Racism in Australia: Personal and Institutional Discrimination

Running head: RACISM IN AUSTRALIA
Racism in Australia
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Personal racism
According to Australian Government Report (2017), Australia has indigenous
people practicing unique traditions, retaining cultural, social, political, and economic
characteristics that distinguish them from the rest of the dominant societies they live in.
Quite often, because of these characteristics, these groups are discriminated against. The
first way is personal discrimination/ racism. Personal racism occurs an individual holds a
discriminatory attitude/ belief or engages in discriminatory behavior towards a certain
group of individuals. These actions are usually based on biases or stereotypes. For
instance, a white man in an office demeaning people of color would be exercising
personal racism.
Institutional racism, on the other hand, is a mode of racism that is usually
expressed in the practices of social and political institutions (Marrie, 2017). It can be seen
when there are disparities in factors such as wealth, employment, political power, and
education affecting certain groups in a population. Of the two, personal racism is quite
obvious and easily perceived compared to institutional racism. Foley (2013) denotes that
when an institution fails or neglects to provide service to certain groups based on color,
ethnic origin or other forms of stereotypes, it will have exercised institutional racism.

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Power dynamics associated with the concept of whiteness and contemporary nursing
practice in Australia
Whiteness has a hinge on the distribution of power according to race (Cunneen,
Allison, and Schwartz, 2016). The concept of whiteness outlines that white people have
been given many privileges by society because their race is considered superior. It is a
system that privileges whites and disadvantages the ‘non-whites’. Whiteness establishes
the belief that what is good for whites must be good for the rest of the people. That is,
western culture is better and the other cultures are secondary to it; perhaps of little
significance. The nursing practice in Australia is not without the fingerprints of whiteness
in it. It is conspicuously highlighted by the fact that the majority of the registered nurses
are white/ Caucasian. The non whites figure mostly as low paid aides, janitors and house
keepers. The white privilege is also depicted by its ability to stipulate and validate rules
and regulations of daily concourse and discourse. It generally has the power to dictate
membership, knowledge and language of the whole nursing practice. Consequently,
different standards of patient care are applied depending on race.
Cultural Safety and Cultural Competency
Cultural safety and cultural competency are based on essential practices in
ensuring cultural respect and effectiveness while working with Aboriginal and Torres
Strait communities (Artuso, Cargo, Brown, & Daniel, 2013). These demand that
practitioners possess cultural awareness, which is the knowledge and understanding of
the existence of different cultural groups, including identification of own cultural values,
practices and identity. Cultural safety, therefore, involves creation of an environment
where a person from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island is treated well and in a

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respectful manner and are enabled to participate in changes made to services they
experience as negative.
Cultural competency on the other hand is the enactment of culturally respectful
practices (Weiss & Wilkinson, 2018). It creates effective cross cultural relationships by
employing proper behavior, attitude and policies. For the application of these two,
practitioners are required to notice own cultural practices and individual behaviors and
how they affect the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. They are also required to
act differently to their usual culturally preferred ways and continuously review and be
open to feedback. To practice cultural competence, practitioners are required to actively
pursue cultural encounters so as to sharpen their cultural skills knowledge and
understanding. With continued practice of such, a culturally safe environment can be
created and maintained.
Report on the Article by Marrie (2017)
While analyzing information provided by Marrie (2017), I found out many issues
that need to be considered on policy making and governance to cover the Aboriginal
population. For instance, such a rich state as Australia with all its policies is up to now
unable to handle sufficiently this issue of prejudice against the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people. The question comes, is it a policy issue, lack of goodwill or an
impossible matter to effectively handle? It’s shocking and quite unfortunate that such a
rich heritage and culture of indigenous people would be undervalued and its people
continuously looked down upon. After learning this, I have become a staunch supporter
of a culturally safe environment. I intend to work to influence my surroundings and