//I agree, it's been a long time since I've heard anybody racially abused.//

Well you're all quite fortunate. It hasn't even been two years since I had a particularly unpleasant bus ride with some pissed-up bogans subjecting the bus driver to all manner of vile, foul-mouthed abuse for the terrible crime of having brown skin. Which apparently is all that some bogans need to abuse people for being 'Muzzies', even though he looked to me a lot more like an Indian and thus more likely to be Hindu.

Why he didn't stop the bus and kick them off is beyond me. In the end, I had to speak up and request that they cease & desist from giving fair-skinned drunkards like myself a bad name.

Yeah, I hear the occasional bit of racial abuse on the train too. It's usually some bogan slagging off at Asians or Indians.

Anecdotal testimony is not evidence of anything, but it seems some here think the issue is now settled - there is no (or an insignificant amount of) racism in Australia. Nice methodology there, people. Y'all should write it up and submit it for review.

For all this talk of racism, and all these conclusions being reached, not once have the different forms of racism even been mentioned. How can we be sure of what it is that is definitely not happening in Australia?

Hi AJ,

I've probably lived a very sheltered life, but I do now recall a young white bloke on the bus, probably high or coming down: jumpy and incoherent, but he did have a verbal go at another passenger.

Another time, a young African bloke was in a similar condition, jumping up from seat to seat, opening the roof vent very loudly, until he was told by the bus driver to quieten down, whereupon he got off, vociferously, at the next stop.

I did write earlier, about other forms of racism besides simple name-calling:

"For example, what might a leftist call an Aboriginal person who is qualified for, and striving to get and keep a mainstream job ? Behind his/her eyes, would he/she be thinking: 'Co----t' ? and devalue that person as Aboriginal (AND as a graduate: double whammy) ? That sort of racism, in the hands of a pig-ignorant bureaucrat, can destroy people, not just their careers. And, with more than forty thousand Indigenous graduates now, overwhelmingly in mainstream fields, I suspect that there is a lot of it around."

Perhaps all Australians are racist in the sense that Noel Pearson means when he talks about the racism of low expectations: in the current (although very limited) attention to 'Closing the Gap', nobody says a word about what the people themselves could and should be doing for themselves. Aboriginal people are as intelligent and able as anyone else, yet their intra-group problems: violence, neglect and/or abuse of children, have to be resolved by the people themselves, not some do-gooder or bureaucrat (but of course take the legal consequences otherwise). Why expect so little from the people ?

Cheers,

Joe

Grant Hackett is a racer.

I was wondering therefore, if it were possible that racism, in all it's forms, is perhaps just another version of bullying, often perpetrated by a group in numbers ? I've been on a walking frame (four wheels) for a couple of years now, and I've noticed whenever I'm in a crowded shopping centre, many people tend not to see you, or if they do, almost push/elbow you aside. Just bad manners or thoughtfulness I guess ? Though on a couple of occasions, and in presence of my wife which made it infinitely worse, I've copped some significant verbal abuse. On one occasion we were on one of those constantly moving 'travelator' (sic) the type that folks can take their Supermarket Shopping Trolleys, and another instance egressing an elevator. Ostensibly because I took up too much room, and I'm relatively slow, all due to my pusher.

Admittedly words only, but uttered together with such malevolence and threats, you begin to wonder. I couldn't defend myself now, even if I had the will. While true, it's not racism, but still it's an indicator of what's happening in our world in these troubled times.

o sung wu,

There are some rough types around and civility and compassion are lost on them.

In some quarters there is rampant dislike and objection to the aged. It is mainly among the 'rule-breakers', the chattering left, who (wrongly) see the aged as representing all of the traditions and values that they themselves despise (but have nothing workable and better to offer in return).

look around this site (OLO) for examples. For instance, posters are regularly being negged as old and therefore not having any opinions of value, or not worth listening to. Age as a term of abuse.

You have noticed? It would be hard not to notice. But then the fools are easily led, slavishly following the negative stereotyping used by politicians for divide and conquer to protect their own exposed rumps for inadequate planning and their preoccupation with abuse of parliamentary privileges instead.