Coming to Perth, there are a lot of Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysian, Thai etc etc, the bulk of non-UK / caucasian people I deal with are south-eastern Asian. Which is super for someone who’s vegan (diet wise). But, to deal with the black comment in the above story, there are a noticable number of African citizens here, and I don’t know of any particular negative feeling. In fact, Perth is one of the most multicultural, tolerant places I have ever lived. One of my friends (and one that has stuck with me through some nasty relationship stuff) is black as anything, okay he emigrated from Wales but was from Jamaica originally). He keeps having a go at me for having to use sunscreen in summer

Come to Perth, Denika!

Cheers
Shane

You’ll find the vast majority of the country greatly acceptive and even inquisitive, or they just plain won’t notice the colour of your skin.
Truth is, most of us just don’t care what colour, shape, or size you are. We’re more than happy to help. It’s what makes Australia great - the spirit of mateship.

I agree fully with Shane. You won’t regret moving here.

-mark

We too have seen a recent influx of immigrants from (I think) Nigeria, and the few families we come across “at the shops” in our suburb (in the south near the airport) seem to be settling in well and enjoying Aussie life…

Black, white, red, yellow, teal or puce; it doesn’t really matter what colour you know how to have a good time, you’re always welcome in Sydney! (or Perth, but the weather in Melbourne is terrible

There aren’t many Africans in Australia, but there are alot of non-white people. Recently there have been some Sudanese refugees. Apart from that most black people in Australia would be from the carribean, just like in the UK.

Its funny this urban myth that australia is a racist place. Personally i’ve never seen or heard anything that has shocked me. There is definatley racism in australia, but it tends to not be as violent as the racist stuff we see out of the US and britain.

No, there are not very many Africans out here, however the main australian cities are very multicultural. Where i live there is a small sudanese refugee community, and they do stand out quite a bit, but from what ive heard many people in the wider community are helping them get ajusted to our society.

Yes, australia has some racist groups and people, but no, it is not the racist backwater that so many people who have usually never been there make it out to be! It is by western standards a very tolerant and open place.

As a very light skinned black female from Britain am having a fantastic time in Oz!! The people are friendly, the weather is gorgeous and the quality of life amazing!!

Of course I noticed at first that there were not many other black people around.. and on occassions I did stand out!! It was weird at first…. in the beginning all I had was “Hey we love your braids - how long did they take!!”

But skin colour doesnt matter at all.. in fact some people especially in the smaller towns etc have been fascinated by my skin colour…!!! and would just come up to me and start conversations wanting to hear my story re my parents coming from the carribean etc etc!!! And how surprised they were when I told them that they were a lot of black people in England!!!

And any one who has made ignorant comments (a few) I just ignore and laugh at!! As they are just not worth it!! Why let a tiny minority spoil my trip and overshadow the rest of the fantastic aussie population!!!!

The way I see it skin colour will only be an issue if you make it an issue!!!! Australia is a very tolerant country and I love it to bits!!

So come along and join the party!!

Ciao for now!!

I am a black American studying in Melbourne, Australia. Today I had my first experience of overt racism, where some one called me a ‘nigger’ for simply saying excuse me while walking down Lygon Street. I am very upset and hurt by the comment and I have even considered leaving. I don’t want my experience here to be ruined, but I am at a lost for how to deal with this issue. It’s weird because I can deal with the silly questions about my hair and the steers, but I just felt rotten after this woman disrespected me. Has anyone dealt with this type of issue in Melbourne or any other Australian city and if so, how did you deal with it?

Cheers.

well let’s say that i’ve never been 2 australia but i’m looking forward coz i wanna go there and do my master.

however i think it’s unfair to say that the country is racist. you might foind some racist people like in most countries but from what i heard (many friends of mine), it is a lovely country with lovely people.

i think it’s not about skin color or origin or anything else. either you are comfortable or you’re not, either you like their way of life or you don’t.

just enjoy being there and learn about their culture and way of life and you will love it….

this is my advice to everybody either you wanna move to australia or to anither country…

cheers

Are there racists in Australia? For sure mate!! There are many uneducated idiots who think they own the country.

Where can you find or meet these bigots? Well, they could be anywhere, on the parking space of a shopping centre, in the fast food restaurant, on the road, at school, well could be anywhere.

So, should you be concerned? NO, if you are a law-binding resident and you do nothing wrong, no need to worry. In all cases, these bigots are either cowards or drunks. If someone insults you based on race, just fight back smartly, most likely they will shrink like a soaked mouse. If they are drunk, well simply ignore them - they are worth nothing; just think - will you fight a mad dog?

Just today, my mate who is an Asian went to a Subway restaurant, and the waiter (who happened to be White) was a racist and treated him rudely. My mate was simply challenged him in front of every other customers and asked this idiot waiter whether he has a problem with him. As expected, this bigot shrunk like a rotten leave. So, again no need to worry about these racists, or racism in general.

Are all Australian racists? HEY, OF COURSE NOT! They are so many of us here that don’t even know the meaning of race - what we know is a V8 Race or maybe Horse Racing, haha… Many of us are also colour blind, so… we can’t differentiate people’s skin colours – they all look the same

Which Australian city is the most racist? It’s difficult to say, I have been travelling across Australia and been living in five big Australian cities (from the East to the West), they are all complete with both fair dinkum Aussies and racists. So, if you like to visit or live in Australia, choose a city that suits you in terms of its views, weather, quality of life, costs of living, housing price, crime rates maybe, BUT CERTAINLY DO NOT TRY TO CHOOSE A CITY BASED ON ITS DEGREE OF RACISM. You will not find one is better than the other here.

So, should you come here or not? CERTAINLY YES! COME and ENJOY YOURSELF HERE. If you like it here, and you can cope with everything here, then you’ll love it here. If you come and hate it, it’s not the end of the world, isn’t it? There are always other countries to explore.

All the best! Oy Oy Oy!!!

I recommend that an Australian white, before assuming a persons’ background should ask “Where are your PARENTS from?” or “Where are you ORIGINALLY from?”

instead of “Where are YOU from?” or “Are you from ”

It’s just a matter of rephrasing a few words and having the decency to ask, instead of assuming that one is from somewhere.

Do you know something? Prior to moving to Sydney, I have been cautioned by so many people of other races eg. blacks, mainland Chinese, Vietnamese, Indians. But I shrugged it off, because my English was way better to theirs and I am a rather westernized person, I can fit into western culture as I have had some American influence in my young days.
But alas, in recent times, I realised Bigots are everywhere in Sydney…and they are not just limited to white people, but even people of other races too who act like they own the country.

If I can tell the difference between an Irish, English, Australian, American and Canadian, I do not see why those bigots see all non-whites as the same. They are not the same. And to a certain degree, i can understand why non-English speaking countries are so strict about the immigration of whites into those countries…because sooner or later, the whites will also monopolise those countries and start acting superior over the original non-English speaking residents in their own country.

I can totally identify with Kam Martin’s experience in Melbourne. I did think of leaving Sydney many times, and thought of moving to a smaller town like Tasmania as the people there do not seem threatened by people of colour/different race and they see it as unique.

I can only attribute the increasing racism, to the fact that Australia was too relaxed about letting non-English speaking immigrants in. i guess the white people (or the so-called native australians) subconciously feel inferior enough that the real Australians are the aborigines. Now they feel EVEN more threatened when Asians, Africans..etc become Australian citizens and are just as eligible as they are for benifits like Medicare..etc.etc. Because of the influx of so many non-English speaking immigrants, an English speaking person like myself gets mistaken for one, and carries their burdens too.

Maybe it is the so-called “freedom of speech”,that causes all the racism. But then, when you look at it another way,we also have the rights to fight against racism too. And we should not leave the country just because of what a bigot does. Nor should we give up our own identity for the sake of being accepted. Just speak English good enough to understand, work on grammar vocabulary, and perhaps go for non-service oriented jobs, where people will have no opportunity to criticise accents.

I guess the racial intolerance should come from one’s own feeling of inferiority. Of course not all Australian whites are like that. The educated ones I met in Uni were far from racist. Maybe curious and a little ignorant, but no harm intended. But in my job, i met, and even talked to lots of real bigots. But I don’t blame them, many of them are uneducated anyway.

On a positive note, I have found other parts of Australia extremely racially tolerant. I think it’s only the big cities that are full of surprisingly uneducated bigots. If you ask me, which is the most racist city in Australia, I would rank Sydney first, followed by Brisbane and Melbourne. I’ve family scattered all over Australia, so i based my observations on personal experience.

I get called a lot of extremely racist and generally insulting things because I happen to work in a call centre (from people on the other end of the line of course). Apparently if you are a voice on the other end of a loooong telephone line, it’s okay to be as rude as you like! Go fig!
In fact, I can shrug most of it off. I’m pretty well immune to insults from people I can run rings around intellectually. I may have a slight accent (because I travel a lot, when I can) but I’m probably the palest person you’ll ever see. But of course, everyone assumes if you work in a call centre you are in some other country pretending to be in sydney or somewhereas part of an evil plot to take over the world with giant penguins trained to shoot laser carrots through their eyes. Or something like that.

I think as a whole, Australia is not racist. There is a very small but vocal minority that are, but most people ignore them. I live in one of the most multicultural cities in the country, and love it. You can’t pick one city as being more or less racist as another, because every person in that city is different with different views and opinions.

Australia is possibly perceived as being racist as our Indigenous population (which has doubled in the last 30 years from around 1% to 2% of the total population) are so maltreated and disadvantaged. Nobody knows what to do about it and it is such a huge problem and is often out of middle class Australlia’s everyday view. I have know idea how to make their lives better - it is appalling that Aborigines live in third world conditions, in such a wealthy country, and have such high rates of early death, infant mortality, incarceration, poor health, unemployment under-education, - the list goes on. There is so much legacy damage in their cultures, caused since European settlement, that it can’t be easily fixed. I see a similar situation here in the US, where there are ghettos of African American people, who are also incredibly disadvantaged and again, it is a horrible legacy of past and current treatment. Ask an Australian Aboriginal person whether Australia is racist and they will probably say yes.

I am a black American (woman) interested in emmigrating to Australia. Normally, I don’t worry about racism as it is pretty much everywhere in some form or other, but just out of curiosity, I googled ‘blacks in Austalia’ and came upon this site. After reading all of the above comments, I couldn’t resist!

I traveled to Western Australia (WA) last year to 1) visit a home sick friend living in Port Hedland (those of you that know the place, I’m sure she’d invite your sympathies, and for those of you who don’t, well, let’s just say it’s known for its rather red earth-and iron ore!!) and 2) to get a feel for the country and people.

I do think there is some racism, but not in the sense that I think most Americans would be familiar (ie lynchings, etc). Most of it stems from people just not knowing and understanding each others’ cultures (ie one woman using the term ‘jigaboo’ in reference to Aborigines and not knowing that it was also an offensive term used in reference to black Americans-she apologized). And when initial meetings are laced with violence (ie the influx of Europeans in the early formation of the Australian country from a political stand point), it is difficult to mend whatever bad feelings have emerged between groups. We struggle with it constantly in the US, but I think it is mostly fueled by the media and racial demographics interlaced into economic reports on education, poverty, job earnings, etc. I mean, really, who cares?? It’s not important!

Anyway, my visit to WA was lovely! People were more curious than anything, and (don’t get upset Aussies, I mean no disrespect with the next comment) I felt like I was at home in the US!!! I didn’t feel that people were unwilling to come up and ask questions or just wait for you to say hello to them-most were very helpful. My friend in Port Hedland had no problems mingling with the locals, as a matter of fact, she and her husband (both white Americans) had tons of friends (and we all know how Americans are not the most well liked around the world right now)! And their friends were all wonderful!

There was a mutual dislike of the Aborigines (or ‘black people’ as they call them), though, and I did notice that even my friend seemed to fall into this line of behavior. I don’t think she knows any, but she fell into the trap of believing all she had been told about them - the sterotypes mainly. And, I have to admit, I did a little as well, not so much as I would ever bar their entry anywhere or not let them do a certain job if qualified or even comment (I was taught not to say anything if it isn’t nice). But (and I really don’t know how much truth there is to this, so if anyone would wish to ’school’ me on it, I’d be much obliged) from what I understand, the Aborigines are offered pretty much everything (education, homes, vehicles, land, etc.) for free and rarely take advantage of if because it doesn’t mesh with their beliefs! Well, you can’t fault people for that, but if that kind of thing was offered to blacks in America…I could only imagine the possibilities (and problems)!!

Anyway, I think Australia is a great country with great people and I can’t wait to meet and mingle with them all - racists included!!! In the words of our much troubled and ignorant president, “Bring ‘em on!!!”

If you do not want to experience any form of racism, then stay in your country no matter how bad it is. On the other hand, life is too short to get stuck in the same place, day in day out and talking to the same set of people.

I believe the moment we start to appreciate one another, tell our children positive things about themselves and others, and begin to overlook our skin colour, we will make life easier for ourselves and generations yet upon.

Renna: Re: Pauline Hanson, she has failed utterly in her attempts to stay in politics. Maybe people think she can dance, but they certainly don’t want her running the country.

My school was about 90% Chinese, Korean, Indian and Sri Lankan, and so unlike most white Australians I’ve experienced being in a very visible racial minority. At first I was sensitive and a little uncomfortable at how different I suddenly felt. Everyone was very conscious of their own ethnicity and we had all sorts of slang for different groups (like “Honkie” for Hong Kong Chinese, “Shangs”; “Lankans”; “Curries”; and “Skips” for whites etc), but although this could be mistaken for racism or racialism, it was really more a matter of pride in one’s origins and history as distinct from the Australian mainstream, curiosity about each other’s backgrounds, and a level of comfortableness with it all that we felt free to joke around and mock-stereotype ourselves and each other. All the terms I’ve just listed were used with the same degree of affection as “wog” is now used by, say, Greeks or Italians to each other. Sydney is the kind of place where we can all be our polyglot selves, and being Australian is so utterly assumed that it goes without saying. No one ever felt the need to tag “-Australian” to the back of “Chinese” because it was simply obvious - of COURSE we’re all Australian.

Having said that, outside the better parts of the city, if you leave the fun, mixed suburbs of the inner city, north-west and west and head (very far south) to the Shire, you do get Cronulla-type places where the lack of outside influences leaves everyone quite parochial. But there’s nothing intrinsically dark or bad about people from the Shire, it’s just parochialism. The ones that leave and head up north into the real world of Sydney are all perfectly lovely, civilised and accepting. In the major cities, like Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and even Adelaide (;p) I think it’d be rare to have a problem and I can’t imagine anyone actually being violent over something so silly as racism.

Overall, I think Australians are a relaxed and well-meaning lot. Parochialism is the true problem, not racism, and that generally manifests in ignorant curiosity, nothing worse. Immigrants and visitors from Europe, East, South-East and South Asia are totally commonplace but not so much from Africa or blacks from the Americas and Caribbean. You’d stand out more, you might get a couple of second looks. But after having been initially hurt by some of the stereotypes and preconceptions about white people in my high school, I swiftly learnt that oversensitivity is silly because it’s very rare that people are actually bigots or actually mean to insult you. Likewise, when I visit England and people on occasion make jokes about ubiquitous Aussie bartenders, pet kangaroos or call us “the colonies”, I do no more than roll my eyes at the tiredness of their jokes, and never assume that people are trying to hurt me.

I agree with Sarah about Alexis’ call centre problems =)
I don’t think it’x so much you, but more people’s hatred for telemarketing lol
Im genuinely sorry they’re so evil!
All in all, it is so much better here than any other place in the world..
Hehe, Alison.. I wanna go to Canberra *is sorry for all lame Canberra- is- boring jokes she has said in her lietime..
Lovelove Australia !!!

I have to say I am a little nervous but my friend who I am going to visit who is from Brisbane says all will be fine and that most Aussies dont give a crap about your color. They are so laid back and relaxed. I also assumed on my own that since we will be staying in a tourist section of Queensland that I will feel more accepted?? I am just so excited and ready for this new adventure. My friend and my friends’ family have been taking the piss outta me (been learning the lingo) because I am a DAMN YANKY. Hey shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, we are not going to tell them but the only Yankees I know come from New York and wear blue and white pinstripes!!

Well I will post again when i come back and let all know about my experience which I am sure will be faboulous!!!

Sydney or Melbourne! Sydney’s sunny most of the year, has gorgeous beaches, a large and quirky inner city cafe and nightclubs area, great East and South-east Asian influence on food etc. Melbourne’s also a fantastic city, and admittedly has more in the way of edgy live music, museums, art & performance… but their weather isn’t as good! Melbourne gets hotter in summer and colder in winter; Sydney is more temperate. Also, Melbourne is on quite a flat plain, whereas Sydney is hillier in places and close to beautiful natural parks like the Blue Mountains.

Second, Sydney has a huge and proud gay population - we’re meant to be the gayest city on Earth after San Francisco and Amsterdam - so I can’t imagine you and your partner finding a better city in Australia to live in. And I really don’t think you’d have any trouble with being black!

So how would we see you here? Simply, welcome!

Again thank you for your comment. And once I get back I will post the updates.

I would just like to know what i can expect being on my own. What is the standard of living like? Will i survive on my own?

Thank you.

everyne is unique