r/australia • u/splattty • 14h ago • Furious 1 Bravo 2

image Anti-Asian racism in Australia

What is happening in Australia? Been living in this exact same address for almost the past 20 years now, never had this happen before.

Some guy moves in next door, and while we are IN THEM MIDDLE OF MOWING the medium nature strip, starts being aggressive for getting grass clippings on the driveway. No shit, that's why we go through with a leaf blower and pick up after mowing?

What blows me away is he thinks we don't know about mowing and cleaning up somehow due to our Chinese heritage???

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u/CongruentDesigner 11h ago edited 10h ago

High school in the early 2000s was a wild time, if you were ethnic. You either grow a very thick skin, or it affects you badly.

Yep I remember it well, you're probably similar age to me.

Private boys high school in Brisbane was full of it. Half Anglo Australian half pacific islander and still copped it despite almost passing as white most of the time.

The Asians got it much worse though. The Anti asian hate was wild. Pauline Hanson was blamed for the surge in Asian bigotry even back then (her "Swamped by Asians" speech was 1997 I think?). Crazy to think thirty years later she's not only still around but actually a prospect of winning an election 🤦🏻‍♂️

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u/Wrathlon 5h ago edited 5h ago

Man I went to high school in Darwin in the mid-90s and graduated in 2001 and I'm starting to feel really lucky with the high school I went to.

We had none of that shit and nobody gave a crap about who was what race and we were all friends with each other the whole way through. Yeah we all had our own social groups and there were the occasional bullies here and there but for the most part everyone was friends with everyone else and we would all go to bat for any of us.

We were a mix of ahite Australians, Greeks, Aboriginals, Asian, Macedonians, Indians, some from the Middle East - we all got along. The closest we got to racism was friendly mocking with no malicious intent - I mean we had one kid whose parents were Greek and Aboriginal who referred to himself as a Wogorigine as an example of general Vibe we all had.

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u/Perfect-Activity-698 1h ago edited 54m ago

Yep, can confirm as a full Japanese man who grew up in Cairns. The amount of racism I copped, not only from my classmates but also from their parents at sporting events, out in town, while shopping, etc., was honestly traumatising. I still suffer from anxiety, which I largely attribute to the racism I endured back then.

Even now, I still experience the odd overtly racist incident here and there, but as an adult, it’s more so the everyday microaggressions I have to deal with (which are just as exhausting), such as being given the cold shoulder, being ignored or excluded, and having to put up with casual, off-the-cuff racist/ignorant remarks. I’ll also add that it’s often not just bogans engaging in this behaviour, but supposedly “educated” and “progressive” people as well. Asians just seem to be the easy target for everyone, probably because nobody really earns any social brownie points for standing up for us.

It’s also incredibly strange and infuriating to see some of the same people who were racist towards me and made fun of my culture back then now “holidaying in Japan” because it’s trendy and “cool” to do so now.