racism
16 Jun 2009
...Surely That's Not Racist?
There is a direct link between the 'harmless' little gag which we often let slide and the appalling racist violence which we quickly condemn, write Suvendrini Perera and Jon Stratton
It was probably a year or two ago that one of us — the one who looks Indian but isn't — heard her first call-centre joke from a fellow academic. Registering that she was somewhat taken aback, the joker protested, "Oh, come on, you know that's not racist. People just get annoyed about all the jobs going to India. Nothing personal." Right. Nothing personal.This colleague's bad joke has come to mind as we have watched the burgeoning catalogue of acts of violence against Indian students on the news: stabbings, bashings, beatings, muggings, burnings.
It's not racist. It's just that they work late at night. It's just that they travel by train. It's just that they have iPods. It's just that they look vulnerable. It's just that they act different — not like the good Indians who are such marvellous contributors to our multicultural society. It's just that they stand out. Right.
The violent attacks on international students in Australia have apparently been happening for a number of years. Commonwealth and state politicians, as well as the media, have sprung to attention recently thanks to a series of increasingly public interventions by the Indian Government. Students from India, however, are by no means the sole targets of the violence nor have the attacks been limited to men. International students from China have been raped. Young Chinese women students in Sydney and Perth were murdered, including the awful case of Jiao Dan who was raped and murdered in Perth in 2007.
A couple of years ago one of us visited the library of another university. In the men's toilet he was astounded to find a large scrawled graffito that read: "I raped an Asian and she loved it." Even more shocking, it was still there when he returned a few days later. He complained to the librarian that, while toilet walls are frequently the site for graffiti of questionable taste, this was completely beyond the bounds of acceptability. The next time he went there, the graffito had been painted over.
How long had it been there? Why had no other man complained about it?
Part of the answer is that racist jokes and comments have become normalised as unremarkable aspects of daily life in Australia. It's "everyday racism", the kind of unthinking racism that is so accepted that we don't consider it racism. It prevents us from seeing the racialised discriminations that happen all the time in Australia. The question is, can it inure us even to the extreme forms of violence that are enacted before our eyes?
This outbreak of violence against international — read Asian — students needs to be placed in a wider landscape that takes in a whole raft of changes to immigration policy that have accompanied the increasing neoliberalisation of Australia. These changes have everything to do with race.
These moves began in the Hawke/Keating era of the early 1990s and gathered momentum during the Howard era, most acutely in the wake of the war on terror. After 9/11, even as border protection became the public preoccupation of Howard's government, other radical changes to the migration program were taking place almost unnoticed. The needs of an economy that demanded "flexible" forms of labour were combined with the frantic pace of "internationalisation" in Australian higher education, as universities whose budgets were slashed in the early years of the Howard regime sought aggressively to recruit fee-paying foreign students to keep themselves in business. Another strand of these same policies was increasingly deregulated tertiary education, bringing private providers like English language colleges and small technology institutes into the mix.
It was openly acknowledged that these educational opportunities provided an alternative means of entry into the migration program. This was their main attraction, as many "colleges" offered no more than a feeble pretext of education. Many universities, it must be said, were hardly more scrupulous. Thus, even as naval patrols and heavy surveillance were trained on the sea borders, other pathways to Australian immigration were opened up. These often depended on operators as amoral as any people smuggler.
Xenophobic and racist emotions like those inflamed against asylum seekers — emotions which were deliberately fostered during the Howard years, and exacerbated by the wider context of the war on terror — are not so easily contained, as is demonstrated by the riots on Cronulla Beach and the renewed racist displays on each subsequent Australia Day. The underreported but increasing violence against international students in the same period is another manifestation of the problem.
Careful differentiation between economically productive and unproductive "others" — between the official welcome extended towards international students who are seen as beneficial to the neoliberal economy and the punitive policies directed at refugees who are seen as liabilities — or between "flexible" forms of mobility as against permanent migration — cannot be sustained within national and geopolitical contexts that continue to be premised on racist imaginaries and on a system of globalised inequality. The "foreign student" and "the refugee" in this sense are two aspects of the same figure.
In the demonstrations of force by foreign students on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney, as in the flexing of muscle by the Indian Government, we see the emergence of challenges to old hierarchies. The raised fists, leather jackets and shaved heads of the students belie the docile, subservient and feminised Orientals of Raj fantasies. Yet old prejudices are not easily despatched. Entrenched perceptions and habits determine how and what we see.
It is this kind of everyday racism that one of the students challenged when he looked into the camera one evening last week and spoke directly to the viewer. "Don't remain seated the next time you see one of us beaten or abused. Don't turn your back. Don't walk away." What this young student asked was that we refuse to tolerate what we have enabled through our everyday racism, the everyday racism that tolerates call-centre jokes and racist, sexually abusive graffiti. And that we begin to see and name the brutal violence before us for what it is.
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Indeed… the joke is just the beginning.
I read about Toowoomba in Queensland where an Indigenous academic was trying to rid a local sport stadium of a sign, in honour of a local sportsman, that read "The ‘Nigger’ Brown Stand".
In fact, there was an ABC TV doco about it not long ago.
The locals in Toowoomba still think that ‘Nigger’ refers to some ancient shoe polish, so it’s ‘OK’.
"It’s not racist" they say "it’s just the name of a shoe polish".
Oh, the simple summer-days of childhood, eh?
No one there who supported/still supports the sign ever seemed capable of working back from the name of the shoe polish to any possible link with a racist overtone.
Still the sign is hankered for, apparently, but the chairman of the sports trust did settle the dispute with the academic, Stephen Hagan, and the sign is down.
Bought down, not ‘brought down’, by the Qld Government’s handsome squillion dollar handout to those racist sports lovers in that redneck centre of Bible-bashing Christians.
Of course, they don’t have a very good record either, even with the ‘lurv’ of Jesus to stand behind.
Oh, and isn’t there still a White Pride group lurking in Toowoomba?
And didn’t the Logos Foundation based there have strong links to the League of Rights when Eric Butler was still pacing the Earth?
Racism, bigotry and ignorance here in Australia goes somewhat deeper than assaulting Indian students… and, sadly, it did not appear quite as recently as the article might suggest.
Quote:
How much more coverage have you given this relatively transient item of graffiti by reporting it on the internet? It’s in Google’s cache forever now.
The graffito required an urgent and decisive response - not a second look a few days later followed by a whinge to the librarian. Although, granted, it is easy to shoot the messenger, when the message is that we are all involved in the politics of race and should recognise this rather than mindlessly and heartlessly participate in it through inaction and acceptance, you’ve got to walk your talk! Moral outrage coupled with a bystander position doesn’t equal leadership, or change.
Seriously Jon and Sevendrini,
Is it not racist of you to present the actions of violent criminals of a nation as driven by the core beliefs of a whole nation?
Now I am even a racist because I live in a country that doesn’t clean off racist graffiti quickly enough. Come off it.
Why don’t you say that we are all violent thugs? I suggest because it is too easily seen as an absurd generalisation. But infer that the acts of unorganised crime are driven by something that is ‘within’ us all, us racism-in-denial Australians, well then that it pushing our buttons. Clever. You’ve got us reading every word through gritted teeth.
What I believe is racist is to suggest we are the same as the criminals whose acts we abhor.
Fair go, criminals are constantly coming up with shocking new low acts, like bashing pensioners and disabled people, killing children, adults, elderly and god forbid, ordinary good hearted people that come from… well anywhere.
A number of people who have access to the data have said that indian students are not targeted in particular, why don’t you source that information before you slander your countrymen?
The Deputy Prime Minister was one, and one of our Police Commissioners (Vic or NSW) have gone on record saying this.
Would that be too much to ask? ie. for you to do what journalists claim they do, check the facts before running the story?
You say "The underreported but increasing violence against international students in the same period is another manifestation of the problem" I think you must have been under a rock for the last month. Overreported, inflammatory and lacking in evidence I say.
"While toilet walls are frequently the site for graffiti of questionable taste, this was completely beyond the bounds of acceptability."
This frequent graffiti "of questionable taste" is likely to include such ordinary items as "I raped (derogatory term for a woman) and she loved it" - ubiquitous graffiti that is banal, sexist, misogynist and unremarked-upon.
Perhaps if there were less tolerance of everyday wall-to-wall vilification of 51% of the population without comment or consequence, other kinds of virulence such as racism would become more salient and less likely to slide into common indifference or allowed to fester below the radar of human respect.
I agree with the general trend of the article.
Australians, the great majority of them, are indeed what can and has been called ‘racist’!
Always have been, always will be.
Gawd, just read our own early history, and not the Windschuttle versions.
And read the Media of today. Listen to Talk-Back and Shock Jock Radio.
The Asians, the Indians (and Chinese) in particular, are just the latest victims of the ‘thing’ that is within us all that John Howard and his thugs used to such horrible effect.
And I feel sick at all the accolades and hypocrisy that is being put out now in relation to Peter "Dollar Sweets" Costello, who was one of the main men in the offending Government. Dazza.
Dazza is a prime example of a good-ole aussie racist! you should read some of his anti-semitic posts.
"..national and geopolitical contexts that continue to be premised on racist imaginaries and on a system of globalised inequality. The "foreign student" and "the refugee" in this sense are two aspects of the same figure."
Your article was the first I’ve read which addressed the difficult issue of the abuse of international students by cash strapped universities and unscrupulous colleges as well as the use of this education ploy by students and their families as a way of gaining residency. There has therefore existed a kind of mutual exploitation which I believe has resulted in uncovering the ugly racism that lies in any society. You’re article was helpful in putting this in a context of globalised inequality. Thank you naomi
The Indian students in Sydney were mainly targeted by ‘Lebanese’ gangs, among others like Islanders, Kooris and yes, whites. The most racist person I’ve met after a car load of NA nutters was a bloke of Indian Fijian extraction. He went down to the Cronulla riots to watch the Lebs get what they deserved.
Every society has a selection of issolationists who fear the other but Australia is making great improvements in acceptance of different races, not withstanding the previous governments attempts to vilify fleeing persecuted people as a direct threat to our society. The emphasis on the individual over a compassionate society is another legacy of the Howard government that leads to fear of difference.
Whoa, touchy evany.
From what I can tell, this article is not declaring all Australian’s racist thugs, rather just considering the link between normalized and pervasive everyday racism that functions almost invisibly (such as the misogynistic and racist graffiti in the toilets, or ‘harmless’ little jokes), and the explicit forms of racism, such as the violence toward Indian students we all condemn. No need to get all defensive. (Or is there?)
Timhtrian, your comments are bizarre. Are you really questioning the author’s claim that he/they were offended at this racism? Do you think they are lying? Because he didn’t scrub it out or wash it off with a sponge? I’m not sure why he was supposed to have a big black texta, or better, a sponge and a little dish of hot water on his person while he was visiting another university, but I think telling the librarians about the graffiti is a pretty good strategy for getting it removed, and proof of the legitimacy of his offense, if you need it!
oh and meski1, now the graffiti is in Google’s cache as part of a discussion on race, rather than just a ‘transient’ piece of racism, and that’s great!
It is really disappointing (and kind of strange) that a piece of racist and misogynistic graffiti has become the focus of this discussion after Stratton and Perera’s excellent article. Thanks guys, I thought you wrote a clever and interesting article.
oh and ps timhtrain, great idea - no discussion about racism and the relations of power that enable it, lets just get more cops out there. good one, well thought out!
good article - and I am with you on the jokes. just this week I have been sent two email jokes - one was poking fun at Afghans and the other was Matt John jokes. Such poor taste, I really think people don’t realise how offensive these are.
I thought of a really good response to the graffiti, but it’s much too offensive to put here.
Funny, though.
So Indian students are getting bashed because of middle Australia’s negligently lax efforts at stamping out jokes about call centre workers and offensive graffiti in university bathrooms?
Such analysis could only emanate from the minds of a pair of cultural studies academics.
Far from illuminating the ‘unthinking racism’ of Australians, all that article offered up was unthinking analysis.
I imagine the such a piece would practically write itself.
It’s easy. Allow me to demonstrate.
First, reduce the complex interactions of a heterogenous society into a few symbolic anecdotes, which are then taken as being somehow representative of Australian society as a whole. An anecdote about a racist joke and a piece of scandalous graffiti (love it how both anecdotes are derived from the university campus - and they say academia is out of touch) will do nicely.
Then, in case your readers start questioning your central contention, add in a few mentions of John Howard, neoliberalism, asylum seekers, Cronulla, xenophobia and nationalism to get them on your side. (John Howard = bad man. Ergo, what this article say must be good)
Next, pepper in a few knowing nods to Orientalist scholarship (mention the British Raj and use the term "other" for dramatic effect whenever possible) and ensure that every second word is ensconced in inverted commas (it shows an active, questioning mind).
Finally, reiterate that race determines everything and conclude on a note of moral superiority by inferring that anyone who reads the article and agrees with it cannot be racist and is better than all those unreconstructed thugs…
And what you get is an article devoid of any original thought and straightjacketed into a mechanistic worldview that sees racial violence as the end product of toilet-wall graffiti and bad water-cooler jokes.
Still, it’s a good thing that ‘raped an Asian and she liked it’ graffiti was eventually wiped off that toilet wall… can you imagine the carnage in the streets right now if it had been allowed to pollute the minds of all who saw it…
I wonder if we could all discuss the premiss of the article rather than the story about the graffiti?
What I understood as the underlying point of the article is that there are everyday occurences such as jokes and graffiti that are examples of the normalisation of racism in Australian culture. There are no claims in the article that every single person is to blame as they partake in this, but there are elements within our media, our culture and our politics that does show elements of the embedded racism we have historically come to normalise.
We need to remove ourselves from the concept that racism is a bad word we should all just deny. Yes, racism is bad but we need to discuss why it is that there is nationalism in the anglo-saxon community of Australia, and conflict- in all minor and major forms- with the communities of "foreigners" that Australia does ultimately gain from in many ways. Large groups of migrants are still not accepted by Australian culture. Why? Could normalisation have a part to play in this?
In my own experiences I have gone from an accepting multi-cultural area to one more stereotypically Australian, and it was also largely going from an area that didn’t accept rascist (or sexist) jokes to one that did. There wasn’t violence in the society with the jokes, but drunken nights would create a few targetted racist comments, whereas in the former things like this were much rarer. I don’t claim that this is an example of Australia as a whole, but it does make me wonder whether there could be something more profound going on. There needs to be a healthy discussion about the effects of normalisation.
Or alternatively we could all just only joke about things we ourselves have an ethical acceptance of? By doing so we also won’t be proliferating thoughts and ideas with implications we cannot accept.
I wonder if a lot of this discussion has the issue the wrong way round.
I work with a number of young people who engage in criminal activity including rolling students for their phone or ipod. It is worth noting that most of these youths come from a disadvantaged racial group, often aboriginal, and that they have experienced racism themselves.
When they rob people with violence they often work themselves up to the assault using racist language. There is a solid body of evidence, including the racism actively and officially encouraged during wartime, that this language helps to dehumanise the victim. This makes the violence that is to follow justifiable in the minds of the attacker.
Perhaps the problem is that humans are self-interested and keen to establish a position of power over anyone they can, and that racism is one of the tools they employ to do so.
It seems also that both sides of this discussion cannot reconcile the proposition that racism is a strong thread through Australian culture and that Australians are generally decent people who would not intentionally give offense. They don’t appear compatible but that is generally speaking my experience.
The key surely is to identify the racist triggers in ourselves and to try and mitigate these through self education, reflection and empathy. Example is still the best teacher.
Well said, Dr Dog. I have struggled with the question of what the attacks on international students mean about racism in Australia, as I have with the implications of a study reported in the Herald Sun yesterday into whether a non-Caucasian surname on a CV affected your prospects of getting an interview (the study found it does, usually negatively). Seeing Samson and Delilah recently has created further questions in my mind.
I have a medium amount of experience travelling through and living in other countries, particularly Asian countries, and through these experiences and living in one of the multiracial pockets of Melbourne I have formed close friendships with people of very different cultural backgrounds to myself, from an array of different, non-Western countries. I’m also married to someone who migrated here as a teenager from a country with a pretty different way of life from here, and my sibling has married an international student also from a very different cultural background, so I would say I have fairly regular experience confronting and negotiating cultural differences.
What I think is that, to put what happens in Australia into perspective, I need to go and spend some time in a comparable country, i.e. a Western country with an organised immigration program and some commitment to multiculturalism. Are things better in Canada, NZ, the US, Germany, France, UK etc? If they are, how and what can we learn? Because from what I’ve seen in various Asian countries and heard from non-Australian friends hailing from all over the place is that racism (as a form of prejudice) seems to be very common tendency, and is frequently embodied at a structural level in terms of barriers, both overt and hidden, to access to mainstream society by various minority groups.
A couple of examples - Japan does not take refugees, at all. And certainly there is no formal immigration - just a blind eye turned to economic migrants willing to do the country’s dirty work (construction etc) without any official protection from the state. In China, prejudice against the 50 or so minority groups by the predominant Han takes the form of treating them as spectacles and somehow lesser persons. I have no idea of the level of integration of minorities into mainstream Chinese society (as measured by things like workforce participation, education qualifications, visibility in upper management etc) but am fairly sure it would be negligible. Malaysia takes great pride in its multiracial society in its tourism marketing, but the three main groups (Malay, Chinese and Indian) largely inhabit separate worlds.
It’s unhelpful of course to say, "Well, things are worse elsewhere so what goes on here is OK", but I do think it’s important to recognise what progress has been made in creating a multi-ethnic society in (parts of) Australia in the past half century or so - prior to which things were even more grim - while at the same time looking at the problems, and then trying to figure out how we go about nurturing the good and addressing the bad.
And I agree that self-awareness is absolutely crucial in all this. Speaking from experience, being right up close and personal to cultural difference can at times be extraordinarily challenging (as much if not more for it shows you about yourself as about the other person), but it can also be fascinating, funny, horizon-broadening, and all of these things at the same time! The more that people are able to avoid anything other than superficial interactions with people from cultures different to their own (and that applies equally to immigrant, indigenous, and Anglo-Australian populations), the less we all learn about one another, and the less we are inclined to accept one another. At heart, most of us want to be respected and to be in the receiving end of reasonable behaviour, so we need to show the same to others, regardless of where they are from. As that mantra goes (I forgot which esteemed person’s insight it is): be the change you want to see in the world.
I’ll second Dr Dog & JK.
I honestly don’t see that a "racially motivated" attack is different in any relevant way from ANY attack.
And, as Dr Dog points out, attackers will always try to justify their behaviour by blaming or dehumanising the victim: "She was asking for it"; "The rich bastard can afford to lose it." The only time I’ve ever been bashed I was a "silvertail prick" to the bashers.
While I think there is something in the authors’ concern at casual "racist" humour, I think it’s very important to keep the focus on reducing ALL violence and ensure no-one thinks violence against another human is ever acceptable or justifiable.
Making "racist" attacks somehow worse (which is implicit in much of the discussion about these attacks), obviously makes a non-racist attack not-quite-as-bad. This makes no sense to me and fragments and confuses the discussion. Let’s talk about violence and join in trying to stamp it out. Discussions about Australia’s relative level of racism are futile. We all know there are racists here, as there seem to be everywhere.
Isn’t toilet wall graffiti abuse of a captive audience?
Why is it repeated? It has no merit whatsoever.
The only link is to the marvel of being able to do two things at the one time.