Racism in Australia, Unfortunately it Still Exists
Following the un-called racist rant against footballer Adam Goodes on Friday, a report on Monday has said that such demeaning attitude occurs as much as in a work set-up as in a public transport.
The report, titled Reporting Racism, released by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, said that one in three of the more than 200 people surveyed said they had witnessed or experienced racism at work.
Suffice to say, what Mr Goodes experienced on Friday was unfortunately and saddeningly not just part of the job, but also part of Australian culture.
Mainly identified as verbal and physical abuse, racism could also include offensive graffiti. Fifteen per cent of the respondents said they had encountered it on public transport, while 31 per cent said they had seen it on the street.
Australian sports went agog last Friday after a 13-year old girl called Mr Goodes, a Sydney AFL player, an ape at a match versusCollingwood. The girl, who has since apologized to the player who happened to be not only a great ambassador for the Sydney Swans and the AFL, but also for the entire Australian sport, said she did not know the attitude she displayed was already "being racist."
A two-time Brownlow Medallist and one of the sport's most decorated indigenous players, Goodes immediately stopped his play to point out to security staff the Collingwood fan after her offensive comment. She was later escorted out from the ground.
"I'm pretty gutted to be honest," Mr Goodes said.
"To come to the boundary line and hear a 13-year-old girl call me an 'ape', and it's not the first time on a footy field that I've been referred to as a 'monkey' or an 'ape', it was shattering."
"Unfortunately it's what she hears and the environment that she's grown up in that has made her think that it's okay to call people names," Mr Goodes added.
''People are often subject to unthinking behaviour which is inherently racist,'' Karen Toohey, acting commissioner of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, said.
''To hear their own community being spoken about in derogatory terms has a profound impact.''
Among those strongly highlighted in the report was the plight of Santino Deng, a South Sudan, who arrived in Australia in 2005 after spending 12 years in a refugee camp in Kenya.
Supporting himself through his arts degree at Victoria University, 32-year old Mr Deng applied at various jobs as a labourer in factories, where the Australian whites ridiculed his colour, foreign name and background.
Whenever luck smiles and he gets to get hired, he is however assigned the toughest tasks. Not only that, colleagues never-endingly bully and pick on him.
''Someone told me, 'you're so dark I don't see you around'. The rest of the people I was working with laughed,'' Mr Deng said. ''So I told him, 'OK, let me put the light on - maybe you have a problem with your eyes.''
The 32-year old South Sudan wants to bring his wife and young son to Australia, but is afraid of what the future lurks for them.
''If we see the situation is not improving, then we must speak out,'' he said. ''If not for our generation, then for generations to come."
The state government of Victoria and NSW have immediately stepped into the foray, calling on its respective Education Departments to recirculate the anti-racism support material to schools and teachers.
"No student, employee, parent, caregiver or community member should experience racism within the learning or working environments of the department," a department spokesperson from the NSW Education Department said.