Society & Culture Casual Racial Profiling

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Caesar said:
Australians don't typically regard themselves as racist.

All countries have elements of racism/xenophobia but on the whole I have found it to be far less pervasive in Australian attitudes than elsewhere. France, for example. ;)
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Australians might not consider themselves a racist nation, but many of them are. Leave sydney or Melbourne and visit a regional town and you could be surprised/disappointed.

France I wouldn't say are racist. Their country is full of Africans and Arabs taking full advantage of its socialist policies.

Am I doing it right?
 
Yes, many Australians are racist. By being less pervasive I meant that racist/xenophobic attitudes are often less acceptable across the social spectrum in Australia than many countries.

Xenophobia is almost a point of national pride in many countries, France and Japan being the most notable in my limited experience.
 
On the OP's original scenario, there's very distinct links between particular offences in the criminal justice system and cultural backgrounds. I know someone who has worked in a listing court for years, and she has a good chance of guessing the offence just by looking at the accused's name.
 

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The Dice Man said:
Don't tell me you really believe that. We are horribly racist.
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I think Australia's outspoken attitude towards Japan in particular (while warranted somewhat in hindsight), was ridiculously racist in the first half of the 20th century. The White Australia Act was the first policy our country passed after federation. Arguably we were the most racist of the western democracies at the time.

Today, there is no doubt we are less racist. Our society has been rather multicultural now for a couple decades. But that past is still recent enough to leave a stain imo, especially since older folk (retired) are old enough to remember an almost exclusive Anglo-Saxon society.

In saying that, Australia today does not appear to have a fierce collective racism against a particular race, as opposed to other nations that have long histories with their neighbours. It's more of an undercurrent than anything here. Australia is ever less-racist, but still learning.
 
Roobs321 said:
In saying that, Australia today does not appear to have a fierce collective racism against a particular race, a.
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Arabs and black fella's cop it real bad, from government policy down...I don't know any country or court that withholds ownership of land from who it recognizes as the legal owners and sends the army in to take over land it had previously let them have back.

I would say Israel but, no court says that Palestine belongs to Palestinians as ours says that this land belongs to the black fella.....

We still lock up black fella's for practicing their cultural ways, we outlaw there dogs.. how would the farmer feel if kelpies were outlawed?


probably to full on for most....
 
I found myself guilty of this last week. I thought about it afterwards and it seemed I made the judgement based on past experience and other logical reasons rather than an inner prejudice. At least I hope it was.

I was in a supermarket and a strong body odour immersed itself in my vicinity. There were three males about 5 metres away lining up at the express lane. One was caucasian, looked in their late thirties and was wearing a business shirt and pants. Another was caucasian and wearing a high visibility work shirt and looked in their forties. The third person was of African appearance and a teenager.

After a few seconds of thought I estimated to myself that the probability of the odour being from each of those males to be as follows:

African Teenager: 52/100
Middle age High visibility shirt: 45/100
Middle age business attire: 3/100
 

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One thing humans do is average things, we are very good at it. So much of our thoughts/calculations are based on averaging and assumptions. For this reason I don't see a problem with grouping people together based on similar backgrounds and extrapolating for an outcome. Politicians do it all the time with focus groups. I assume most young high-vis workers like UFC and utes and that Irish people like to drink. Stereotypes are useful
 
tonk said:
Orthodox Jews (men and women) are generally very ordinary at parking on Carlisle Street Balaclava..............there I said it.
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100000% agree with this. Actually the reason I came into this thread was to see if anyone had said this. Used to live on Camden St where the Coles and Safeway are. The amount of times I was held up and Coles by someone wearing a yamaka (sp?) arguing with the checkout chick that the price of grapes was listed as $2.00 per kilo not $2.05 (or similar) astoundingly stereotypical
 
The Dice Man said:
Australians might not consider themselves a racist nation, but many of them are. Leave sydney or Melbourne and visit a regional town and you could be surprised/disappointed.

France I wouldn't say are racist. Their country is full of Africans and Arabs taking full advantage of its socialist policies.

Am I doing it right?
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I've never been to a country and not seen raciscm, it just appears Australia likes to focus on it.
 
Cap said:
anyone here the comments by Jim Maxwell

some how justified his position on 20/20 by talking to a "Indian taxi driver. with a turban".

not sure what an Indian taxi driver has to do with Cricket or 20/30 in Australia - but clearly Jim needs to brush up on a few things.
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I find Jim Maxwell painfull to listen to, and don't get me started on Kerry O'Keefe......
 
Wright Away said:
I notice things too, like bogans. They live in defacto relationships have a bunch of children to different partners, get their babies ears pierced, have rats tail hair cuts. etc

Here is a page that describes bogans in a more complete manner.
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Hey that's our word you can't use that word!
 
Admiral Afterworld said:
Orthodox Jews by their nature are jerks.
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On two occasions in the Melbourne CBD, I've been approached by a pair of Orthodox Jews querying if I was of the Jewish faith.

The first time, it occurred outside. One of the men asked, "Excuse me- Are you Jewish?" and then sneered at me after I replied, "No". (For the record, I'm actually non-religious).

The second occurrence happened in a private building. Again, the guy sneered at me. When it happened in the street- no big deal- but in the building, I was unhappy because I was there on business and could not get away from the constant sneers.

I've observed them query other strangers on street level, but only in the CBD and during business hours. In areas where it is common to see Orthodox Jews, I've never seen this kind of behaviour from them. Rather, they seem intent on not causing any intimidation.
 
Funny I've come across this. Back in high school, everyone would casually call me a Wog due to my surname (which is my username). My grandad was born in Italy and moved to Australia. That's about as Italian as I get. I can barely speak Italian, my skin is quite white (though I tan quite well in Summer), at family gatherings there is never 200+ people and there's is usually just enough food for everyone (not enough to feed an African country as most Wog gatherings are pictured).
 

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Society & Culture Casual Racial Profiling

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