This video, taken from a segment of “Sky News Australia” that aired in May of this year, can be seen as clear evidence of a problem that exists in contemporary Australia. Racism. Pure racism directed at new, and old, immigrants; or at least those who do not identify as, or do not pass for, white. I could spend an elongated period of time describing why the beliefs held by Drew Fraser are racist, however I believe that a better understanding of them can be gained by simply watching the video itself, as he makes such beliefs painfully obvious (Such views are, in fact, so predominant within this video that you could most likely use them to construct a very successful game of “Racism Bingo”). I shall, instead, focus the majority of my efforts in this post to describe how such problematic views can exist and why they are more common than the majority of us are led to believe.
Australia’s policies on immigration appear to be a very politically fuelled topic as of late and much debate exists for either side of the argument, however few people wish to solve such debates by reinstating what has been known as the White Australia Policy; which is what Mr. Fraser seems to promote, stating that we should “retain” our “ethnic homogeneity”[1] and whiteness. There are many obvious problems with such statements, like the fact that Australia is an immigrant country whose traditional ethnic origins are Aboriginal, however when one examines Fraser’s background the reasons for such beliefs become clear. Firstly it is important to note that Fraser himself is, in fact, not Australian born but an immigrant from America. It is thus easy to assume that his views of the nature of Australia are essentialised and spring from the stereotype of a “white Australia”. I have experienced this stereotype myself as, when I last visited Oregon in 2011, I asked my American-born cousins why they thought America was more ethnically diverse; to which they replied “Because you guys just have the Aboriginals and the white people don’t you?”.
Such negative views of immigration can also can also be seem to have been formed, in accordance with the notion that Australia’s ”ethnic origins”[2] are white, through the belief that ethnic diversity will “weaken” white culture. This is a view which can be seen in a variety of other sources and particularly in Christopher Caldwel’s discussion of Islamic immigration into Europe, who states that "When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident, and strengthened by common doctrines it is generally the former that changes to suit the latter."[3]. It is obvious that scholars, such as Caldwel and Fraser, feel threatened by such “strong” ethnic cultures, and it is easy to perceive how such attitudes could be the cause for racist statements about immigration.
Finally British journalist Helen Lewis once said, in regards to feminism, that "…the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism. That is Lewis’ Law”[4], and I believe that the same law can be applied to issues of racism in contemporary Australia. I have scrolled through all of the comments on this video and was shocked to find that the vast majority of them contain blatantly racist, and extremely conservative, slander that wholeheartedly agrees with what Fraser suggests. I have screenshotted some of the more appalling ones, obvious trigger warning for racism and foul language apply.
From this we can see why racism is such a big problem in our society today. Whilst I would argue that for every blatant racist in our society there are at least 100 people who support multiculturalism, the sheer amount of racial hatred and bigotry evidenced by these comments is far too much for us to permit.
As future teachers it should be our job to educate students about this, to look that juggling elephant square in the eyes and tell it that we are not going to put up with its hate anymore. And I believe that the first step to doing this is to acknowledge how much our country desperately needs to end the ubiquity of such attitudes
[1] “Australian Race Realist Debates Minorities in Parramatta "New White Australia Policy", 2013, video clip, accessed September 22, 2013, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQRyrW1fa2E
[2] “Australian Race Realist Debates Minorities in Parramatta "New White Australia Policy", 2013, video clip, accessed September 22, 2013, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQRyrW1fa2E
[3] Caldwel. cited in Dwight Garner, “A Turning Tide in Europe as Islams Take Ground”, The New York Times, July 29, 2009, accessed September 22, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/books/30garner.html?_r=2&hpw=&pagewanted=all&
[4] Helen Lewis, August 9, 2012 (12:05pm), “Lewis’ Law”, www.twitter.com, https://twitter.com/helenlewis/status/233594800908169217
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