Baseless claims of racism and virtue signalling won’t help Indigenous cause

Dancers perform during the welcome to country before the friendly between AC Milan and AS Roma at Optus Stadium in Perth.

Victorian barrister Lana Collaris was recently branded a racist because she chose not to do a welcome to country at a meeting of the Victorian Bar Council. Instead Collaris acknowledged all Australians.

Overuse of the welcome to country practice is a problem and deserves discussion. For those who disagree with Collaris, they are entitled to challenge her and state their case why they believe it is an appropriate ritual. But to call her racist for declining to do one is unfounded and absurd.

The kind of criticism Collaris has experienced is neither new nor rare. For as long as I can remember, too many people have been far too quick to scream racism against Aboriginal Australians where there is none. Many of this newspaper’s readers will recall the unprecedented backlash the late, great Bill Leak received for drawing a cartoon that drew attention to the neglect too many Aboriginal children face.

For as long as I can remember, people have been routinely claiming Aboriginal Australians are the victims of endless racism. This has resulted in branding Australia as a racist nation against Aboriginal Australians.

Lana Collaris

Bridget Brennan.

Claims of Australia being racist towards Indigenous Australians peaked during and after the voice referendum. Consider the words of ABC Indigenous affairs reporter Bridget Brennan, as recently quoted in The Australian: “When there is so much racism embedded in this country … (during the voice) it was really horrible as an Aboriginal person … We know what exists in Australian society, we see it every day.”

I challenge the claim that we are a racist country against Indigenous people, mostly on the basis that any evidence provided to support the claim is weak or absent. Claims by themselves, however frequent, are simply assertions, not evidence. If Brennan wants to describe exactly what it is she sees each day, I’m perfectly willing to listen. So why are so many Australians so keen to claim we are a racist nation against Indigenous Australians?

I propose a couple of reasons. First, as I wrote in this paper recently when addressing Laura Tingle’s claim that we are racist country, if we hear a message often enough, we start to believe it. Psychologists have a term for this – illusory truth. For as long as I can remember, the media, leaders, academics and lay people have proudly shouted the message that Indigenous Australians are endlessly victims of racism.

Once the belief that we are a racist country is planted in the minds of ordinary people, confirmation bias takes over and they will interpret events and claims in ways that affirm their existing beliefs. A classic illustration is the number of Australians who saw the failure of the voice referendum as proof positive Australia is racist towards Indigenous Australians.

Bill Leak

However, 60 per cent of voting Australians did not say no to Indigenous Australians; they said no to a significant proposal that lacked clarity in how it would help Indigenous Australians.

Certainly, there are a small minority of Australians who are racist against Indigenous Australians, but their prevalence is not sufficient to condemn Australia as a racist country.

Using an analogy to elaborate on this, consider that there are many Indigenous Australians who are financially comfortable. It would be foolish to conclude on this basis that Indigenous Australians are financially well off – a few are, but far too many are not.

A second and often overlooked reason claims of racism against Indigenous Australians prevail is that it provides some certainty, when trying to understand the complex reasons for why Indigenous Australians disproportionately suffer poorer health and wellbeing. Rather than addressing factors such as education, employment and remoteness, stating “systemic racism is the problem” provides a sense of certainty and is the quick and easy solution.

This has obvious appeal. Schools can teach their students to apologise for colonisation, the corporates can roll out their cultural awareness programs, and governments can continue with their anti-racism campaigns. Such “well-intentioned” gestures are virtue-signalling at best. In the end, they harm race relations and impact most adversely on Indigenous Australians.

The aforementioned virtue-signallers represent a minority of Australians. Most Australians know that we as a nation are hardworking allies with much good will towards our Indigenous brothers and sisters. However, the constant claims that Indigenous Australians are the victims of a racist country must test the patience and good will of the average Aussie.

But I do not see the torrent of claims of racism against Indigenous Australians abating anytime soon, particularly given the renewed focus on a Makarrata commission that will oversee “truth-telling”. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but I strongly suspect this truth-telling will conclude that racism is the big culprit holding Indigenous Australians back. Let’s start with this truth: racism is not the big culprit holding Indigenous people back today.

We all agree that when racism against Indigenous Australians rears its head, we all have a responsibility to stamp it. But we should be just as diligent in stamping out false claims of racism, otherwise we all suffer.

Anthony Dillon is an Indigenous commentator, and an honorary fellow at the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney.