Curious as to why a UK based news agency thought this was news, I thought I wonder exactly "who" is going to be the focus of this 'racism'. I mean we said "Sorry" to the Indigenous Australians, and whilst not enacting any policies to improve their standard of living, but hey, at least we apologised. And remember kids, these days it's way more important to be seen to be doing the right thing, than actually doing it.
"The group most often singled out as "not belonging" in Australia was Muslims or people from the Middle East, Professor Dunn told reporters on the weekend."What a surprise! It's of course the turbanophobia (or was that hijabophobia?) raising it's ugly head. Two things kinda scream at me from this:
1. At what point in time are new immigrants considered integrated? Pizza, like it or hate it, ran for 5 seasons on SBS TV, where the principal characters were Lebanese. And no TV show runs for 5 seasons if there's no audience, even on SBS. Are we allowed to consider the Lebanese characters depicted as "integrated"? Is Lebanon in the Middle East?
"Pizza" cast photo, 2005. Spot the evil racist whiteys....2. The scare quotes around "not belonging". Exactly how that is defined or measured is mercifully absent from the rest of the article, but you can be sure that white Australians are to blame. And could this "not belonging" be a factor of said immigrants attitudes to Australians rather than the other way around?
The good Professor then continues:
""They stand out at the moment as the group that people would be most concerned about. There [are] stronger levels of social distance or fear of Islam or concern about Islam than of any other group at the moment," said Mr Dunn, a professor of human geography and urban studies."Why would that be? Of all the immigrant groups coming into Australia, why would there be a fear of Islam?
And why the qualifier "at the moment"? Is that just in case all Australians cease to be hijabophobic overnight, and then you can pull another ethnic/cultural group out of your hat and go HA! You're still Racist, Australia!!
The BBC and pretty much every news agency will never lack for the Professor Dunn's of this world who have no problem using their academic kudos (yes I know it's just Humanities, but to the media that's still Academia) to push forward the pre-conceived narrative that only white people have the capacity to be racist, and if they don't accept everything in toto of the new immigrant culture up to and including the immigrants death wish for the current citizens, then they will be labelled the ever so scary and cruel moniker of "Racist".
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