Tag: Tim Soutphommasane

On the State of Australia and Race Race politics is back. But his speech also follows a recent burst of activity by his office that included several data-heavy reports showing the wide gap between Australia’s ethnically diverse population and the mostly white elites running government and business. Dr. Soutphommasane grew up in Fairfield, an area of Sydney that has long been the first stop for immigrant families like his own — and here he is arguing that those who fear such areas do not understand how they work. On Double Standards On the so-called Sudanese crime crisis in Melbourne, if we turn to the facts, we know that in Victoria Sudanese-born people aren’t the only ones overrepresented in crime statistics. In fact, according to Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency, criminal offenders born in Sudan make up about 1 percent of all offenders. That’s greater than their proportion of the total population in Victoria, but state figures show that is also true of Australian-born offenders (who make up almost 72 percent of criminal offenders and roughly 65 percent of the population) and New Zealanders (who are 2.2 percent of offenders and 1.6 percent of the population in Victoria). They’re the complaints of snowflakes who can’t hack it when people challenge racism. It’s a fragility that explains why when racism is called out, the real offense in some people’s eyes is not that an act of discrimination occurred, but rather that someone was subjected to being called racist. More tough talk from Dr. Soutphommasane — especially on the point that some people are less offended by a racist act than by someone calling it what it is. He acknowledged at one point that “prejudice and discrimination are like the permanent stains of our humanity,” but phrases like “implicit bias” or “unconscious bias” — schools of thought explaining that racist outcomes are often tied to historical and unseen influences that shape us all, regardless of background — do not appear in Dr. Soutphommasane’s speech.

Tim Soutphommasane will warn that “race politics is back” and criticise Turnbull government ministers for their rhetoric on African gangs and ethnic separatism in a fiery final speech as race discrimination commissioner. The world is being undone before us. If we do not reimagine Australia, we will be undone too | Richard Flanagan Read more But – borrowing another favourite phrase of Malcolm Turnbull’s – he warns there has “never been a more exciting time to be a dog-whistling politician or race-baiting commentator in Australia”. Soutphommasane argues there is a concerning “mixing of race and politics” with politicians “enthusiastically seeking debates about immigration, multiculturalism and crime”. “They end up damaging our racial tolerance and multicultural harmony.” Soutphommasane says there is “simply no compelling evidence that Australian multiculturalism is in danger of veering towards ethnic separatism”. Where the seeds of racism are planted in political speech, they will bear bitter fruit in society Tim Soutphommasane He argues people born in Australia and New Zealand are also “over-represented in Victorian crime statistics” and questions why the race of offenders is deemed relevant for crimes committed by those from Sudanese backgrounds but not other crimes. The outgoing race discrimination commissioner brushes off suggestions that political correctness has shut down debates about race. Soutphommasane accuses the far-right – not multicultural communities – of exercising a form of identity politics through the use of terms like “mainstream Australia” and “middle Australian values” which are “code for something racial”. “People should look at it another way: if you don’t want to be called racist, you can start by not doing something racist.” Soutphommasane praises the Racial Discrimination Act, and particularly section 18C which makes it unlawful to “offend, insult or humiliate” people on the basis of their race or ethnicity. We reject racism because it it diminishes our nation.”