“Australia is one of the most multicultural
countries in the world, with people from about 270 different cultural
backgrounds making their homes here” (Taha, 2013). This headline slogan
from a news article written by Mohamed Taha and published by ABC news presents
the extreme diversity of Australia’s cultural landscape whilst highlighting the
high possibility of racism within Australian society. In relation to this, it
is unequivocal that racism is a contemporary educational issue that is present
within Australian schooling institutions. It is a derogatory notion by which
the cultural identity of students are formulated by a compilation of
stereotypical and subjective viewpoints. The fundamental issue of racism in
schooling is that students are growing up with the ideology that people of
different races and cultures should be seen differently and represented in a
different way, causing a fundamental misunderstanding of cultural identities.
Whether this racism is presented overtly or covertly, this issue will
ultimately lead to students causing disharmony between races and cultures in
the future, resulting in less employment and social opportunities whilst
causing a detrimental rift within society. Moreover, the representation of
racism within schooling could potentially cause students of white ethnicity to
adopt notions of white supremacy and degrade and even debase those of different
cultural backgrounds.
The news article
as mentioned previously focuses on various schools which experience a high
prevalence of racism and displays ways in which communities, individuals and
governmental groups are trying to confront the issue. One such effort which was
coined by the Australian Human Rights Commission was releasing a hip hop music
video in conjunction with artist ‘Brothablack’ and humanitarian organisation ‘Together for Humanity’ titled ‘What you say matters’. The music video
featuring students from James Meehan High School in Macquarie Fields focuses on
educating students to become more aware of the complexity of racism and racial
taxonomy. The initiative was derived from member of ‘Together for Humanity’ ‘Zalman Kastel’ who believes that teaching
students “saying no to racism is like
saying no to drugs…it’s not enough…people often talk about racism yet have a
very shallow understanding of what it actually is” (2013).
The music
video featured a compilation of situations involving racism in which the
students had personally experienced. Students claimed that at times, this made
the process somewhat confronting yet remained passionate about the possibility
of the music video to spread the message about racism whilst educating students
about what it truly is and how they can recognise it.
Zalman Kastel
is also trying to confront the problem early by hosting a forum of culturally
diverse individuals in which young students (year’s 2-4) would ask questions
and be asked to guess which member of the forum was Australian. The right answer?
They all are. The student’s responses seemed that they were fixated with the
notion that “if you’re not white, and
you’re not Christian, you’re not Australian” (Kastel, 2013) showing a clear
representation of the magnitude of racial profiling within Australian
educational institutions.
Through this
analysis, there is no doubt that racism is a prevalent issue within Australian
education. Yet perhaps there are other methods that the issue could best be
approached. For example; in an interview, renowned actor Morgan Freeman was
asked by 60 minutes reporter Mike Wallace “How
are we going to stop racism” to which Freeman passionately replied with the
simple answer “stop talking about it….im
going to stop calling you a white man, and I’ll ask that you stop calling me a
black man…I know you as Mike Wallace and you know me as Morgan Freeman”.
(2005).
References:
1. Taha, M. (2013, July 31).
‘Teachers, pupils on mission to tackle racism in Australian
Schools,’
ABC NEWS.
2.
Wallace, M., & Freeman, M. (2005, December 18). ’60 minutes: Black
History
Month,’
CNN.
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