#racism My theory

My theory is that Australians have always struggled with multiculturalism.
This is hilarious if it were not so serious!.

Let me however trace (inadequately)  my 40+ year experience of living in Australia
We came to live in Australia in 1967. It was MUCH more ethnically diverse than rural NW England.
There had been lots of Italians, Spaniards and Yugoslavs (as they were wrongly termed  then....see flags attached of kingdom break up)
In my High School class there were Anglo-Australians, Maltese, French & Spaniards.
In later years I went out with an Italian, my sister with a Croatian, and we ended up marrying into an Italian family; a Polish, Welsh Family; an early Yorkshire and Australian family; we have not yet married into an indigenous family, nor an African family, or an Asian family.
My daughters mock me (surprise surprise) " "Dad wants us to to marry an indigenous or Asian person". I would be more than happy
I suspect that this is the experience of most 'Australian' families.
My dearest (Welsh) friend was married to a Latvian Gentleman.  I use the term 'gentle' deliberately. He was highly intelligent. He was gentle and respectful.
Anton, I salute you!   As his extraordinary wife died, her faith; his partnership  was outstanding.


I have gone on.

My point is.......all our lives were transformed...when we encountered people who were outside our comfort zone. But
I would suggest
truly enriched

UnAmerican & unAustralian

Today is the anniversary of the day Arthur Miller was convicted of "contempt" of Congress for refusing to 'name names' of supposed Communists
A story from the BBC is here
He was brought (as were many others) before a select Committee called the House unAmerican Activities Committee  (HUAC)because, like many others on both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed in Australia he came to the conclusion that the only way to prevent the re-emergence of Fascism and to defeat social inequality was through Communism. History  proved them wrong in many (but not all) ways.
But the McCarthy witchhunts, so devastatingly allegorised in Miller's play "The Crucible", have passed into perpetuity as one of the least edifying periods of American history. Superceded only in Anglo-Centric societies by the history of slavery and racial discrimination in both the United Kingdom, the Us and Australia
One of the things that I find interesting is the use of the term unAmerican, because we live in a country where the term unAustralian is bandied around.
It is the sort of term that is used when ever people are losing their argument. You then claim that your opponent is unAustralian!
There can be no rational response to this since there is no clarity about what being "Australian" means either.
Most of those who use such terminology would resile from the idea that "being Australian" means that in the first you place you need to be indigenous!
What is perhaps interesting about the BBC article is that HUAC was not formerly disbanded until 1975!

Racial slur

Everyone gets that no one "means" racial comments, and that they "should be put into context".

This week we have seen an iceberg-tip (I would suspect) of comments from three football figures

(see some of the ongoing debate here...Timana Tahu & Andrew Johns & Mal Brown here & here)

When we discount these sort of comments and say (as Brown said) that he apologised 'reservedly', and when other commentators note that such a person has "been a wonderful advocate" as St Kevin Sheedy did, sort of implying that he should therefore be allowed to be as red necked as he liked...we rather miss the point.

It is this discounting that is the problem.

When we say it is OK for some people to behave poorly because at times that they have behaved well we are also saying that the subject of their bad behaviour does not have sufficient importance.

For example:

"No one should make racist marks"...but if you've taught or trained aboriginal people then that's ok.

It is not only this area. We realise too if we were to say

"No one should sexually molest a person under 16"...but if that person is gay, or dresses provocatively, or has 'asked for it' then that's ok

In the end. The "advocates", the "Trainers and the teachers", the "parents", the "tole models"...and so we might go on...are the ones who particularly need to set the example.

Racial attacks

It seems to me that authorities are too ready to jump to the conclusion that current reports of attacks on Indian students "do not appear to be racially motivated". It seems a strange thing to say when it's likely that so-called 'opportunistic' attacks... that is when someone happens to be beaten up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.... are likely to find at least a partial trigger in the peculiarity that we present.

A fat person will be insulted for being fat, a woman will be insulted as a woman and a man as a man, it is not unreasonable to think that the opportunistic bully might use the colour of a person's skin to begin a process of violence. Is this opportunism or racism?

My point made in a previous post is that we should be starting to articulate heavy and direct messages that racism is an unacceptable frame of reference to invoke. Psychologists tell us attitudes are difficult to change, but they can be changed given if we commit the time and the effort.

The trouble is that just pretending that there is not racism, or that it is not the only or even the key element, is too weak an attitude.

Most of us know that it is all too easy to use a person's race to define them in ways that race cannot define...we need to start seeking to change attitudes and articulating this most strongly. Race does not define characteristics like honesty, morality, integrity. These greater human characteristics are not the mere foibles of race.

Racism and Australia

Asserting that attacks against Indians are not racially motivated is an attractive option to authorities for whom this is a difficult (and probably expensive) problem. But most of us suspect it will not just cut the mustard.

I was impressed by the simple analysis of George Negus on television recently (7 p.m. Project). He suggested that in societies such as ours 10 per cent of people are likely to be hard-nosed racists, another 10 per cent are xenophobic (please explain...fearful of foreigners) and that this explains why the Hanson phenomenon represents up to 20-25 per cent of the vote at times when it raises its ugly head. This seemed a pretty accurate statement of affairs.

Surely the time has come to face this head-on with strong educational and advertising initiatives to promote what most of us believe, that is, that racism is hurtful, socially damaging and just plain stupid.

Just as we have seen campaigns against domestic violence recently, we should be actively promoting that racism is not Australian and that tolerance is.

They just don't get it.

I am one (apparently of the few) who thought that the attempt to resurrect "Hey Hey It's Saturday" was a big mistake. It just seemed to me as I looked at it that it was like going back a decade (or more).

I was not surprised in the five minutes I watched of it to see the now-infamous Jackson Jibe.
Half a dozen white guys all 'blacked up' like minstrels taking off the Jackson famil. It reminded us that what might be Ok for six medical students to do in 1989 was not Ok in 2009.

Although the news.com.au machine has been at odds to malign H. Connick Jr (for having blacked up, too, a decade ago) the reality is that we have (PTL) moved on. Connick has moved on. The world has moved on.

This is what is wrong with trying to resurrect HHYIS...we have all moved on!

You're being watched

Local Blackwood Real Estate Agent, Joanne Lemmer, wiull probably be delighted she is the focus of an article in the press today (here), in which her use of a racially offensive joke about President Obama is critcised. It is an old and pathetic joke! Of the cheap shot variety.
Ms Lemmer is well-known in the local community for her outrageous publicity. You either love it or you hate it! Mostly for me it is the latter.

>[By way of clarification Joanne Lemmer has asked that
reference to her full text be made. This can be accessed at the reference she
has given me here http://www.hillsandvalley.com.au/uncut/february09.pdf]

But she is the sort of 'Any publicity.....is good publicity' type of person. When you are talking about how stupid it is you at least are possibly reading her ad rather than ignoring it. As she says in one of her documents:

While they're watching us they're watching you?

The particular issue concerns a joke about black people ...I am not going to repeat it, as I think these days it is inappropriate (always was...but hopefully we are not perpetuating the prejudice of the past ). Some of our politicians (mentioned earlier this week) learnt the hard way for example that you don't joke about people who beat up their spouses!
Ms Lemmer's alleged come back to a reporter was to say (when her disingenuous claims to not risk offence were obviously challenged by the reporter) was to say

"Are you black? Well, when you turn black, you ring up and tell me you're offended."

What nonsense! Admittedly she was probably peeved.
Are only men allowed to critique men, or women women. Can only Indonesians write about East Timor?
Come on Joanne, if you are going to stick your neck out these days you have to be prepared to have it cut off. As some of us have learned this week!

Latent racism

Appertaining to the post below southozbloke makes an interesting comment to which I reply:

My mother once told me that she was very impressed with Dr Hedley Beare, who was for some time I think Director General of Education in the Territory.
Her abiding memory was of him making the observation that "Everyone is racist!"
It is of course so obvious that we almost don't realise it. It was reiterated by my friend AndrewKing, who has very keen insight into such issues

Dulce et decorum est

It's good and appropriate, that sometimes people of colour should be castigated for their racism against whites. (here)
Aahhhh sledging...should we take it seriously?

All that glisters

It's great fun to be able to watch movies galore during the holiday season. We enjoyed National Treasure 2 (albeit an insignificant romp of little artistic, film or literary merit) of far greater significance is The Golden Compass touted to be the next best thing since Lord of the Rings. It has attracted some attention for being 'anti-religious', a criticism I find laughable really.
It is after all a story and a fantasy at that. (But read one prominent review here )
Of course, as such, it presents a different cosmology, and indeed theology. In so far as it addresses the biq questions it is not going to agree with 'orthodoxy' of any sort.
What disturbs me about the round condemnations (the one quoted from the Sydney-Anglican-Machine but there are huge sledge hammers from the Roman Catholic Church doing the rounds also) is that 'authorities' seem to think that good folk have no brain and can't tell what is story and what is theology or philosophy.
They, of course, argue that this stuff is aimed at kids and that they may believe what they dont ought to!
What rubbish! In reality Wind in the Willows has talking animals, Sleeping Beauty has wisked witches...and don't start me about Enid Blyton and latent racism!
If we are going to protect everyone from everything by banning what we think is in some way unacceptable then we do them s disservice.
As a parent, it seems to me that what you want to give to your children is a not a cocoon but the tools to evaluate for themselves what is wrong. So after we saw the Golden Compass we had a bit of a talk about it.
I personally am not afraid of ideas, nor afraid of my children (or others) not agreeing with me. I do not have such an insatiable desire to be infallible, that I cannot bear the slightest eviation from someone's idea of orthodoxy.
If we do not allow people to be marginally wrong, how on earth do we ever explore anything?How can we expand people's consciousness? How can we develop independent thought in anyone?
This actually seems to be what this Movie is about. So let's not be so paranoic!

Falling on your sword

What a good book the present electoral campaign will make in 12 months time!
Chief amongst the observations will be the analysis of how seasoned political players, the PM included, could so badly misjudge electoral intelligence. Evidence for this might be:

• How foolish is it for JH to tell the electorate who the next leader of the parliamentary Liberal will be, breaching all notions of democracy; as if it is some sort of patronage gift!
• The real hubris of out-of-control Liberals in NSW who, in becoming more and more desperate, should finally play the disgusting race-religion card
• The bizarre commentary (equally desperate) of Jackie Kelly that this is a joke.
• The waste of the ante-penultimate day (the day before-the day before) to this side issue
• Pleased to see the absolute disgust of the most senior TV commentator, Laurie Oakes, as he displayed his incredulity at how Kelly could be so stupid!
• Good to see the PM repudiate the trick, but what else could he do.

All in all, it is surely all over bar the shouting!

In the midst of life we seek death

Have we been seduced into a phoney discussion about the death penalty in Australia in  this pre-election insanity?

I always feared that in a period of chaos or unclear decision making, where leaders are more intent on getting re-elected than leading, that we would get some opportunist who would lead us back to the unthinkable position of reintroducing the death penalty.

So here are ten early-morning reasons why the death penalty is wrong

1. What if you get the wrong person?  This is the most obvious and yet most easily overlooked reason. But the stories about this are legendary. Our legal system is not based on certainty it is based on probablility...beyond reasonable doubt. It may be OK in some people's mind to send people to jail when you are 90% sure of their guilt, and accept the risk that in one out of ten cases you may be wrong, at least the innocent can be set free. The dead cannot be brought back to life.
2. It diminishes the State Most of us understand that the State should try to be exemplary, it should respond to our aspirations rather than our fear or anger. This is a difficult enough path to tread at the best of times. We do know that we should be careful and respectful of human life. The State should be at the forefront of that particular aspiration, not the principal player in reaking vengeance. I think that if we look at States that have the death penalty, the US, China...we see that these great nations are not improved but that they are diminished by such poverty of policy.
3. It is playing God.  This is not a particularly religious argument. It is about deciding that in our society that the chief safeguard on human life is the presumption that no one person or institution will act to take away the life of another. Even in the face of guilt, we say that the sanctity of life is such that we do not validate another person's guilt, or the general poor application of the law by doing what that person has done (taking a life). We remove from individuals the presumption that this decision can be made without reference to higher moral authority, and with the inability to be able to certainly discern that with any absolute certainty...ie we do not know that we have the right to do this,  we don't do it. Wherever you get your moral authority from (we call it 'God' in this example) this argument is still cogent
4. It is a poor and selective reading of the Bible. This again may not be particularly religious. It is about the sort of narrow reading of authoritative sources to only back up our case. So we will tire of hearing "An eye for an eye", as Ghandi is oft (mis)quoted as saying "An eye for eye leads to a world of blind people".  The truth is that the appeal to these sorts of external authorities like the Bible is so often the desire to paint in black and white what is clearly in all shades of grey. We could equally well cite "vengeance is mine says the Lord, I  will repay" or "I desire  mercy not sacrifice". Let alone as we begin to unfold that we are not a Judaeo society alone, but that a Judaeo-Christian society is not stuck in the brutal land of the "lex talionis" but is one which seeks 'a more excellent way'. This begs the question that, in Australia at least, there are a myriad of other cultural, religious and moral influences that need to be weighed
5. It confuses the notion of what sentencing and punishment is about Again it is easy to think that we sentence people to punsh them for their crimes, but in a civilised society we also seek to rehabilitate. It is a civilised thing to do to work with those who have wronged even when we are angered by their guilt, and offended by their crimes (indeed particularly when this is so) to seek their rehabilitation. It is a big and presumptuous call to say that anyone is beyond rehabilitation. To often the temptation to do this is this simplistic response to see this as black and white. 
6. It is an expensive option Necessarily the death penalty must be subject to the highest level of appeal. The American system shows that this can be lengthy and expensive.
7. It may actually exacerbate the problem of terrorism rather than ease it For the life of me I cannot see how martyrs are actually deterred by the death penalty
8. It is socially and racially abusive and prejudicial Given the undeniable reality that aboriginal and poor people are over-represented in our prison systems, we must begin with the assumption that these people will also be more in danger of the death penalty than others. It is not that these people are more guilty (a ludicrously simplistic solution) but that there are other social reasons which need to be addressed. To throw the death penalty into this complex mix is to further compound the idea of injustice.
9. It is brutal, not civilised Not all will agree but in a world where Western Judaeo-Christian society so often takes the moral high ground, at some point we must acknowledge that the taking of life is a brutish act. Even if we allow another to deliver the injection, or pull the lever or fire the shot; we are promoting lack of compassion rather than mercy. Indignation, however righteous or not, does not justify such brutishness
10. It simply is not logical. In the end taking another person's life will do nothing. Nothing! to bring back a dead person. It will not ease the pain. It will not make any grieving person feel better. It may actually make matters worse

Colourful comment

It is interesting to note that the newly released citizenship booklet (download here if you want) says "No one should be disadvantaged on the basis of their country of birth, cultural heritage,
political beliefs, language, gender or religious beliefs."
I do not then understand how Minister Andrews can promote this document as a key policy
instrument, and at the same time use national and ethnic origin as the significant
filter against refugees of Sudanese origin. (here)
One thing that really worries me about these sort of defective analyses that say: it is because a person was born here, or there; or it is because they belong to a certain ethnic grouping...is that it is just so unreflective.
I mean a headline in the pathetic Advertiser this morning says...Africans drink and fight, says Andrews.
My immediate reaction is to say: it is not Africans that drink and fight it is young men!
(I don't think this is sexist!) Last year it was Lebanese Australians, and "Shire" Australians who were in a pitched battle on the beaches of Sydney. Last Sunday I watched a little of that ever-glorious West-Side Story...there it was Puerto Ricans, Poles and Italians.
It is pathetic to single out one nationality, when it is more to do with bored young men of any race or nation.
At a time when the UN is saying that Sudan is the refugee community of greatest need we are saying ...but we will not take the problem cases. How pathetic!
How pathetic, too, that the Labor Party agrees with the Coalition about this. There is here no ideology, but rather the craven cowing to a racist electorate that wants these problems to be (pardon the pun) black and white!
I do not want a government that capitulates to such populist nonsense, but one that actually says we will do more than just paint racist solutions to what are complex social issues.
Did the victimistaion of the Jews teach us nothing?