Comments on: Who’s Racist?

By: gaiaswisdom

gaiaswisdom — Thu, 27 May 2010 06:23:52 +0000

LOL! The point you make is the same though. There ARE non-Caucasians in positions of power if you take the time to look 🙂

By: Raven

Raven — Thu, 27 May 2010 06:14:44 +0000

I was a few hundred km out it was the past Mayor of Melbourne Joe So. Good job I don’t teach history

By: gaiaswisdom

gaiaswisdom — Thu, 27 May 2010 06:03:58 +0000

Thanks Raven. Clover Moore is the current Lord Mayor of Sydney and she’s Caucasian but Sir Nicholas Shehadie who was Lord Mayor 1973-1975 and Commissioner from 1987-1988 was from Lebanese extraction and Penny Wong is the Minister for Climate Change, Energy & Water – and may well have taken over from Peter Garrett.

Unfortunately, the media continues to highlight the “lack” of migrant faces in positions of power so it is easy to make the mistake Melissa made – the general population truly is led to believe there is great disparity and therefore racism by the omission. I guess the truth is less compelling.

By: Raven

Raven — Thu, 27 May 2010 02:06:52 +0000

I recently witnessed racism very much based in ignorance and intolerance, two Asian (my perception at the time) people in the waiting room of A&E. Across the room from each other, yelling and being obviously abusive even though I couldn’t understand the language. A translator told me, that these two people were both from the same piece of our earth, both Korean. Problem was the one was North and one was South.

That is one fight that the Human Race is struggling to resolve.

I agree with you completely Earth Goddess Wisdom. As for politics I am pretty certain that the Lord Mayor of Sydney was/is of Chinese decent and the current Environment Minister also has an asian background.

By: gaiaswisdom

gaiaswisdom — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:44:35 +0000

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts Melissa. Racism is ignorance – and it stems from a lack of understanding of someone perceived to be ‘different’ – even Jane Elliott says this.

I did not say racism did NOT exist and there are isolated incidents like the one you mention of course! However I do have to disagree with your inference that because of the colour of their skin people are excluded from positions of power here. Our last Australian of the Year was aboriginal. We have a number of politicians whose historical ethnicity is based in other countries. In fact a previous leader of the Young Liberal party was Chinese. Having said that, members of parliament and other traditional ‘leadership’ or positions of power should be there because they deserve to be don’t you think … not to simply have an even split of ‘black, brown or yellow faces’? OPPORTUNITIES abound in this country but they still need to be taken advantage of. ‘White privilege’ comes from the fact that Caucasians tend to be the ones who have taken advantage of the opportunities afforded. And in this country at least these opportunities are afforded to everyone. The apparent disparity between ‘white’ and ‘other’ faces in positions of power comes more from a disparity in numbers – when I spoke of ‘white’ in fact being minority I was speaking globally, not nationally.

It’s also important not to fall into the trap of believing racism is solely whites versus everyone else despite what we see in the media – that’s White Supremacy which is even worse! Other examples of racism are China v Taiwan, Germany v Turkey, England v India, Lebanese Australians v Vietnamese Australians … I could go on.

Racism is abhorrent but the only way to stamp it out is to stamp out ignorance and remember that one truth – the point of my post – we are ONE race. That is all. And that goes for everyone regardless of skin colour.