TRANSCRIPT
Lindon Coombes is the director of the University of Technology Sydney's Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.
He's just released an important report - the Institute's second annual Call It Out report on racism targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, in conjunction with the National Justice Project.
“People are often accused of seeing racism where there isn't any, and my argument for that is that it's actually the opposite.”
The report is based on more than 400 instances of racism against First Nations people reported to the Institute's Call It Out register.
It notes incidents of physical violence, verbal abuse, hate speech, threats and intimidation, as well as property damage.
Lindon Coombes says these are disturbing findings.
“It was one of those moments that reminded me of the pain that racism causes... We can often be told sticks and stones kind of advice pieces, but when it hits - it hits hard.”
Fiona Allison is an associate professor at the Jumbunna Institute.
She says both government and private institutions came up frequently in reports to the Register, including health settings - and that they can often fail to respond to these incidents.
“The example we've got up on the screen here is a report made by a First Nations mother who talked about attending health services - mainstream health service - and her sense that - she was being subjected to over surveillance in that system and she was really worried about her baby that was going to be born being removed... The other thing that came up, we had a report about an individual, a midwife, that had disregarded the birth plan of a Wiradjuri woman. And while that might look like an isolated incident, a random incident that an individual has perpetrated, we discuss in the report how these actions by individuals can form a pattern of behaviour.”
Professor Allison says there was nowhere that was found to be safe for Indigenous people to avoid being abused or stereotyped.
“The more common locations were online and media particularly social media, followed by public places... Workplaces - in this report it's still the highest area of self reports by First Nations people.”
The Institute says a lot of the reports came from things that happened in the wake of the failed Voice referendum.
Jumbunna Institute criminology professor Chris Cunneen says one in five reports of racism to the register specifically reference that vote, an increase that's also been noted by other institutions.
“There was a lot of publicity in that period around the rising levels of racism in the community, from community organisations, advocacy groups, various statutory bodies. There are notorious examples like racist cartoons in the Financial Review, no campaigners - some of the no campaigners anyway - with unfounded claims and conspiracy theories. And organisations like the eSafety Commission and the Human Rights Commission all identifying increases in racism.”
Uncle Dale Ruska has been at the forefront of grassroots activism for Aboriginal rights since the 1970s.
He says racism is so prevalent because so much of mainstream Australia views white society as the yardstick to measure everything else against - and they don't want to accept or recognise the rights or presence of First Nations people.
“I see this country and how it administers, it ensures the maintenance of white supremacy and black disadvantage. And if that wasn't the case, I'd put the question out to all Australians that have established rights and interests in this country as a part of the colony as to whether they recognise that the land they occupy is stolen land?”
Professor Cunneen says that might be why racist incidents happened so frequently online - but also in broad daylight, because the Referendum normalised negative attitudes about First Nations Australians.
“Probably the simple answer - the simplest explanation to this - is the Human Rights Commission looking back on 2023 saying that last year the Voice referendum mainstreamed a shocking level of racism for the duration of the campaign and has continued to impact on First Nations communities.”
Lindon Coombes says the fear now is that these reported instances could be just the tip of the iceberg.
“As Indigenous people we have a very high tolerance for racism. If we were reporting every incident as people sometimes allege, we would be very, very busy people. So when we look at these stories and when we go into these discussions I would hope that people keep that in mind, that these are I think genuinely tip of the iceberg types of things, and that there's a lot more going on.”
He says racism might not be apparent to everyone - or some might not want to admit it's an issue - but it's there.
“It is quite insidious. It's easily denied, easily dismissed. It's not a physical thing that you can grab and hold and physically pull apart but its effects are very real. And I think part of combatting that is educating ourselves on the many ways in which it expresses itself, and what we can to respond to that.”
