It’s been an interesting week for discussions about racism in Australia. First there was shooting in Sydney after which an “eyewitness” used the word “wog” to describe the gunman (it turned out later she was making it all up). The video went viral. See the following:
Then Sol Trujillo, the departing American CEO of the recently privatized telephone company Telstra, calling Australia “racist and backward” (This was described in my earlier posting: Australia: Racist; backward?).
And then there was a series of reports of Indian students being assaulted. See the following video:
http://media.smh.com.au/national/breaking-news/australia-not-racist-however-546957.html
Now there is a bit of national soul searching. See the Adele Horin’s Op Ed:
Sol, your wake-up call is important: we've no good reason to be smug
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/sol-your-wakeup-call-is-important-weve-no-good-reason-to-be-smug-20090529-bq6l.html
The opening paragraph is as follows:
“It's bad enough when an outsider dares to criticise Australia. But when the outsider is Sol Trujillo, the national hackles rise in outrage. Sol is easy to dislike. Let me count the reasons: his dismal business acumen which drove Telstra to its weakened state; the $30 million he pocketed for four years' work; his treatment of Australian telecommunication consumers; and his political positioning to the right of the Howard government which, remarkably, was too pro-regulation for his taste.”
Analyzing the article from the perspective of this course, it’s interesting to speculate on what criteria would we use to evaluate whether a country/society is racist?
John C
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I don’t think Australia has a corner on the racism market…
ReplyDeleteI mentioned on break today the “controversy” over the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor’s name. Here is a link to a ThinkProgress blog post a colleague of mine sent about it. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies (gotta love the name of his organization knowing his positions…) is quoted as stating:
“Deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English…. insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/27/krikorian-sotomayor/
Do check out the article and don’t skip the comments, they are quite entertaining!
I have to laugh because otherwise I would have to cry.
I’m not sure how to answer John’s question about the criteria to judge whether or not a society is racist, but I am reminded of the US Supreme Court Justice’s definition of obscenity, “I know it when I see it.”
Carol Starmack
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ReplyDeleteThe election of Obama may have moved us a few steps towards a "post racial" society, but events of the past weeks in Australia, US (and elsewhere!) show us the race obviously still matters.
ReplyDeleteAnd that the dangers of stereotyping still matter. Sunday's New York Times has an excellent analysis of the organizational climate that lead to the death of officer Omar Edwards last week. See:
On Diverse Force, Blacks Still Face Special Peril
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/nyregion/31friendly.html
The article includes these paragraphs:
"Officers, many of whom grew up in segregated neighborhoods, find themselves challenged to remember daily that their own come in every shape and color.
“There was a time if you were a cop you could grab your gun and go into the streets and count on a stereotype to protect you,” said Eugene J. O’Donnell, professor of law and police studies at John Jay and a former officer. “Now the cops look like everybody, and everybody looks like a cop.
“So stereotypes,” he said, “offer no protection at all.”
John C
Though not "wogs," Reuters recently reported that a leading Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan has refused to accept an honorary degree at the Queensland University of Technology due to recent racist attacks on Indian students living in Australia. And yes, he does have a blog where he speaks to the issue (bigb.bigadda.com).
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that owing to proximity, Australia has a long history of Indian immigration, but we'll learn more about this on Saturday.
http://in.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idINIndia-39992320090531
Maryann McKenzie
Today's op-ed by Bob Herbert (June 2, 2009)speaks quite personally to this issue. He has spoken in the past about racism, often in personal stories -- like the time an editor asked the color of a missing child as the deciding factor whether or not the paper would cover it as a story and demanding an answer from the stunned reporters in the room who couldn't believe he would ask the question with a black reporter in the room.. Not that he had asked the question, but that he had asked it with a person of color in the room.
ReplyDeleteHerbert does a nice job of calling out the racist right for supposedly calling out Justice Sotomayor's racism while ignoring so many instances of bonafide racism from their own ranks.
He hopes "the hysterical howling of right-wingers against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is something approaching a death rattle for this profoundly destructive force [racism] in American life."
The ridiculousness of their position does make them sound desparate, but I fear this is not the end to the destructive force, and the Omar Edwards story is an indication why I worry. African Americans talk about the dangers of "DWB -- Driving While Black." How about walking or running while black? How does an undercover cop do their job in this environment without the supposed protection of a uniform to signal he "isn't the bad guy."
It is good to have some optimism in the election of President Obama and the appointment of people like Justice Sotomayor, but sadly the war on ignorance and hate has not been won.
Definitely worth the read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/opinion/02herbert.html?em
Carol Starmack