Yes Australia, we are a racist lot

AUSTRALIANS are too paranoid to admit that racism is a problem in this country, a Young Australian of the Year finalist says.

Samah Hadid, 23, a human rights activist, said Australia would not overcome the issue until it accepted there was a problem.

"I'm bewildered by the reaction when anybody suggests that there is racism in this country," she said.

"It hits a nerve and it triggers a paranoia where people say that there is no existence of racism.

"It's quite annoying, particularly being from a minority group that experiences racism."

Ms Hadid's comments come after the Herald Sun reported yesterday that respected neurosurgeon Dr Charles Teo said racism was "very much alive in Australia".

The story prompted hundreds of comments on the Herald Sun website, in a spirited debate about multiculturalism in Australia.

A Herald Sun poll last night found 83 per cent of readers agreed with Dr Teo's comments. By 5.30pm yesterday 8452 readers had voted.

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The strong support for Dr Teo's comments comes as the Scanlon Foundation's Mapping Social Cohesion 2011 report says racial discrimination in Australia has grown by more than 50 per cent in the past four years.

The survey of 2000 people across the country found that 14 per cent of people last year had been victims of racial discrimination, compared with 9 per cent in 2007.

Hass Dellal, director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, said that some people judged others on unfair stereotypes.

He said migrants and people from settled communities should interact with each other more through volunteering.

Premier Ted Baillieu said Victoria had a proud record of promoting its multicultural community, but said there were some problems.

"I don't deny, and I don't think anyone would deny, that there are in any community people with racist attitudes," he said.

Senator Kate Lundy, Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, said the Federal Government had set up an anti-racism partnership with the Human Rights Commission.

heraldsun 20 Jan 2012

Many nationalities have racist qualities about them. It is NOT limited to white Australians.

Other countries from Asia Africa or Europe subscribe to racism, but this is misrepresented by Australia's corporate media.

The migrants that enter Australia are also racist.

With whichever wave of ethnic migration that enters into Australia there is enormous racist prejudice against white Austraians. This fact is aswell deliberately overlooked by the corporate media.

In Australian governance or even many government departments, there is also racism from the Anglo-masonic establishment against the 'wogs' (a derogatorry term currently used to describe Europeans), even though they profess otherwise.