New anti-racism campaign calling all Aussies to action
This new anti-racism campaign is asking silent allies to stand up and do more to actively combat racism in Australia.
After a long day of university studies, Abiba Andria begins her trek home as an autumn evening quickly turns to night.
Waiting at a bus stop in Queensland, Salisbury, she watches the lumbering vehicle roll to a stop and the doors wheese open.
“Next time,” the bus driver calls out to her, “you should put a torch on.”
She’s taken aback, but as she steps onto the full bus she sees not a single person stir at the comment.
But for the young university student of south-Sudanese ethnicity, the comment was humiliating.
“He said he could not see me yet there were street lights,” Ms Andria tells a 2021 Queensland public hearing inquiry.
“Hearing that, I said, ‘Sorry’, excused myself and walked onto the bus. I did not take what happened that day seriously.”
But when the same thing happened again a week later, this time Ms Andria confronted the seemingly obtuse bus driver.
“What do you mean you could not see me? There were lights. If you did not see me then why did you stop?” she asked the driver.
“My apologies, you were just too dark,” he simply said.
Again, Ms Andria recalls the bus being full and not a person coming to her defence or confronting the blatant acts of racism.
“At that moment I felt so embarrassed and obviously disgusted at his comment … I walked away thinking did my safety not matter at that time?” she told the hearing.
“It was dark. If that bus driver passed me by because he ‘could not see me’ what could have happened to me that night?
“I did not want to catch a bus ever again after that.”
Shaken, Ms Andria called the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads but quickly hung up. Her faith that something or someone could change what happened was destroyed.
“What are they going to do? They are not go to do anything about it. They would most likely just say, ‘We will forward your complaint to whoever’, and then apologise,” she said.
“That is not enough.”
For three months after that, Ms Andria couldn’t bring herself to step foot in a bus.
Racism. It Stops With Me.
Ms Andria’s experience was one of many submissions made to the 2021 Queensland Inquiry into Serious Vilification and Hate Crimes which detailed personal experiences of overt and covert acts of racism and racially motivated violence from within the Sunshine State.
But when it comes to combating instances of racism and racial discrimination, the latest Australian Human Rights Commission campaign isn’t targeting the racist bus drivers or their victims.
They’re hoping to reach out to the people sitting silently in the bus.
“The bottom line of this campaign is, what are you going to do? How are you going to stand up to racism? And when you put yourself in those shoes, how will you react?” Cross Cultural Consultant and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion trainer, Tasneem Chopra OAM, said.
“It’s really putting the difficult question on those who have the power to make the change as opposed to on the individual who continues to experience the burden of racism.”
The AHRC launched its latest ‘Racism. It Stops With Me’ campaign on Tuesday, urging more Australians to get involved and take active steps to combat instances of racism.
“Rethinking our approach to conversations about racism and addressing our biases is crucial to challenging racism,” Race Discrimination Commissioner Chin Tan said.
“Many of us are often unaware of racial and cultural biases, whether
in ourselves or in society – but these biases have significant impacts on racial equity.
“We see this in areas such as employment, justice, education and health, among others.”
Part of the campaign is encouraging people with no lived experience of racism to “ask the hard questions” about how racism occurs and what it’s impact is.
“The ‘r-word’ makes people very uneasy, but if you feel uneasy talking about it, just imagine experiencing it,” Ms Chopra added.
“You can almost see the clinical discomfort that people who don’t experience racism feel when they’re asked a question like, are you ever racially harassed after a game because of your skin colour?
“And, to be perfectly clear, those the white people they say ‘well, no’, but they realise it’s a question that’s been asked because clearly some people are going to say ‘yes’.
It happens, and it’s everywhere
Ms Chopra said that racism was an “insidious disease” and if we don’t call it out, it will “continue to fester”.
The 2021 Queensland Inquiry came after the Covid-19 pandemic saw a surge in racially motivated discrimination and violence – especially towards people of east-Asian appearance.
“The data shows that (racism) is manifesting in ugly ways – in the schoolyard, at universities and workplaces, in the media, in government, in business.
“It’s everywhere you look – it’s not just being profiled at the airport – it’s so much more.”
And despite being so multicultural, Race Discrimination Commissioner Chin Tan said a culture of silence still persists.
“Despite claims of our success as a multicultural nation, many communities experience racism as part of their daily lives … (and it) continues to undermine justice and fairness in Australia,” Mr Tan said.
“We see it in discrimination and power imbalances that create inequitable outcomes for First Nations and culturally diverse communities.
“We see it in continued antisemitism and Islamophobia, in the surge of anti-Asian hate during the pandemic, and in the rise of far-right extremism.”
Despite higher than usual reporting of racist incidents during the pandemic, AHRC reporting showed that a large proportion, 29 per cent, of incidents faced by Asian Australians went unreported.
Australians of African ethnicity and First Nations peoples are also consistently among the top most racially profiled people in the country, often being unnecessarily stalked or stopped for checks.
“First Nations communities have experienced racism since colonisation began. We see this in ongoing discrimination and inequity, in the failure to properly recognise First Nations peoples, and in continued Aboriginal deaths in custody,” Mr Tan added.
“Yet First Nations peoples continue to resist racism and have been leading anti-racism in Australia for many years.
“The #BlackLivesMatter movement was a strong example of this leadership.”
The Queensland inquiry also brought to light the dangerous consequences of racism, from long-lasting mental health impacts on its victims to severely compromising the health and safety of individuals.
“Obviously as a woman at night-time (walking alone) is risky,” Ms Andria said.
“My safety was the biggest thing in my head and it was not considered at all.”
So what should I do?
“I would have appreciated if someone told the bus driver that what he said was not appropriate and was not nice,” Ms Andria told the hearing when asked what future change looked like.
“For people to not stand up, it seems like that comment to them was okay and they did not see any harm in it.
“The effect on me was more severe.”
As Australia’s demographic has changed significantly over the past 30 years, with almost 50 per cent of the population having a parent born overseas, Ms Chopra said that the social response to racism needs to step up accordingly.
“We think we have a great sense of humour in the Australian psyche, we can all take a joke, we don’t take ourselves too seriously … there’s a lot of that iconic kind of Aussie larrikin response to toughen up,” she added.
“But we can’t walk around, trumpeting a psyche of Australian culture that was fine in the 80s and expect that to hold in 2022.”
Ms Chopra said if positive change was to occur, it meant bystanders and people with little to no experience of racism needed to be “more than just an ally”.
“If you do witness an act of racism, in addition to supporting that person who might have experienced it, interrogate the systems that allow it,” she said.
“If a comment has been made, support the person making the complaint and be a witness as well.
“Bring it up, raise it with your colleagues, with your peers, with your leaders and say, this is happening. I know it’s happening. We need to address it.
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“For the people who are making the offensive comment, make them uncomfortable and say that’s not on.”
Ms Chopra said the campaign was a bold call to action, demanding more from the fellow Australian than ever before.
“I think this is a brave thing to do, it is a difficult thing to do – especially for people who can’t see themselves reflected in that mirror (of lived experiences).”
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