Racism and Ethnocentrism: Contributing Factors to Inequality in Australia

Racism and Ethnocentrism 1
Racism and Ethnocentrism
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Racism and Ethnocentrism 2
Introduction
Racism is the belief that one’s race is superior over another race which often leads to
discrimination and prejudice of other races as inferior (Grigg and Manderson, 2016). While
racism is revealed through our attitudes and actions towards people of different origins,
sometimes acts of racism are not obvious, example a manager who goes through a list of job
applicants and decides not to shortlist people from a particular place. Racism and ethnocentrism
are among the leading cause of inequality in Australia. Issues of discrimination, being looked
down upon, stereotypes and prejudice based on one’s racial orientation have become a usual
thing in Australia. The consequences of racism are deleterious and harmful to any given society
as they affect relations and peaceful coexistence among people. Racism and ethnocentrism are
the root cause of evil in society today. It leads to hatred towards each other, prejudice,
stereotypes which are usually wrong conclusions and judgment, discrimination among others.
Racism is experienced in various forms like prejudice and stereotyping and discrimination. It can
also manifest through drawings, speeches especially in public rallies, hate speech in social media
and most importantly our behavior towards people of different racial orientating from us. These
issues of racism have led to suicide or suicidal attempts and killing each other. Racism and
ethnocentrism should be fought by all means possible as it runs contrary to values like
discrimination, violence towards one another and equality. They impact directly on a person’s
human right and right t equality.
To understand Australia and racism let’s look at an overview of Australia’s background.
Australia is a diverse country which is multicultural and is composed of people from different
races. According to Australian human right commission, most of the Australians are either born
overseas or has a parent who was born overseas (Nelson, Hynes, Sharpe, Paradies and Dunn,

Racism and Ethnocentrism 3
2018). Australia is a country that believes that immigrant makes them stronger, therefore, they
welcome immigrants in their country thus further increasing cultural diversity. As a result of
people with different cultural orientation in Australia, some of the societal issues it is dealing
with in respect to racial orientation are, racial violence, racial profiling, hate speech and
discrimination among others. Studies have shown a persistent in racism in Australia. During the
study, 20% of the population reported either discrimination in terms of religion or racial
orientation (Ruhanen and Whitford 2018).
How racism and ethnocentrism have contributed to inequality in Australia
One of the ways in which racism has led to inequality in Australia is through racial
profiling. This is where the racial orientating of a person is used for suspecting them of
committing a crime. This is a very wrong perception as it brings about biases and prejudice on
the basis of ethnicity. It is wrong to suspect someone of a crime merely because they belong to a
certain race without proof or evidence. To avoid such discriminating conclusions which results t
inequality evidence should be used as a measure for crimes as anyone can commit a crime. A
good example is the big number of Aboriginal and Torres Islander in prison despite the fact that
they are the smallest number in Australia, approximately 3%. Studies have shown that 27% of
prisoners in Australia are either from Aboriginal people f Australia or Torres Island. Another
group f Australians that face racial profiling are the Muslim and African Australians. Research
has further shown that Australia is still in its infancy stages of dealing with racial profiling as
compared to other western nations. These forms of biases act to divide a societal or people in
terms of superiority and inferior, it makes a certain people of society see themselves as inferior
and insignificant which is not always the truth. The stereotypes associated with them make them
succumb to the allegations.