Thread: Australia the most racist country?

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Antartica?

Or even Antarctica!

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Admittedly this is being a tad pedantic, however my point is don't label 20,000,000 as racist because of the actions of a few.

I suspect that some of our "new" Australian brethren might be considered racist.

Originally Posted by p38arover

I suspect that some of our "new" Australian brethren might be considered racist.

I take it that you'd be talking about everyone in Australia that is not an aboriginal.

Anyone whose ancestry does not go back 40,000 years would have to be considered a relatively 'new' Australian..yes?

I beleive that on the whole, Australia is amongst the least racist countries in the world. We don't have many of the conditions that racism seems to thrive in.

From experience, racism is more likely to thrive in countries with homogenous populations, where everyone not native to the country is an obvious outsider, in countries with high unemployment where the established population is competing for jobs with immigrants (this is more likely to occur in low socio economic areas in Australia), or in areas where there's been a long standing history of "bad blood" between two or more nationalities.

Australia is young, multicultural, and on the whole has had very low unenmployment for much of the last decade, so the tolerance for immigrants I find is much greater than most other places I've been. There are still many pockets in Australia where racism is rife. It would exist in lower socio-economic areas where the competition for jobs has existed or still exists and tensions from work were brought home, voiced at the dinner table, and instilled racial hatred in the next generation (and probably others to come).

I've also seen (and experienced) reverse racism, where immigrants from a particular country stick together in a workplace for example, "pushing out" everyone not belonging to their group.

Yes there are instances of both racism and "reverse racism" in Australia, but from my experience, Aussies are on the whole one of the most (if not the most) racially tolerant people in the world.

Originally Posted by BBC

I take it that you'd be talking about everyone in Australia that is not an aboriginal.

Anyone whose ancestry does not go back 40,000 years would have to be considered a relatively 'new' Australian..yes?

Well, for a start, "aboriginal" is an adjective - it should be "aborigine"

Secondly, obviously you know what I meant - I didn't wish to mention any particular ethnic group.

Hmmm... Interesting subject.

While we were traveling Oz a couple of years ago, we did notice quite a bit of racism. Thing is, how do you measure it?? What do you compare it against??

Compare it against the UK and it's very noticeable, however, compare it against Israel & Palestine... It probably wouldn't even register!!

Here in the UK & Europe, integration with other races has been happening slowly(ish) for thousands of years so we've had plenty of time to get used to it. You guys are fairly new to this game as you've only really been at it for a couple of hundred.

The BIG problem you guys have is that the politicians want to find the 'Quick Fix' but frankly there isn't one. I remember vividly, watching a news report while out in Oz, where they were discussing racism. The camera showed a committee room, in Canberra, which was full of white, middle class, civil servants sitting around 'discussing' solutions to the problems... There wasn't a single coloured face in the room.

As long as it continues like that, you'll never make progress.

My 2c

M

Born in a country where the indigenous population was wipe off the map and now based in many cultures I can telling you that the only problem in Oz is the multicultural policy.
People that come to this country should adopt the culture and way of life of Australia and do not try to impose their culture.
That is what brought many problems in Oz and do not exist in Uruguay.
In 40 years in Australia the only bad cases of racisms that I experienced is by people that do not like those who have Christian believe and this people were not Australians

Originally Posted by BBC

I take it that you'd be talking about everyone in Australia that is not an aboriginal.

Anyone whose ancestry does not go back 40,000 years would have to be considered a relatively 'new' Australian..yes?

Well if we go back far enough it's pretty obvious that the group of people we know as our aboriginals wiped out Mungo man - another species of human living in Australia on their arrival.

It's interesting all this stuff?