Im not sure what the definition of minority is on public spaces and public transport, not when the majority of the people who take public transport and fill these public spaces are these ethnic 'minorities', ie Indians and Chinese, they'll take the buses and trains

And the light rail they're going to put in to sydney, its going to flooded with chinese and indians

Joyful hey? White Australians arent going to use the bus or train, TBH building it is totally perfunctory

The term " Racist" has lost all meaning in todays society.

If someone said " I dont like black people, or I dont like Indians" who cares, We dont all have to like each other.

Jesus wept, it has not lost meaning when you use that as an example. what you have quoted is a clear example of racism. People who don't like basic discrimination in society, let alone full blown racists and bigots, will care and say it is unacceptable in 2015 to dislike someone because of the colour of their skin.

I said that it has lost all meaning because of the frequency of its use.

And again, why does everyone have to like each other?

Growing up in Dubbo and Walgett... then moving to Ocean Grove outside of Geelong in my teens. Wow... i grew up in some rough racist places... and i was a minority in walgett! But unintentional, super crazy pc and unintentional racism is astounding here. Geelong has a large population of people of Croatian descent and I've had the priveledge of working with/playing football against and be friends with but they single handedly the most racist people i have ever come across. And that says alot! But this area including melbourne is so isolated from aboriginal affairs its not funny. It feels like a different country.

You don't have to like everyone but if you're doing it because of the colour of their skin then that's just pathetic.

Yep, my background is Sicilian and the North/South divide is very real. There's an expression in the north which essentially means "Africa begins at Rome." As you say this obviously isn't true of all northerners, but there are definitely some who see the South as essentially a different country. Equally, I think many southern Italians and Sicilians have something of an inferiority complex.

In fact, in 1990 when Maradona's Argentina played Italy in the World Cup Semifinal in Napoli, a lot of the the Neapolitan locals supported Argentina (and favourite son Diego) against the Italians.

Edited by JP: 5/10/2015 01:48:49 AM

It's fine to go about disliking people on the basis of race

... if you're trying to be a caricature like Alan Partridge, Basil Fawlty or the Major from Fawlty Towers

Kind of right, actually...

Look at the train, white people refuse to ride on it (they would rather refinance their homes to get a new car than ride on a bus and train) because they know indians and chinese are on it

How is FNQ racist. Unless the indigenous and islanders up there are sick of us crackers going up there...

hhhhhhhhhwat

Only indians and middle easters work in seven 11s, they have no idea what the minimum wage is.
The average wage in Australia is $70k a year :-k

Lay off the drugs.

The Italian one is quite interesting because it is so tied in with their history and relatively late unification as a country.

There is definitely a racist element in particular within the "ultra" culture - clubs like Hellas Verona for example. Having said that the clubs themselves have tried to crack down on it.

The most infamous example was when Napoli won their first scudetto - I believe their next match after winning the title was in Verona, and the ultras there unveiled a massive banner stating something like: "Welcome Napoli - champions of North Africa".

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In terms of racism, I think as a general rule, racist attitudes are more prominent the LESS multicultural a place is. Fear of the "other" is easier to maintain if you only see these people rarely.

I would also say generally that, as a country built on immigration, Australia is very tolerant of people compared with countries that do not have a history of immigrants entering their country.

In Europe - there are parties that have openly far-right, racist agendas and actually trade on that. Not to mention many parties on the far left too. Whereas in Australia, there are very few people that have obtained political support on an openly racist agenda. What I mean by this is that (using Pauline Hanson as an example) the racist parties here claim that they are not racist, and quite often don't actually believe they are racist. Of course they are... But this is different from campaigning on an openly racist, neo-fascist platform.

Where Australia is noticeably different is in casual racism - whilst we don't have as many hardcore racist politicians and organised groups as in Europe for example, within what I would term "polite society" - casually racist and ignorant attitudes are a lot more common here than in Europe and the USA.

I think there are a lot of reasons for this - we are in general more casual and open in our attitude and communication here, so more likely to be comfortable saying something "politically incorrect", compared with the USA we don't have the huge sensitivity issue between black & white America. We are generally a bit ignorant of "racial" and "ethnic" issues due to our physical isolation, which means people are generally not conscious of sensitivities of others.

So I think it is good that we have less deeply ingrained racism here, but I do think we have a lot of superficial casually racist commentary, mainly driven by ignorance.

This is just my 2-cents based on what I have observed here and overseas, and speaking to people who are immigrants here.

In Sydney i think there is a spectrum.

Outer Suburbs - Most racist
Inner Suburbs - Most condescending

It really bugs me when I hear people say "Australia is a racist country"

yeah just like every other one on this planet.

This.

People talking shit.

-PB

In a place with multiculturalism/ people of different races, of course there will be racism.

anyway doesnt this all just subscribe to social darwinism and eugenics? Im being condescending arent i?

Perhaps you need to check your privilege.

You mis-read me - I said racism increases the LESS multicultural a place is.

Places that are actually actively multicultural have less problems with racism in my observations. Completely subjective I know - but that is my 2 cents.

Its much easier to demonise and fear ethnicities when you don't interact with them very much.

For example - A few Japanese people I have met are actually quite racist, and are openly so. My theory is that theirs is a very monocultural society so they don't have the same normalisation of multiculturalism that we do.

In terms of weird stories - during the 2006 World Cup, I was following Australia and Italy. After Australia got knocked out, as everyone knows Italy became the object of hatred for everyone except Italian supporters.

So in the lead up to the Italy v France final, everyone was going for France.

We had a Japanese employee - total stereotype of a sweet, quiet, polite and petite Japanese woman. We were all sitting in the lunch room and I was getting ribbed for supporting Italy.

All of a sudden she pipes up that she was supporting Italy as well, instead of France. I asked her why, and her reply was:

"Italy is the only team with people from their own country, France is full of blacks..." The room went silent. I did not know whether to laugh or choke on my sandwich!

Edited by AzzaMarch: 5/10/2015 02:18:34 PM

Hence why all the places I've mentioned are highly racist, its just that they dont realise it and dont realise there own racism.

How many of those places have you actually lived in?

Massive level of racism in Bankstown and Auburn. I remember a few years ago the gangs from that part of Sydney used to go to the beach and harass all the white people there, especially the girls, because a couple of teenage chicks were easy targets for a group of 10+ males who travel in packs. I remember they beat the shit out of a 16 year old lifeguard too for trying to protect a bunch of teenage girls from them and put him in hospital......



In all seriousness though, racism and xenophobia are human problems that will rear their head whereever their are people. There is unbelievable amounts of unrepentant, undisguised racism in other cultures. Ask any Chinese person what they think about Vietnamese, someone from HK what they think about mainlanders, or ask someone from India how minorities get treated there or anyone from the Middle East about anything at all. Plenty of racism in Australia but there are other places where the difference can be life or death.

I worked in Hong Kong for two years and know many people still there and people from there in Sydney. Over the last 18 years since the handover there has been a massive influx from the mainland, increasing the population by 1/3. A lot of people would not say that it is a racist tension because they are ethnically and linguistically the same, but there are decidedly different cultures. The response of HKers to mainlanders has been IDENTICAL to the anti-immigration sentiment in Australia, including the sentiment against HKers. Comments like "go back to your own country", "they're so rude, pushy and noisy when their in public", "their only here for the economy, they have no intention to integrate", "they don't understand how we do things here".

The most ironic of all is seeing HK migrants to Australia abuse mainland migrants to HK on social media. When I have called them out on it the answer has been "it's different".

Travelling for work in the region, I have witnessed enormous racism toward each other among Asian cultures. On a personal level I have witnessed Korean migrant parents threaten to cut their off son for going out with someone (my close friend) from Singapore until he broke up with her.

Edited by Aljay: 5/10/2015 02:59:56 PM

Wait only white people can be racist..... According to mainstream media :d

You're racist by saying that ;)

the feed just did a story about 'whitesplaining'

Thats a person who is white thinks he knows all about the subject

White people are guilty of everything.