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Keywords: Prejudice

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Anti-Islam is the new Anti-Catholicism

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 September 2014
    40 Comments

    The justified insistence that Muslims should not constantly be called to account for the vicious behaviour of Islamic State is a reminder of the attitude towards Catholics in an earlier generation. They combined suspicion of anything Irish in the aftermath of the 1915 Uprising and more traditional judgments of Catholics on the basis of their beliefs and practices.

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  • RELIGION

    Picking on Muslims is getting dull

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 12 September 2014
    22 Comments

    The readiness with which some westerners take the most violent and extreme groups as legitimate expressions of Islam betrays the racism that underpins perceptions of Muslims. Whether I like it or not, my religious background and my name tie me to these 'jihadists.' I feel the permanent weight of expectation to publicly apologise for their actions.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When legitimate criticism hurts

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 August 2014
    17 Comments

    Antisemitism and racism are rightly considered shameful. Those accused of these things usually deny the charges vehemently. Declaring critics of the actions or policies of, say, the Zimbabwe or the Israeli government, to be racist or antisemitic should be called for the bullying it is. Prejudice needs to be demonstrated, not asserted. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    My intersex wake-up call

    • Barry Gittins
    • 16 June 2014
    10 Comments

    Friends of mine had their first child recently and my first, 'obvious' question — 'Is it a boy or a girl?' — was answered by a jubilant father: 'It's a girl!' Life is complex, however, and our all-too-human desires for normalcy and 'simplicity' (embodied in my automatic query) are sometimes revealed to gleam in the light of unintended prejudice. The reality for some Australians is that my question isn't always as easily answered.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The theology of Chris Lilley

    • Michael Mullins
    • 12 May 2014
    12 Comments

    The jury is out on whether Chris Lilley's new ABC1 comedy Jonah from Tonga gives a free kick to racism and other forms of discriminatory behaviour. The prejudices in Lilley's Jonah are depictions of the wounds of Australian society, not the attempt of a far-right ideologue to promote a stratified nation based on race.

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  • RELIGION

    South African lessons about racial discrimination

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 March 2014
    7 Comments

    The South African experience suggests racial discrimination begins with the appropriation of wealth and power by one racial group and its consequent suppression of other groups in order to extend its wealth and power. If we are to address racial prejudice and discrimination we need to examine the way in which wealth and power are distributed and protected in society. In Australia, they are being concentrated increasingly in fewer hands.

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  • RELIGION

    Laughing at Islam

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 10 October 2013
    4 Comments

    Tax consultant turned satirist and comic Nazeem Hussain's SBS series Legally Brown does more than just poke fun. Perhaps the most effective and most difficult ways to tackle prejudice and fear is to laugh at it. Chris Kenny's objections in The Australian that Hussain's appearance on Q&A was 'highly disturbing and dangerous' and 'an apologia for terrorism' show that Hussain and his fans continue to have plenty to laugh about.

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  • RELIGION

    Clobbering religious gay prejudice

    • Michael Kirby
    • 22 May 2013
    32 Comments

    The 2011 book Five Uneasy Pieces offered an alternative reading of the so-called 'clobber passages' that are at the core of religious unease about homosexuality. A follow-up volume pushes the envelope further by examining the biblical recognition of the variety of human love beyond traditional marriage.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Migrants and big bank theory

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 07 February 2013
    8 Comments

    There is often a natural antipathy between the financial sector and the community sector. If you give the dog a bone, say the money men, he will only rub it in dirt and bury it. If you give the bank a bone, say the community workers, it will charge you interest on the transaction. But sometimes we are nudged to reconsider our reflexive prejudices.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Blue people

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 20 June 2012
    7 Comments

    Have you ever thought about what life would be like for people who saw everything as if looking through a blue-tinged lens? For these people, everything in the world would be a shade of blue. Their car would be a shade of blue. It's one thing to be deceived, another thing to be physically unable to perceive the truth. Should we pity the blue people of this world?

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Religious fundamentalism is a two way street

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 04 May 2012

    'The Anders Breivik example shows us that extremism is not one way ... We really need to think deeply about some of our prejudices.' Australian Muslim academic Mehmet Ozalp sees the case of Norwegian mass-murderer Breivik as highlighting the urgent need for interreligious and cross-cultural dialogue.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Polite parents of violent children

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 01 March 2012

    As with Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap, an act of violence involving children acts as a catalyst to exacerbate the adult characters' prejudices, insecurities and resentments. Aided by alcohol, civility is gradually stripped away as a polite gathering degenerates into bullying and abuse.

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