My thoughts on racism in Australia

I am a silent reader here. I appreciate the good things you guys are doing.

1. Racism in the 21st century has been redefined. Its no longer the KKK, monkey and banana type of racism anymore. Infact you will find more random people flashing you smiles on the streets of Australia than any other first world countries. However, what separates Australia from the rest of the first world countries is, while the rest of the world is doing more to curb racism and xenophobia, Australian govt seems reluctant to promote integration and inclusivity. In many developed countries there are existing laws that make it mandatory for composition of employees in most companies to reflect present demographics. Australia is far behind in this. Canadian parliament and the executive arm of the govt have many non-white immigrants. Recently, a Nigerian was elected into the Italian parliament. We now have africans playing for national teams of Belgium, Italy, Germany etc. Things are changing fast as it relates to race integration but not in Australia.

2. Hiring is still purely based on consideration of color and not on skill and qualification. How do you report a company to Fairwork for failing to hire you? These companies send beautifully worded emails informing you that your application is unsuccessful without giving the slighlest inklings to element of race in those polite emails? Of course they won't be that dumb. What happens is applications from Africans are tossed into shredders and covered up with lack of local experience blah blah blah. Many skilled migrants especially Africans are unwillingly "forced" into disability care and nursing professions. Do not get me wrong. Nursing is a noble profession, but why would an engineer or IT manager be "forced' to take up a profession he or she has little penchant for just to put food on the table? Why would he have to take up disability care when caucasians from europe and south africa who arrived same time and on same visa are working in their professions of choice? What other explanation would you give that? It is very acceptable if these migrants start at the lowest rung of their professional careers, but what is totally unacceptable is when they have to completely abandon what they studied for 5-6 years to do Disability Care.

3. A lot of attention seems to be on crimes committed by Africans. Often time, these crimes are blown out of proportion. Let me site an instance. Three media houses(7 News, ABC and one other one that I cant remember right now) ran a story about the so-called gang terrorizing Melbourne. To support their claim, they showed a video clip of four men who were embroiled in a fight. They were all dressed in black and shades of black, but what surprised me was the media houses or whoever sold the video to them had the faces of the fighting thugs blurred out.
The news ended that day with an interview granted to a couple of people who expressed their displeasure to the spate of crime committed by Africans.
However, the bubble burst a few days later when another media house ran a counter story. This time around, the video was zoomed and one could see the faces of the men fighting. They looked arab or caucasian but none of them was african!
the question is how on earth could three media houses have descended so low to the extent of engaging in a 'campaign" to paint a whole black race bad? When institutions that are supposed to be unbiased join in the campaign of calumny against Africans, then you know there are problems.

4. It hurts terribly bad when Africans say one should not expect to be given a red carpet welcome. Why do we still think like this?! Why are caucasians from Europe, America and even asians given a royal welcome in Australia but africans left to suffer despite migrating on permanent visa? Don't we give them VIP treatment in Africa? Why do we have to be on our best behaviour to be entiled to crumbs from white people?

5. Finally, don't let us not make the mistake of comparing racism and tribalism. Both are social ills but while one says you are less than a human being, the other says I only associate with people who speak my language. One discriminates against you untill you prove them wrong, the other does not even give you the opportunity to prove them wrong as you are treated based on HOW you look.

In conclusion, racism is alive and kicking in Australia. Its not on your face type of racism but it might stifle your professional growth if you don't push harder to make it in life.

The solution lies in the hands of two people: Government and you! but not in the hands of the racist. You can either choose to ignore them and move on or play an active role in eradicating it. But one thing I tell people is if you are overly sensitive, you may not like australia, if you are the type that shrugs things off and move on, you will like it here.