Goodes, MacGuire and Australia’s racism – let us not forget mining and Government
by Gerry Georgatos
May 30th, 2013 - http://thestringer.com.au/goodes-mcguire-and-australias-racism-let-us-no...
Photo - Collingwood AFL president, Eddie MacGuire - www.heraldsun.com.au
Racism is substantively part and parcel of the Australian public domain and it is not limited to so-called inadvertent ‘jibes’ and ‘gaffes’ by 13 year olds and by football club presidents. My expertise in understanding the various myriad veils and layers of racism is not the lone-hand result of my two Masters and PhD research which topically tackled racism but rather my expertise is borne of the lived experience.
As the first-born child of migrant parents I began my school life without any knowledge of the Australian-English language. I did not know a single word of Australian-English on my first day of school – a frightening experience. It was a difficult start to my academic life and to my learning curve. I would not have known the meaning of many words, sentences and phrases intended that were everywhere at the time and which were always intended to vilify or humiliate ‘others’. As I learned the Australian-English language I began to realise that I was ‘different’. And did it hurt? Yes, it did, very much so.
But well before I had a reasonable command of the language I had quickly become accustomed to knowing what it felt like to be excluded because I apparently looked different and carried in the projection of my identity – cultural nuances that came across to some people as if they were impassable barriers. They were causal to various prejudices. Far too often I had to deal with the cutting hurt of being denied various opportunity unless I bowed down to acute assimilation.
The whole purpose of my tertiary research of racism was in order to better understand racism, not to hold anyone hostage to it. The express purpose of the research was to contribute in any way at all in discovering how to move forward together from racism.
Australia’s national consciousness has its origin-of-thinking in a sense of the ‘other’ – and in a fear of the ‘other’. The racialisation of peoples on this continent during the last two centuries has made life unbearable for generations of Aboriginal peoples, and life horrible for generations of migrants and with contemporaneous effects.
This fear of the ‘other’ has led to a bent for assimilation rather than the integration of diverse cultures, peoples and worldviews. The fear of the ‘other’ led to Apartheid in this country, led to the Australian Constitution blatantly discriminating against Aboriginal peoples, led to the Stolen Generations, led to the Yellow Peril policy, led to the White Australia policy, led to the Mandatory Detention legislation 1992, led to the Northern Territory Intervention, and has led to the some of the ugly racism we endure today – to ugly racist portrayals of the ‘other’.
There should be no place for racism of any form but obviously there is racism far and wide throughout this continent, from the grassroots, among those on Struggle Street and among those who were born into privilege, among every layer of civil society including the highest offices in our nation.
From five years of age to the end of my youth, like Adam Goodes and Nicky Winmar I was called many names. I was called a ‘monkey’, an ‘ape’, a ‘dago’, ‘a wog’, a ‘black bastard’, a ‘greaseball’ and the list is a litany too long for this opinion piece. This is the rudimentary racism from those who swallowed the malicious stereotypes – hurtful racism but the racism that I take issue with is the ugly racism that underwrites this rudimentary crude racism. For far too long stereotypes have been shoved down our throats of the ‘other’ that finish up as assumptions, suppositions and premises – the prejudices and biases become the antecedents to what should have been baseless arguments about how to perceive ‘others’.
I have less issue with the 13 year old girl Collingwood fan and less issue with the Collingwood president Eddie MacGuire than I have with those who underwrite wide reaching negative and deleterious stereotypes.
I take issue with some of the mining company executives I have met, with some of Australia’s wealthiest individuals, who sell the notion that if they pay Native Title compensation to Aboriginal Native Title holders they are only churning out ‘welfare recipients.’ They push assumptions that Aboriginal peoples are ‘drunk’, ‘lazy’ and ‘good for nothing’. I have heard this from the mouths of executives of the multi-billionaire extractive resources companies. I have had the discussions about Native Title rights with these executives and I cannot get over their negatively stereotypical responses. So too have other journalists had these conversations with them but most journalists and most major news media has never gone after them in the way they have gone after a 13 year old AFL fan and as they have gone after Eddie MacGuire. Had the news media gone after these executives, which include some of Australia’s wealthiest individuals, the Australian landscape would be a far different one today – fairer, with many legitimate affirmative actions resultant; our political and grassroots landscape would have been kinder and more honest, and would have somewhat addressed inter-generational Aboriginal impoverishment.
The hypocrisy of the news media for me is highlighted by the hounding of a couple of individuals for their ridiculous comments while at the same time some of that same news media, which is at all times averse to chasing the major culprits of racism in this country, screens cheap current affairs programs to a national audience depicting refugees on bridging visas living in community as some sort of threat to civil society. Once again the ‘other’ is portrayed as ‘dark and dangerous’.
The silly comments by a 13 year old girl and by Eddie MacGuire are founded in racism but if we are to beat racism in this country, to see off its embers, then we have to move away from believing we can address it from the bottom up rather than from the top end of town down. Racism will end when the news media accumulate the courage to take on the pernicious statements and actions of some of the wealthiest and most influential Australians. Journalists need to have the courage to go after the racism that surrounds the abuse of the Native Title Act. Journalists have to find the courage to understand that our highest offices, including the Office of the Prime Minister, fuel the racism, whether it is by refusing to end chronic abject poverty among Aboriginal peoples or whether it is by refusing to not demonise the ‘other’.
I will describe what is needed to eliminate the abject poverty that 100,000 Aboriginal peoples endure. The solution is build for those who languish in third-world conditions the substantive communities of equivalent social equity that other Australians enjoy. It is as simple as that. Ensure the adequate levels of education, health and community infrastructure and services that the rest of Australia enjoys. The opportunity to most of this equity was not denied to most migrants but it continues to be denied to at least 100,000 Aboriginal peoples. The answers will not be found in spending more money on police resources, or on diversionary programs trying to reduce only the Aboriginal incarceration rates – which are the world’s highest incarceration rates. Justice Reinvestment for instance is not the answer, it is a jingoistic call from the grassroots that will make some piecemeal difference but it will not significantly reduce the horrific incarceration rates of Aboriginal peoples which sees more than one in four of Australia’s prisoners as Aboriginal. Abject poverty goes hand in hand with high imprisonment rates.
If the Australian national consciousness is to extinguish the embers of racism then we have to put out the hotbeds of racism in this country – but too few are prepared to seek out these hotbeds. Till such time little will change and though the 13 year old and Eddie MacGuire were out of line do not lay the blame squarely on them for the ease with which they racially slurredAdam Goodes (and then tried to defend themselves). The ease for this type of racism has its origins elsewhere. What these two did was slip out comments that hurt people like Adam and which hurt me right throughout my childhood but they are only the students of racist jibes, the masters of the racist mindset are others higher up. The real culprits continue to get away.
- Gerry Georgatos, the writer of this article, declares an impartiality conflict of interest. He has written widely on racism. He has two Masters and PhD research which topically studied racism.
LINK to YOUTUBE: Gerry Georgatos speaking at the Media at the Crossroads Conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzigzfSNx9Y
