Abstract
Cities are indeed places of everyday racism, experienced as ethnocentrism, prejudice and ethnic-based hatred. Drawing on an Australia-wide telephone survey of respondents' experiences of 'everyday' racism in various contexts, conducted in 2006, we examine forms of racist experience, as well as the contexts and responses to those experiences for Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, Australia’s main immigrant-receiving cities. Results show that between 1 in 10, and 1 in 3 respondents, depending on their background and situation, experience some form of 'everyday' racism. However, this particular aspect of urban incivility is shadowed by everyday good relations. There is what might be called a ‘geography of cultural repair’ and cultural maintenance within the cosmopolitan city. There is strong support for anti-racism policy. Where action is taken in response racism it is determined by everyday confrontations and attempts at direct reconciliation. Formal complaints and reports are much rarer forms of anti-racism. In this paper we advocate a pragmatic on-going, agonistic politics of cultural exchange and tolerance.
Highlights
Cities are places of everyday racism, experienced as ethnocentrism, prejudice and ethnic-based hatred
Racism and anti-racism The nature of racism in Australia has been acknowledged in a series of government reports, and in some incisive ethnographic work
There is a lack of comprehensive data on the nature of racism in Australian society
Summary
The total number of locations exceeds the total sample because multiple locations could be recorded. A clear finding is that those people who take action in response to an experience of racism are at lesser risk of morbidity, and those who take no action are more likely to suffer health ill-effects (Paradies, 2006, pp.893-5) We asked those respondents who had experienced racism if they had ever regretted those occasions where they did not do anything about it. The most frequently mentioned active response (22%) was to confront the perpetrator in some manner, usually in a non-violent way, and in some circumstances to use humour or ridicule This finding provides some clues as how best to support anti-racism that is targeted against race talk. These could be, for example, antiracist catch phrases that are nationally-endorsed, deployed; and that rob commonsense racism of their power
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