Looks like one, smells like one....talks like one..

"Is culturalist a word?? It would be a better fit."

I think the word you're looking for is 'prejudiced'. But hating the Irish still fits most appropriately into 'racist', because it is hating the country of origin, not culture. You said he would have a problem with people of Irish descent - this would include people who may not exhibit any distinct cultural differences.

Your issue with struggling to understand strong accents is perfectly reasonable (I find it frustrating too), so long as you understand that its part of life - we live in a world that speaks more than one language. Not much that can be done to change it.

ANOTHER POINT TO MULTI-CULTURALISM... (not) Serb/Croat riots at the tennis.

Makes you ask "I thought they were 'Australians'"?

Hearing the back and forth of "They said.. He did, but they did" as each seeks to find moral justification for their own racist hatred of the others is sad.

This morning while on the tram going to spend some time with government officers in Melbourne, I was chatting to an Indian, who said "I've never experienced any racist Australians" then..at the Tram stop, I was chatting with a New Zealand Journalist on his way to cover 'round 2' of the Croat/Serb racist mini war, said "There are few countries as racist as Australia"

So, there you go. Pauline Hanson is much less of a 'racist' than people say in my opinion. I'll guarantee she has friends of many ethnicities and Indigenous also. Andrew Fraser is slightly different, as he 'seems' to have views which suggest he believes some races are inherrently superior. Pauline is not on about 'superiority' she is on about 'equality' and treating all the same. Which means.. ALL would be migrants are screened for disease rather than the 63% or so who WERE NOT within 12 months of arriving here.

Emphasizing difference= Serb/Croat Lebanese/Aussie Asian/Aussie Greek/Macedonian Bosnian/Serb Irish/English TROUBLE.

GOVERNMENT POLICY SHOULD REWARD INTER-RACIAL MARRAIGE. No, not because I'm married to a girl from another race. But breaking down racist barriers between Serbs and Croats would be achieved by intermarriage and so on with each group.

ONE NATION, ONE RACE, ONE CULTURE, as we reject racist barriers and embrace constructive Nationalism in its place, and regard people by the content of their hearts rather than the color of their skin or shape of their eyes or their ethnic history.

CJ. the only jackboots will be on the racists like you who seek to maintain division :)

Griffith in New South Wales has been long held up as an example of successful integration of cultures and multiculturalism. From recent news reports it has become a pretty ugly place with cultural clashes and racially based gangs who trash and bash anything and everyone. The entry of Lebanese Muslims to Australia in the 1970’s has been a disaster that we will be paying for forever. Their manipulation of social welfare is legendary and their entry into insurance fraud, drugs and car rebirthing has taken these activities to new heights at our cost. When they walk our streets under black sheets and promote their in your face religion they incite racism.

In answer to the original question, 'Is Australia really a racist country'...if the kind of people who comment on this forum are indicative of the population as a whole (I hold much faith that we aren't), then I think the answer is a resounding yes.

It's amazing. People don't even know they're doing it.

Person A: Is Australia racist?
Person B: Dunno but lebs and muslims blah blah on the streets blah blah fighting and stuff...
Person A: Uhm, thats kind of a racist response.
Person B: You cant call me racist because you disagree with me! Look around and you'll see lebs and serbs and muslims rah rah...
Person A: Doing it again...
Person B: But they ARE fighting and harrassing and blah blah

Incredible. As if Australians are somehow incapable of the behaviour you criticise. Incapable of being that offensive, yet minorities are constantly attacked. Incapable of racist comments, while making sweeping racist generalisations accusing minority groups of that very thing. Incapable of brawls, incapable of murder, warmongering, on and on.

One race. Humans. Some humans are bad. Some humans are good. Some because of the environment in which they were raised. Some just because.

I urge those who are determined to be suspicious of Islam to take a look into human history. See if you can find one event in the history of mankind in which total suspicion and fear of another group yielded a positive result.

Perhaps we can seek to examine why racism (or whatever you want to call it) exists. Is it because people characterise a group based on the behaviour of a few? Apart from what the media brings us (which we can all agree is a bucket of junk), we have only our own experiences to form our opinions. If the only interaction that we have with a "race" of people is bad, then we'll tend to form the opinion that they are all bad. If the interaction is good, then we'll be more generous with our opinions of the whole. Spendocrat, I am by no means trying to justify my grandfathers opinions (he died many years before I was born, so I've no particular emotional attachment other than the fact that he was an ancestor), but I'll come back to his example. In his day, the Irish he lived near WERE very Irish (he was born in the 1880's), so it WAS more of a cultural thing than a descendant thing. The irish settlers in his area had a reputation of drinking too much and working too little. Hence, the last of the irish families that owned any business in the area sold up in the 1960's (and most long before then). He saw this as a weakness, and attributed it to the group as a whole.

Likewise, we see idiots like that mad sheik, and unless we have other experiences to suggest otherwise, we'll see the group as such. This coupled with the fact that we have the human tendency to cling to the familiar, leads to discriminatory attitudes.

I'll propose though, that simply labelling groups by names and nicknames, is not racism as some suggest, unless it is particularly derogatory. Australians have a penchant for labelling - Aussies, kiwis, poms, micks, frogs, huns, yanks, fuzzy-wuzzies, croats, lebs.... none of these names are intended to insult, apart from push a little fun. There are names that ARE intended to insult, but I'm sure that we all have a fair idea of what these are, so no need to repeat here.