In this blog I would like to talk about racism. Racism is becoming one of the global issues . It appears in almost every developed country or nation with large volume of migrants such as The United States, Australia, and The United Kingdom. In the same way, racism can exist in different aspects of these societies, including workplaces, public places, school, even on the public media. As an Asian living in Sydney for more than three years, I can feel that racial discrimination do happen sometimes around me.
On 13th of September, Leila McKinnon, the host of channel 9. In Friday night’s episode of A Current Affair, she represented the show and the Nine Network to apologize about the remarks, which had breached the television code of practice. She said that A Current Affair apologizes for any offence caused in this segment and Nine accepts the report’s fundings, which is released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). It is caused by a “racist” story, a shopping center in Castle Hill was described as an “all Asian mall” in A Current Affair. Especially the ultra introduction from host Tracy Grimshaw. This was followed by the negative misinformation with inflammatory language, such as the” the great mall of China”. Implying that Australian of Asian ethic origins did not belong to Australia (Taylor & David, 2013).
In recent years, there are several similar issues had happened in the public medias. To be honest, although it is a brief, weak and perfunctory apology, it is still regarded as a positive behaviour to face the mistakes of racism. Because public media is a huge stage for education, it can influence people’s knowledge and impression of different races. It will also influence their behaviors and thoughts in real life.
In the era of the globalization, individuals can immigrate flexibly(Ong,1999), especially for those who come from the developing countries. Because of the globalization, these group of middle class people are trying to build a better lifestyle for themselves by relocating to an English-speaking developed country. Among them, education is the main and first reason to come out here. Most of them choose to study in the tertiary education and obtaining a good qualification to find a job. Global mobility of human resources is not only the result of international education, but also it contributes significantly to fulfill the shortage existing in the local labor market. Australia is a popular and longstanding destination for international students. Nowadays international education has become the top non-primary resource export earner in Australia(DFAT.2013). According to the end of year data for 2009, it has found that of the 631,935 international students enrolled in Australia, the source countries are drawn from more than 217 different countries. With approximately 130,000 students came from China and about 120, 913 were from India(www.india.embsssy.gov.au). They certainly create a large Asian racial group on the campus. For those white students of the traditional “white” schools, they would think that their school somehow get “invaded” by a large number of Asian students. Without harmonic cultural education, it is highly likely that there will be various of emotions and actions expressed by the students, such as dissatisfaction, or non-acceptance.
It makes me remember those incidents where Indian students are attacked by Australian people in 2009. During that year, there were 152 reported assaults against Indian students in Australia and 23 such incidents involved "racial overtones"(Perry, Michael 2010). Theses reports has certainly made Asian students scared and felt of a sense of insecurity in Australia. So here I would like to pose a question to all educators, how and what we should do to facilitate the culture of multicultralism and harmonic living in one nation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOR1PTmuqr
Reference:
Taylor, A.& David, C(2013). A Current Affair apologizes over Great Mall of China story.
Daily Telegraph. Sourced from:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/the-hills/a-current-affair-apologises-over-great-mall-of-china-story/story
Ong, A(1999). Flexible Citizenship: The Culture Logics of Transnationality. Durham. NC, Duke University Press.
Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, Australian Government (2013). Composition of Trade: Australia in 2012. Retrieved 9/8/2013 from:
http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/stats-pubs/cot-cy-2012.pdf
Perry, Michael (1 June 2009). "Australian PM condemns attacks on Indian students"
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