The host of the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Insiders show, David Speers apparently referred to Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s likely nominee for President of the US in the upcoming election, as a ‘woman of colour’1. You’d think that a supposedly professional journalist would eschew such idiocy. Calling anyone a ‘person of colour’ is simply a way of stating they are non-white. I gather that Kamala Harris has referred to herself as a ‘woman of colour’. I haven’t actually heard this, but I’d suggest that it shows how deep this ‘non-white’ terminology and its accompanying racism goes. This was how people who weren’t white were referred to in apartheid South Africa: nie-blanke. This is Afrikaans for ‘non-white’2.
It is also interesting that Kamala Harris has been referred to as an Indian Jamaican American. However, I have never heard Joe Biden referred to as an Irish English French American3; nor have I ever heard Donald Trump referred to as a German Scottish American4. This ‘non-white’ labelling and listing of a person’s family history only when it is ‘non-white’, is a simple way of reminding people that the person under discussion is not ‘one of us’.
To perhaps make this covert racism more overt, the Mango Mussolini (Trump) has questioned Harris’ racial identity. He accused her of misleading voters about her race when he said: ”I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?”5 Trump has repeatedly attacked his opponents and critics on the basis of race. He rose to prominence in the Republican Party by spreading the lie that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and therefore was not eligible to run for the presidency5.
This assertion that Harris has only recently acknowledged the Jamaican side of her family is, of course, another of Trump’s multitudinous and multifarious lies. When Harris attended Howard University, she belonged to an historically black sorority. When a senator, she was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, supporting her colleagues’ legislation to strengthen voting rights and policing reforms6. Trump even had the gall to say “I have been the best president for the black population since Abraham Lincoln”5. Whether he actually believes this or not is impossible to determine. If he does believe it, then calling him delusional is an understatement.
In Australia, Laura Tingle was pilloried by the Right-wing nutjobs at Murdoch’s Australian and others of his budgie-cage liners, and by the Liberal Party when she opined that Australia was a racist country in a panel discussion at the Sydney Writer’s Festival. Those desperate to have you believe that Australia is not racist called for Tingle to be sacked as chief political correspondent of the 7.30 program. As the Human Rights Commission said: “As is often the case in Australia, the person who calls out racism faces far more scrutiny than the racism itself. This is partly why our media is so timid in addressing racism – because powerful voices try to shut down conversations that challenge the status quo”7.
John Howard effectively used the dog-whistle during his time as prime minister, and Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison followed on, and Peter Dutton has continued to use it; whining about everything from asylum seekers8, to African ‘gangs’9. This clearly shows that they believe there are enough racists out there for the dog-whistle to garner enough votes to win them government.
To maintain that Australia is not a racist country is to ignore reality. It may not be as overt as it was in apartheid South Africa, or even as grotesque as it currently is in the United States, but it is still there, enough to encourage the Liberal Party to use it as an electoral tool.
Sources
- https://x.com/robynbryant33/status/1815163763265589549
- https://dsae.co.za/entry/nieblanke/e05180
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Joe_Biden#
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Donald_Trump#
- https://apnews.com/article/trump-black-journalists-convention-nabj-1e96aa530e88013ed6f577feaf89ccb6
- https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/jul/31/donald-trump/donald-trumps-pants-on-fire-claim-at-nabj-about-ho/
- https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/opinions/race-discrimination-commissioner-why-abc-chiefs-should-back-laura-tingle
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/20/factcheck-peter-dutton-labor-weakened-australia-asylum-seeker-policy-border-enforcement-budgets-wa-boat
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jan/03/peter-dutton-says-victorians-scared-to-go-out-because-of-african-gang-violence
Not a fan of Speers myself but the context of his comment is critical (as it always is). If for example he was discussing the difficuties which face her in that enigmatic (I’m being kind there) country those labels are perfectly valid – for patently obvious reasons.
I agree with the general thrust of your comment though BA. You won’t hear the ABC introducing Trump as convicted felon and insurrectionist, or even golf cheat/multiple bankrupt.
On the ABC. Their for propensity for using comments of members of the Opposition in radio news clips – when clearly a comment from a government spokesperson would be more appropriate – is baffling. They do it regularly and have done so since the change of govt. I can’t work out if it’s the ABC inappropriately bending over backwards to demonstrate their “even-handedness” or the ineptitude of Albanese govt in not providing a spokeperson – both are equally likely imo. The latest trangression was ABC 666 news which chose to play (cynical railway carpark apologist) Simon Birmingham’s advice to Australians to leave Lebanon. I don’t recall such ABC snivelling subservience being evident when Labor was in opposition. Perhaps it’s Canberra news only?
I gave up on the abc a few years ago, and it took years, possibly decades to break that trust I had. It became obvious to me during the Turnbull era that we had an abc that had become too afraid to give real criticism to policy or politicians, and that like labour a small target attitude had been adopted. Then Ita got the job, and the abc rapidly became a clearing house for feminist and anti-male propaganda, household cleaning tips and absolutely no, repeat NO, criticism of the right wing bastards keeping Australia on the rotten end of history.
Abc has become a go to for anti renewables, anti environment, and basic anti social attitudes. This is because it is too scared to lose funding, a sword of Damocles that has controlled the abc for too long. We should be able to have a truly critical review from a trusted journalist, not a report that has to have both sides of the argument balanced out at the cost of the moral argument’s importance written by the equivalent of a year twelve reporter (REPORTERS, that’s all they are, not journalists), a year twelve girl reporter who still thinks she’s special because she read pride and prejudice. Seriously bollocks. The only male reporters with any apparent credibility on the abc are the likes of speers, and he is a total right wing nut job. I’m not being sexist, I’m attempting to show there’s an Imbalance at play. The good people have been shovelled off into the trendy breakfast shoes that no intelligent human would waste time with.
Basically, the abc is shit now, and can’t really be trusted any more than the age or the woman’s weekly.
It could be saved, that would require Australians to pull their heads out of their bums and decide to stop copying the yanks.
Can’t argue there. The oompaloompa of doom will use any lame lie he can to get his dictatorship or his civil war.
Im still confused by what they call systemic racism, or what seems to me to be the easiest excuse for the failure of a policy or an agency, usually due to quite human ignorance or corruption, not necessarily directly racist. It makes it difficult when the anti racist narrative seems to pick up on every tiny nuance and twist it out of proportion.
On the other hand, it’s clear that in Australia a new attitude needs to be forged, and one that can only be achieved when we get rid of the churches and Murdoch. Might also help those slightly racist whiteys who don’t mean to be programmed that way if rather than vilify them we could encourage them. It’s the whole “basket of deplorables” things again, that you can’t use vinegar to catch flies (bullshit works best).
As for the septic tanks, well….. all I can really say is they’ve made an art form of racism and anti racism and as with anything that comes out of that cesspit, I just ignore it as meaningless drivel. Nothing the yanks say or do is of any real consequence, it’s all for show. Now, that they achieved so much in the past as far as the civil rights movement and blacktivism goes is truly worthy, and yet somehow they still cocked it up and turned it into an Eddie Murphy fat suit comedy. Sounds like money won out over ethics and that money is still making the major decisions. Might I also make a point that in the USA the money situation is more or less controlled by a genetic religious tradition that is inherently and fundamentally racist and yet if I name I WILL be called antisemite.
Anyway, thanks blot.
I doubt Harris has a chance, despite all the feel good she carries in the physical attributes people like to tick when chasing parity. I’d prefer competence over appearances, but america long ago stopped being able to provide anything more than a turd rolled in cheap glitter.
All the best,
James
James,
I think you are right insofar as it is all about money, at base; and it is the people who have an overwhelming lust for accumulating more of it who want the status quo to persist, where they are in charge and the rest of us are there to service their interests.
Yep. Filthy lucre.
And the the establishments built to perpetuate the greed.
And the arguments made to justify the establishments…
Not good enough.
James,
Nope; definitely not good enough. The sad irony is the people who think that accumulating money is important, and their corporations, will end up destroying the planet on which their profit depends.
This Trump guy. I heard he was German. By the name of Drumpf – that’s a good, solid German name. Changed it to Trump when he became an American. So what is he – German or American? I wish he’d make up his mind!