The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australia\u2019s race discrimination commissioner says the nation\u2019s \u2018\u2018brand\u2019\u2019 has at times been maligned by outbreaks of of racism and there is a poor understanding of the problem in the wider community.<\/p>\n
Helen Szoke has also identified a \u2018\u2018cultural glass ceiling\u2019\u2019 that hinders certain minority groups from rising up in workplaces as among the subtler issues that must be tackled.<\/p>\n
In advance of today releasing a national anti-racism strategy, Dr Szoke said: \u2018\u2018We understand sex discrimination much better than we understand racism \u2014 and we know far we have got\u00a0 to go with sex discrimination \u2014 so that gives you an indication of how far we have to go with racism.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Dr Szoke said racism in Australia existed in multiple forms. \u2018\u2018People who actually don\u2019t experience racism think it\u2019s something like riots or violence whereas often racism occurs in quiet places and quiet ways.\u2019\u2019In a paper outlining the public awareness plan to be rolled out over three years, the Australian Human Rights Commission notes indigenous people are among the most vulnerable to racism.<\/p>\n
The commission said the experience of people from culturally diverse backgrounds tended\u00a0 to vary, \u2018\u2018being shaped in large part by their particular histories of migration and settlement\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
New arrivals, especially those distinguished by dress and skin colour, were more likely to encounter prejudice than \u2018\u2018settled\u2019\u2019 migrants.<\/p>\n
In an interview, Dr Szoke cited the episode involving attacks on Indian students in Victoria as particularly harming Australia\u2019s \u2018\u2018brand\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
She said Victoria Police, which recently raised the alarm about youth from Sudanese and Somali backgrounds, also needed\u00a0 to exercise caution in how\u00a0 it engaged with such a complex matter.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018As soon as you name a particular racial group and associate them with crime it has two immediate effects,\u2019\u2019 Dr Szoke said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018The first is that it builds a perception in the eyes of the community that all people from that racial group are criminals and the second is it actually subjects members of those community who may have a public profile to vitriol and race hate.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018That\u2019s exactly what happened in the past week. I\u2019ve seen some of the emails that have been sent to the African community leaders with some horrific and threatening (messages).\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Dr Szoke\u00a0 acknowledged sometimes law enforcement agencies needed to name a particular racial group, but a cautious and sensitive approach was required so as to avoid stigmatising a whole ethnic community.<\/p>\n
She rejected the notion that a repeat of the Cronulla race riot situation was on horizon.<\/p>\n
Dr Szoke also said she believed that the asylum seeker debate had a racial element to it, \u2018\u2018because at its heart, racism is a fear of difference\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
Read more: http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/national\/racist-outbreaks-threat-to-australias-brand-20120823-24p0g.html#ixzz24cx0ztQC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australia\u2019s race discrimination commissioner says the nation\u2019s \u2018\u2018brand\u2019\u2019 has at times been maligned by outbreaks of of racism and there is a poor understanding of the problem in the wider community. Helen Szoke has also identified a \u2018\u2018cultural glass ceiling\u2019\u2019 that hinders certain minority groups from rising up in … Continue reading “Racism threatens Australia’s ‘brand’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[837,886,735,157],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-australia","tag-australia-human-rights-commission","tag-helen-szoke","tag-racism"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}