Australia is a democracy.

A democracy recognizes individual rights.
Individual rights means that some folk, a minority, have a democratic right to be racist, like the Mad Mufti.

A democracy is also tolerant. Limits to how far a racist can go in promoting his or her views is regulated by law but provided a racist conducts and exercises his racism within the confines of the law, he is legal entitled to do so.

So “Is Australia Racist”.

Only someone who does not understand the nature of a democracy would bother to ask that question.

Better a question be asked by an educated source than an ignorant one. Racism and ignorance tend to go hand in hand and ultimately merge, to become confused and confusing.

As a nation-state that was founded on the expropriation of Indigenous people from their lands, that passed numerous laws directed at Chinese and Aboriginal residents, that denied citizenship to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, that enacted the White Australia policy etc etc etc, Australia certainly has had a history of explicit and institutionalised racism for much of its existence.

However, since the 1960s Australia and its constituent States have progressively removed virtually all legislative and regulatory instruments that discriminated against people on 'racial' grounds, so I don't think that it's accurate to say that Australia is a racist country today, at least on Leigh's definition.

On the other hand, there are still an awful lot of racist sentiments harboured and expressed by individual Australians - you can read plenty of them in this very forum. Whether or not the proportion of Australians who hold such views is greater than in other countries is a moot point. I'm not aware of any reliable statistics that might elucidate this, however it is obvious that certain politicians rely on a substantial vote from this sector of the electorate when they engage in tactical racist 'dog-whistling' to stay in, or seek, power.

Australia is therefore not a racist country (any more), but I think that a large proportion of the Australian population still harbours racist sentiments. These racist sentiments usually remain latent, until for example, a riot occurs on a Sydney beach, or the Federal government wants to resettle a few Sudanese families into a provincial city.

I suspect that a lot of people see the symptoms of a desire not to be imposed on by those with different cultural values and mistake it for racism.

The term gets misused to describe adverse reactions to groups where race is not the defining characteristic (the anti muslim brigade mostly don't seem to care what race a muslim is, it's their beliefs and the suspected impact on australia of those beliefs that they are frightened of). In other cases race may be more relevant but often the core issue seems to be concern about cultural values rather than skin tone or the shape of a nose.

I favour multiculturalism and think that overall it benefits Australia however that does not mean that we have always got the balance right.

Some are more concerned about where that will lead to than others of us. I tend to think that those who pose a threat are a small enough minority that the mainstream will win out, others disagree. That does not make them racist.

R0bert

Who said Australia isn't a Democracy?

The UK is also a Democracy,but does it have the reputation for being a racist country even though theres some racism there?*

No "country" is racist or non-racist. Some of the inhabitants of a country might be racist or non-racist. Some people in any country will object to people of different races coming to their country. Perfectly natural, and not racist in the true meaning of the word.

The fact that we have had so many people of different races coming to Australia in so short a time has naturally caused disquiet among Australians, just as it has in all nationalities taking in different people, willingly or unwillingly.

Many of the newcomers to Australia have show their own racism towards the host culture, and it is often forgotten that Australian lack of so-called racism is the reason we have a non-discriminatory immmigration policy that has seen people from every part of the world settle here in safety.

Much of the accusatlon of racism derives from another misunderstanding - the real meaning of multiculturalism and the difference between multiculturalism and multiracialism.

The worst cases of racism in Australia have nothing to do with Australians, but with disparate groups of immigrants who have brought their own racism to Australia - the latest example being the brawl at the tennis in which two ethnic groups clearly demonstrated racism and hatred.

Amel,
Australians are not racists I believe, the thing here is that we are having multiculti BS forced upon us. If they had a referendum tommorow the overwhelming majority would say no more thanks weve had enough. And there should be a referendum on such huge things as trying to engineer our society into some sought of feel good approach to world poverty. Remember Anglo societies are built on the notion of guilt most others are built on shame particularly those from the middele east and Africa. Thus moonbats white guilt compels them to want to save things be it people ,whales or ice caps.

Self preservation is not racism it is what it is, the Balkanisation of a country well then I think we are going to see real racism emerging. For this the blame will land fairly and squarely at the feet of academics, Keating, Hawke and now Howard as well as the moonbats like yourself. You guys are the real racists, your racist against your own.