Racism is still an everyday experience for non-white Australians. Where is the plan to stop this?
Australia’s political leaders often talk about its multicultural credentials, making sweeping statements about its unmatched success in diversity.
According to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia is the “most successful” multicultural country in the world.
This self-congratulatory speech, however, masks the reality that we are a country with a deep racism problem that is not getting better.
My recent co-authored book Racism in Australia Today with Amanuel Elias and Yin Paradies looks at various manifestations of racism in our history and across key institutions.
Australia’s history since 1788 began with brutal acts of racism. Its colonisation was yet another example of white Christians going into other societies thinking they were ethnically and culturally superior. And could therefore take over peoples, resources and cultures.
Fethi Mansouri also talks about racism on the latest episode of Seriously Social podcast by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.