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Old May 20, 2013, 11:04 PM
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ammark ammark is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gladiators
The fact that thousands of people from the subcontinent are getting PR is yet more proof of this, but while overt displays of racism might be far and few, there is plenty of innuendo under the surface.
One of the things about Australia is that people and the demeanor here is quite rough and not very polite. But they don't mean to be rude, it's just they have a low standard for what passes as ok. (Look at their cricket team and how many ppl hate them because they're such arrogant bastards). This is very different from US where we draw a line on what's rude, what's racist and what's impolite in demeanour and behaviour. Often times non-Australians will interpret this as in-your-face 'racism', when it wasn't intended as such.

The other thing is, Australia did not have its Rosa Parks and Civil Rights movement, or it's 'holocaust'. So to me much of their liberal sentiments against discrimination and racism seem to be borne out of moral stands and importing a story of the US and European immigrant experience, rather than a nation-defining first hand experience of a group loudly fighting for their rights.

Both of these arguably make Australians seem more 'racist'... they don't draw the line where North Americans do, and they don't in general behave PC about everything. Add to that many white Australians are, yes, racist and xenophobic. So all in all they'll scream and shout things that the rest of us will be appalled at. So does that make Australia more racist than UK or USA? I would say no.... Just that as someone said they will hide it better than the Australians.

Fun fact: many White Brits dream of immigrating to Australia because they idealise this place in their minds as a heaven to getaway from it all. Then they come to Melbourne and see us 'curry' and 'chinks' all over and get disappointed! I was passed comments on a tram by 2 English young guys a few years ago. Rather than react my gf (now wife) and i went about minding our own business. This made them more irritated. I enjoyed their misery.

Also see this post.
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