My prejudice

No matter what time of the year, Melbourne is a beautiful place when the sun comes out. On a sunny winter morning, waiting for a friend to turn up, I was happy to perch myself at the bottom of the steps leading to the State Library’s main entrance. Where I stood seemed a convergence point for tourists. I could tell they were tourists. Who else would be photographing a seagull posing on a garbage bin. Who else would photograph a statue of an imperious Redmond Barry (1813 – 1880), Victorian MP, lawyer, judge, founder of Melbourne University, famous (or notorious to some) for conferring the death sentence on one Ned Kelly. It amused me when some dark-skinned tourists assembled beside Redmond for a group shot. How would he have felt about it? How would they feel if they knew he was racist?

I didn’t know if Redmond Barry, specifically, had been branded a racist. I was aware of the name, in a vaguely uncomplimentary context. So I decided to check. Easy to do these days with the means at one’s fingertips. I found that I had confused him with Professor Richard Berry, a eugenicist who advocated euthanising those considered mentally inferior on racial and other grounds. His name had been removed from a Melbourne University building. Despite my confusion, I figured I may not be far off the mark in regarding Redmond as racist. Weren’t most of those puffed-up white guys of his time, and many of the white women too, avowed racists? But I checked further, and I am happy I did. It seems Redmond Barry was one of those who wasn’t racist. He is said to have regarded Australia’s indigenous people as equal in every human respect to white people. He defended two aboriginal men in court.

What I had done was jump on the bandwagon of a particular prejudice. I assume that white people I don’t know of a certain vintage and older are likely to be racist. That’s my starting point. And I maintain that assumption until I find evidence to the contrary. Am I being unfair?

Mind you, I don’t regard social awkwardness arising from cultural differences as racist. One might just be unsure how to relate to someone from another culture. I’ve experienced exclusion, of the polite sort. My questions were answered, my comments were allowed, but I noticed that I was still excluded from the conversations. They paused to allow my comments or answer my questions, then resumed their conversation with each other as if I didn’t say anything at all. I’ve also experienced exclusion of the impolite sort, on which I don’t think I need to elaborate.

But other things worry me. Just over fifty years ago, Australia finally abolished the racist ‘White Australia’ immigration policy that had been supported across the land by the major political parties and unions. People of all races were allowed to come and live here. I don’t know how many locals approved. I’d argue not many. My sister’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all born here, proudly represent their Sri Lankan, Jamaican and White Australian heritage. The new face of Australia, one would think, but Australia’s image to the world still remains that of a white society.

I have a problem with attitudes to our Indigenous people. I cannot for the life of me figure out why acknowledging the dispossession is so difficult for people, why the Statement from the Heart was rejected out of hand, why Aboriginal culture is not celebrated and honoured and embraced and learned from instead of being depicted as a set of beliefs and practices of a bygone era with no relevance to modern Australia.

Politicians crow about our multicultural society, But multiculturalism is evident on the edges of Australian society not in its core. It seems Australia possesses a ‘small world’ mentality. Maybe the tyranny of distance contributes to it. Maybe our insistence on hanging onto the British monarchy stops us from stepping out into the world on our own terms. Are we afraid of truly being a part of our region? One can only hope this is rearguard behaviour by people of influence who wish to preserve the white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian flavour of the first seventy years of Federation.

Admittedly, we have a way to go before we are completely inclusive. Nowadays most people in Australia are likely to have encountered those of other cultures in their daily lives. The awkwardness should therefore be less, the gaps smaller, confidence greater about finding things in common. It’s worth a try.