention.

Tell me how is it racist to embargo half of remote aborigines welfare payments but not racist to give aborigines more money than other students to study? How is it racist to send medical teams to check on childrens health but not racists to have an Aboriginal Health industry? Either they are both racist or neither are.

In Townsville the itinerant drunks get a lot of attention from the police, whether they are white or black, It just so happens that a significant majority are black. This is even more concerning when you consider that Aborigines make up a very small percentage of the population.

How can it be racist for the police to ask you where you are going and what you have been doing. That’s their job, they do it all day every day. For people like you, the grievence industries self haters, its enough for a minority to say they feel they have been racially targeted. Whether they have or not is beside the point. I remember Gracelyn Smallwood from my community who used to scream racism every time something didn’t go her way.

People like you and the other grievance mongers have introduced, admittedly whilst trying to right the many wrongs which were perpetrated in the past, a situation where victimhood is the first response of any minority member who has to confront a situation they don’t like.

Mr Right I totally agree.

Er, Paul - that job was in Townsville, where I believe it was that you grew up. It was with 'street kids' back in the 1980s and was a community-based program that attempted (and mostly failed) to prevent those kids growing up to be the park people about whom you write.

Incidentally, you give the impression that the majority of Townsville's Indigenous population spends its time drunk in the city's parks, which is untrue. The itinerants who live rough in the parks and shelters comprise only a small proportion of the overall Indigenous population.

I lived for nearly 20 years in Townsville, and it's the most racist place I've ever lived. I used to know Gracelyn Smallwood, and while she may get up the noses of racist whites, she is an effective advocate for Indigenous people in North Queensland.

As it happens I now live in a very small country town in southern Queensland where I'm in contact wuth Aboriginal customers, acquaintances and friends daily. Almost without exception they work, pay rent or own houses like anybody else.

"How can it be racist for the police to ask you where you are going and what you have been doing. "

It certainly is if you single out people to harass on the basis of their skin colour - just as it is to ask people to vacate accommodation simply because they are Aboriginal.

Like many North Queenslanders, Paul, you're deeply racist but you're in denial. In fact, along with Mr Right you're exactly the kind of person that Megan Davis writes about.

Paul.L
Townsville hey?
You think its not racist. Remember Mulrunji and Hurley? What about the young murri bloke that was reversed over by a male (you couldnt call it a man) who got a slap over the wrist for causing a death.

I know not all white people are bad, I have some as friends and they sometimes come to my home, I even have dinner with them and a few of the ones you can trust I even allow to sleep overnight - oooh

I suggest that mr alright and paulllll give it a rest. You folk are dinosaurs that do not promote a good image of Australians.

I see that Paul.L has deserted this thread once he was shown up to be the mendacious racist that he is. Surprise surprise... not.