it's far more complicated than that and here's why.
racism has existed for a very long time (perhaps since the dawn of time), long before white colonisers invaded oz, and all cultures and races are racist and xenophobic in some way.
half of my clan were colonisers, lived in oz for generations. the other half first generation oz.
i was raised being taught racism was wrong. maybe due to 1st gen clan being foreigners who experienced racism directly due to their skin colour and race.
my partner is 1st gen oz, he too was bullied for being foreign.
we are a non racist family, we raise our children not to be racist and i've had words with people who say racist things in my presence.
my son was set upon by a group of aboriginal boys while playing alone at a pool. i quickly jumped in and intervened. my son was shaking, scared, wanted to leave, so we did. he's still not racist towards aboriginal people.
he's now dating a 1st gen person of colour.
a lady i knew was bullied horrendously by aboriginal kids she went to school with. daily they would gang up on her and beat her up. not because shit was done to them by white folk but because my friend was an easy target. she was small, petite and walked home alone every afternoon.
i was also bullied by aboriginals as a very young child. we have aboriginal family (married into) and i was blessed enough to go live with them for a spell. i couldn't wait to make new friends and hang out with the other children but they bullied me and didn't want to play with me. i don't even know why, i was too young to understand their actions. it was most likely because i was an outsider.
in each of those cases the individuals were targeted and discriminated against based on them being a different race.
still i raised my children not to hate or discriminate. you cannot hate on a whole population for the actions of a few, otherwise i'd be disliking white people more because they've wrong me more than any other race.
if any aboriginal folk are reading this they'd be saying aboriginal folk were bullying white folk because of their own history of being mistreated by white folk.
nope. i say it's a learned thing, learned from adults talking about how bad others are, influencing their young-in's to hate and discriminate - doing the very thing they say they hate being done to them. like it's ok for aboriginal kids to beat up white kids because colonisers invaded 250 years ago and white folk are more racist to there ..
yeah nah!
on the flip side, i know a 1st gen greek woman who is hella racist! she's not part of the white colonisers, white oz. she, herself, was bullied for being foreign (the hypocrisy does not escape me) yet she is still racist. why? because she learned it from adults talking about how bad others are. and she's not alone in her prejudiced. many 1st gen arrivals are super racist even when coming from countries that don't have white colonisers who pushed their white oz agenda.
asian's look down on white folk because they're inferior. the mayans looked down on the spanish invaders right from the get go, long before the shit hit the fan. aboriginal tribes killed and murdered other aboriginals tribes which in itself is a form of xenophobia (dislike of others) and discrimination.
racism really is something all races do, not just white folk, and something we are actually getting better and better at not doing.
and if white colonisers are the cause of racism today
1) why did racism exist long before they took over oz?
[think vikings invading england and the racism that went on then between two populations with the same skin colour.]
2) why does racism exist in countries where the people aren't white?
3) why aren't all colonisers racist?
4) why are some (many?) 1st gen oz arrivals racist outside of the colonisers reach?
5) why do whites treat their own kind poorly as well?
[think chains, corporal punishment and imprisonment of white folk for minor crimes i.e. stealing bread]
i put it to you that racism in oz doesn't just exist because of white colonisers handing down prejudices to future generations - it's too easy, too cliche, to blame in on white folk who came here 250 years ago. it also denies the current reasons for racism. it exists because there are still a great many people out their who didn't get the memo that everyone is equal. this has little to do with something that happened 250 years ago and more to do with current xenophobic views of others/us/them - taught and learned by people the world over.
keep in mind more and more people are leaving racist views behind as they learn to accept others as equal. we are living in the most peaceful and understanding time since known history and this is improving all the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment