Paul,
As one who advocates against the ideology of multiculturalism and the illegal boat arrivals, I have been called most things. Very common is 'racist' and 'Xenophobic'. So I know just a little about it.

Intolerant and even bigoted I may be but it does irk me when people change the meaning of the word 'racist' in attempt to further their argument. I noted that susie used the word muslim in her post. Islam is not a race. Muslims come in all shapes, sizes, ethnic and skin colours. So to be critical of muslims, buddists or Christians is not racist.

To be critical of a persons conduct, a culture or a religion is not racist.

A year or so ago, there was much publicity about Indian students being attacked on trains in Sydney and Melbourne. The students themselves, the police, politicians and the media were quite happy for it to be called 'racist attacks' with anglo Aussies as the culprits. This even extended to the Indian media which gave Australia a bad name there and the parties mentioned above were happy to let this be. Later it was revealed that the attackers were gangs of Lebs in Sydney and gangs of Africans in Melbourne. Even so it still was not racist attacks because the motives were robbery, as the Indian students were easy targets. My opinion of the Indian student spokesmen, the police went down because they knew who the attackers were, but did not say and the politicians and media were happy to see Anglo Aussies wrongly get the blame. With such spineless politicians it is little wonder our laws are not enforced to protect girls from FGM, underage and forced marriages.

I advocate stopping further immigration of those groups that, because of their culture, cannot or will not integrate and have demonstrated this to us. Some of these have been here for 3 generations and still practice alien ways to our societies standards. Selective immigration on cultural grounds is not racism.

There should be penalties for those that wrongly cry or claim racism.

Dear Banjo,

I think you are a racist but I also think it is worth exploring the word, its definitions, and whether it can justifiably be applied to you.

Perhaps we can start with an easy one.

You happily assume the mantle of a bigot.

Bigot : a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person; especially : a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group (such as a racial or religious group).
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bigot

And I think the rest of us is comfortable with that being a fitting definition of you. But as you can see it potentially encompasses racial and religious groups.

Racist : The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/racism

You wrote;

“So to be critical of muslims, buddists or Christians is not racist.” Yet you neglected to include Jews. Why?

“The Nazis defined Jewishness in part genetically, but did not always use formal genetic tests or physiognomic features to determine one's status (although the Nazis talked a lot about physiognomy as a racial characteristic). In practice records on the religious affiliation(s) of one's grandparents were often the deciding factor (mostly christening records and membership registers of Jewish congregations)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischling

There is a strong case to be made that the Nazis were bigots first and foremost and used race as a convenient vehicle to further religious and cultural aims, much like you do here.

Why should we consider you that much different?

Paul,
while you are busy reading much more into what a poly said on Q&A there has been and still is real racism going on.

Hasbeen's son was attack by a gang of lebs, that is racism.

An Islander girl was gang raped by Africans, that is racism.

These people, and many others, were attacked because of their race.

Remember the leb rapists at Bankstown, they were racist. The police recorded 60 gang rapes at the time and they did not catch them all.
Leb gang anti social action is well known.
African gang violence is known to occur in Melbourne and Sydney.

The Croats and Serbs have been fighting over some incident centuries ago and still do. Iraqis had violent confrontations in Auburn. Sri Lankans have been getting into it in Melbourne and Sydney, including acid attack. Lately there is violence between Sunni and Shia muslims, over Syria. These are example of ethnic violence. Much more to be concerned about than what changes the government may make to the Act.

last week on ABC Q&A a woman called a journalist a racist and many other things. she has now apologised privately and will be interesting to see if the ABC apologises on air. Maybe to save a law suit they will.

Plenty of active racism for you to chase up Paul.

Steele,
you said, "You wrote;

“So to be critical of muslims, buddists or Christians is not racist.” Yet you neglected to include Jews. Why?"
I didn't mention Hindus or other religions either, don't tell me!Because I did not mention Jews, you have me earmarked as a Nazi. Well that is a new one.

My dictionary states a bigot is an intolerant person. I guess that is right as I am intolerant of those who demonstrate contempt for our laws and social standards. Those groups that practice FGM, for example. Those hoons who just went down my street, squealing tyres and high revs, not tolerant there either. I would come down hard on both above groups.

Funny, I seldom think of race, but I do know of quite a few alien cultural practices. No we have been multi-racial since the first fleet.

Having a cohesive community should be a priority of government. The introduction of multiculturalism has made us into a nation of separate tribes. 'Unity in diversity' is a huge misnomer. Unless we wake up soon we will have all the same social problems as UK and Europe. Pity that

Another definition of racism is when indigenous defend one of their own no matter what he did. Of course others do that also but at least their majority condemns the deed & not defend the perpetrator on grounds of race.

"Hasbeen's son was attack by a gang of lebs, that is racism." Banjo, if the attack was racially motivated, then the perpetrators are raciest, and also guilty of a criminal act. If you extrapolate from the facts of the attack, and even if the perpetrators had admitted the attack was racially motivated, that ALL Lebanese people condoned the attack because that is a racial trait of ALL Lebanese people, then you would be guilty of racial vilification. Without evidence you would have stigmatised ALL Lebanese as having a certain negative characteristic due to their ethnicity and for no other reason.
I took it that Brandis wants to cave in to the extreme right on this issue, giving legitimacy to racial vilification under the guise of free speech.
I have read all the posts here, and to the 'Usual Suspects' your references to singular examples of bad behavior by minority members of some racial groups is irrelevant to the debate on racial vilification. I listened to Charlton Heston, I don't have a problem with what Mr Heston said. His speech is full of personal justification, "I served in World War II", "I'm a Native American, for God's sake.", but that is his prerogative to help justify himself. Heston goes on giving a couple examples of 'political correctness' gone mad, can't disagree with that. A good part of his speech is an attack on Time/Warner for profiting from some crud named Ice-T. From what Heston said, I think any reasonable person would feel the same about that.
con't