chk-chk-bullshit

I may as well add my two cents to the Clare Werberloff story.

So, this fat nigger shot this skinny nigger, chk-chk-BOOM!

I'm not sure I'd get away with saying that. I'd definitely not get away with it in London. But it looks like our Clare's fat and skinny wog reference has not only reignited the debate racism debate in Australia, it seems she may get a media career from her party-piece. Lucky her. If you're one of the four internet users not yet to view her performance you can visit Youtube and search for Chk-Chk-Boom. You'll find the eye witness report she gave to a shooting she did not witness. And the "Club Mix" of said report. I mean like man, it is just so funny right!

I think a great many Australians have a relaxed attitude to things many people regard racist. There is a casual attitude to language that stereotypes people. But worse, pointing this out is regarded as somewhat un-Australian. Starting the debate is taken as an attack on Australia and Australians. It is all rather quaint really.

At work i was discussing this with two colleagues, both level headed, articulate white Australian men. They could not be convinced Australia has this casual attitude. I asked one what he'd call a large house with stone pillars and maybe marble lions at its ornate gates. The answer - a "wog mansion." And that isn't just a little bit racist? Maybe the smallest bit culturally insensitive, if not racist? No. What, he asked, did we call such houses in England? Well, I explained, we may refer to a house as Georgian or Edwardian, maybe Tuscan or like a Swiss Chalet. We may single out a house and it's owner for shocking bad taste - mock Tudor is architecturally shocking - but we'll not label an architectural style by reference to the accent and skin colour of the people who typically build such houses. He was a bit shocked. but not as shocked as I was when I saw his shock.

The other guy handed me a win on plate. Soccer, or Association Rules Football or just plain Football (as it is called in most countries in which it is played) was often, and sometimes still is referred to as "wog ball". Why? Well, Rugby League and Australian Rules Football were already called football and Soccer was played by the wogs. Easy. Wog, in the Australian vernacular, is a catch-all for people whose ancestry might be traced back to somewhere near the Mediterranean; typically Italians and Greeks. Or if they look like they might.

The same tired old defense to the charge of racism is trotted out each time the conversation is started. Wogs call each other wogs and it is a term of endearment, a jokey, matey term. So if Chris Rock calls his black friends niggers then nigger is acceptable? If you're black? Not convinced, and anyway Clare isn't a wog; she is a white Australian from Sydney's Northern Beaches. What about the term of endearment argument? How was an eyewitness report of a shooting where the gunman and his victim were unknown to Clare in any way endearing?

Clare may get a media career from her "possibly" racist remarks. Some are saying she is a smart girl and was employing irony. I'm not so sure. She drapes herself in the Australian flag and has a southern cross tattoo on her foot. I know I should not read anything into that, but I suspect she has an extremely relaxed attitude to what some people may regard as racism. She is simply lucky that she lives in the lucky country. Racist? No, just relaxed and laid back.

But hey, it's an isolated incident, so lets move on.

Well let's not move on because it is not an isolated incident. Last week in a rugby league match the captain of the Cronulla Sharks Paul Gallen was alleged to have made a racial slur aimed at the St George Illawara player Mickey Paea. The national Rugby League have issued him with a $10,000 breach notice. Some reactions in the media dismiss the incident as something that happens on the field and while it is bad you'd hear the same on a building site. First, two wrongs do not make a right; racial abuse in the workplace is not something that should be so swiftly dismissed. Sports stars are role models. They set an example, good or bad. They should be expected to set a good example. In a neat epilogue to this story, Gallen was selected to represent New South Wales in the State of Origin rugby league competition, the highest level of non-international representative football in Australia. So there you have it kids, please don't racially abuse people, but if you do, it is unlikely to hamper your career. (Oddly enough, playing for the Sharks, who are shit, also doesn't hamper a career in representative football. Go figure.) As it happens a shoulder injury has achieved that which (alleged) racial abuse did not. Gallen will not be playing in Origin 1.

Two incidents then. But wait, there's more!

In the same week Sol Trajilo, the recently departed Telstra CEO had the audacity to express his views on racism in Australia. His views seem to be in step with mine. The media response? He was massively well paid and Telstra's share price fell while he was at the helm! Sol is of Mexican descent and had a job in Australia! He knows fuck all! I added the last bit; the media did not go that far, but that was the gist. Racism was not the story, his former salary was. The catalyst for Sol's "rambling" "tirade" was the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's "adios." Racist? Well, possibly according to Sol, and let's face it, he was on the receiving end. He had been portrayed as a bumbling, sombrero wearing Latino throughout his time in Australia. Adios? Not racist according to the media. Sol simply does not understand the relaxed, laid back Aussie lifestyle that K Rudd was typifying. Hmmm.

I think Peter Holmes A Court had it about right on the ABC's Q & A. Racist? Maybe a bit. Hugely insensitive? Definitely. Australia needs to grow up and the first step is to engage in the debate. Don't brush it aside as a lack of understanding on the part of everyone else and a decent proportion of the Australian public. Trotting out the same old lines about how multicultural Australia is, how immigration policy is becoming more relaxed and how migrants add so much to modern Australia simply sidesteps the debate.

So the week in summary.

Launch your media career by calling a recently shot stranger a skinny wog. Play representative football despite (allegedly) racially abusing a fellow player. Brush aside the views of a recently departed high-profile wetback (that IS irony Clare) because he was very well paid.

Relaxed attitude to racism in Australia? Nah mate, you just need to chill out.

addendum...

It is strange, but I find the casual acceptance of cultural stereotyping somewhat more insidious and sinister than outright racist fuckwit behaviour. It seems that is on the rise here as in many other countries. Overseas students - particularly Indians - are being targeted for attack.

UNSW international students officer Sakshi Sehgal said there were increased concerns about the safety of international students from all countries, not just India.

Fuckwits will always be fuckwits. But they are typically honest about it.

I've been subjected to racist abuse

OK, let me set the scene and admit I did set myself up for a bit of a row.

Each Saturday during the netball season the road I live on has a one way restriction. There is often a lot of traffic going to and from the netball courts at the bottom of the road. The local council are attempting to reduce the traffic chaos by making my road and a parallel street one way. There are no entry signs at the no entry ends of each road. They are clearly visible with the times at which you cannot enter displayed. Today there was no netball. However, today was (in fact still is) Saturday, it is the netball season and therefore the street is one way between 07:30 and 17:00. So at a little after 11:00 I headed the correct way up the street. At the top I met, head on, a car turning into the no entry end. Yes, I could have let it go, but it was one of those four wheel drive Porsches that scream wanker (there you go, I've introduced my own prejudice) and I couldn't resist mentioning the sign...

I stuck to the middle of the one way street I was exiting. Not strictly on purpose, but more because of a traffic calming restriction that is at the top of the street. The Porsche had to swing wide, which it did with a bit more speed than is necessary in a residential area. I pointed at the 'No Entry' sign. Down came my window, down came hers. I cannot remember the exact words, but the driver asked me - no, told me - in somewhat blunt terms to get out of her way. I pointed out the road is no entry. That's for netball she said. No I countered, the sign says it is for Saturday. Today is Saturday, today it is no entry. Then she told me she had to get her child to the doctor! Well, OK, but there are no doctors on the street and the street provides no shortcut to a doctor. Maybe she was not a local..."I'm a local resident!" she informed me (I knew the doctor thing was a lie) and the sign was not for locals. No, I stated, the sign is a road rule, it is for everyone. Then she accused me of harassing her (the nearest she got to having a valid point) and grabbed her phone to call the police. Odd, I thought. She had a sick kid she was rushing to the doctor? I did not point that out, but I did say I was prepared to stay so she could explain to the police why she was entering a no entry street.

At this point I decided enough was enough - she was all shouty and unpleasant while I was calm and on my way for a dive. I started to move on. At which she shouted "fucking Aussie Bastard!"

I do not know what her background is; she was olive skinned and accented. I do know she is an ignorant, angry racist. Had the situation not been behind me I would have asked her, politely, to abuse me racially using my actual nationality. Maybe she just hates white folks?

Several years ago there were some very nasty fights in Cronulla, a beach suburb south of Sydney. There was a lot of unpleasant shouting and racist abuse hurled about and the events were widely reported as "race riots", with opposing gangs of white Australian and Middle Eastern men beating the crap out of each other for the TV cameras. Nasty though these and similar events are they have little impact on me. Young blokes (and older blokes, but mainly young) fighting for some reason or other. You expect testosterone and stupidy to go hand in hand. I've been to enough football matches to work that out.

But here I am, middle aged, living in a nice suburban Sydney suburb and getting subjected to anti-Australian racist abuse by a mum in a Porsche who has a young kid in the passenger seat. That is just...wrong.

Later I was retelling the story to a neighbour. Before going in too hard on the Porsche driving racist, I asked if he knew a local who drove a four wheel drive Porsche. No, he replied, but he had seen a black one being driven at speed down the street just before noon. Woman driving? I asked. Yeah, he said, not Aussie, gook, maybe Philipino...Oh dear.

Politicians and the mass media will have you believe Australia is a promised land where everyone gets a fair go, where mateship counts above all and where muliculturalism triumphs. It simply ain't true. And you don't have to scratch too deep to find a rich seam of racism in the land downunder. Even here in the pleasant 'burbs.

It is a sad truth, and I shall exclude my friends, but I live in Sydney for it's natural beauty, not for it's people. Very sad. For something altogether more uplifting, have a read about my watery wanderings at Fairlight today.