Tim Blair: Human Rights Commission’s take on racism in Australia is so out of touch

THE Human Rights Commission’s take on racism in Australia is so out of touch with reality it’s hilarious, but who’s laughing when millions are wasted on such rot, asks Tim Blair.

Art: John Tiedemann

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THE personal is political, according to earnest types who enjoyed talking at me during the 1980s. This phrase subsequently fell out of favour in 1998, when the same earnest types decided Bill Clinton’s personal life was nothing to do with politics and everyone should shut up.

It made a belated comeback last year, however, when Donald Trump’s unusually direct (and creepily Clintonian) seduction methods were revealed.

Tim Blair.

During the interim, perhaps to fill a void, all comedy turned political — especially in Australia.

There is more politics in Australian comedy now than in a whole month of Nick Xenophon press releases, which is probably why both are equally funny.

This is how warped things have become. Besides the scammers who make money out of it and politicians who are too scared to tell the truth about it, Australian comedians are the only people who still take climate change seriously.

Given the priceless opportunity to ridicule pompous, pseudo-religious Earth doomies, our comedic class instead run with the renewables-or-death crowd.

They’ve chosen Marxists over the Marx Brothers.

Thank God, then, for the Australian Human Rights Commission, which last week addressed our national humour deficit by releasing two of the most hilarious videos ever seen in this country.

Granted, the laughs are entirely unintentional, but nowadays you get your giggles where you can.

These videos, produced using some of the $22 million we waste on the AHRC every year, are supposed to present fictionalised but believable day-to-day examples of Australian racism. And they might have accomplished that if they weren’t made by people who apparently view Australian society from a distant galaxy via some busted-arse dial-up connection and security cameras installed and operated by cats.

Analysis of comedy usually kills the joke, but the gags in these AHRC masterpieces are so solid they couldn’t be diminished by even the most witless university English faculty. Let’s take a scene-by-scene stroll through the first AHRC video, a searing take-down of Australian taxi racism:

White guy walks out of the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters in Sydney and immediately looks around for a taxi. He notices a black guy also seeking a cab. White guy: “Been waiting long?” Black guy: “Yeah.”

Human Rights Commission president Rosalind Croucher. Picture: Hollie Adams

This might be because the entrance to the ABC’s headquarters is not a taxi rank. Still, a taxi does soon appear, pulling up next to the black guy and the white guy. Taxi driver, through the passenger window (which is open despite substantial rain): “Where to?” White guy (indicating black guy): “He’s first.”

Now, black guy is no more than two seconds at most from the taxi door. Yet he hasn’t moved. Not one step. What is it with ABC staffers? Won’t walk to Broadway, can’t be bothered taking even a few steps ­towards a cab right outside their own office. Then the terrible racism is unleashed.

Taxi driver to white guy: “Oh, that’s OK. I’ll take you.” The cabbie, you see, is white. Adding to his novelty, the fellow is evidently able to earn a living in Sydney despite refusing fares from non-white passengers. So, what with his racial riding policy and Uber eating into his trade, he’s probably getting by on $35 a week. White guy is outraged: “No, it’s not OK. He was next.”

At which point the taxi driver peels out, turning off his rooftop availability light — a mysterious move, considering his dispute is with the two shiftless blokes outside the ABC and not potential future clients.

Has anyone involved in the making of this 30-second debacle ever actually caught a taxi? Did nobody point out this isn’t remotely how the process works? Well, all the better for those of us who prefer our comedy nonsensical and surreal.

On to the AHRC’s second tax-funded video:

White guy waits for an elevator. White woman rushes to catch it. White guy stands aside, holding the door: “Allow me.” White woman: “Thank you.”

Then a black woman, similarly hurried, also dashes for the door. But white guy, a neatly dressed middle-class professional, won’t be having any of this multiracial lift-sharing nonsense. He quickly skulks inside, allowing the doors to immediately close behind him. No ­elevator politeness for you, black woman.

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(By the way, black woman happens to be beautiful. “Here comes Tyra Banks! Quick, lock her out!” said no white male, ever.)

It’s all too much for white woman, who intercepts the closing doors, steps outside and with black woman commences a ferocious stare-down of their ground-floor KKK grand wizard.

If there’s a central message to these videos, it’s that non-racists never get to travel anywhere. There’s another message, too, and it’s this.

The AHRC is so short of actual racism examples that it has resorted to inventing scenarios with which few Australians would be remotely familiar. And they’re using $22 million of your money to do so. They’re smearing Australians with their own cash.

If the personal truly is political, those bigoted anti-Australian race hucksters at the AHRC have a lot to answer for.