My Thoughts on Racism

Recently I've been hearing a lot of stories related to the indigenous Aboriginals of Australia. They have typically shorter life-spans, they are more likely to develop addictions and, in general, they don't have lifestyles that are as healthy as non-Aboriginal people.

It's always annoyed me a little. I was actually discussing this with a friend the other day, and we were talking about Aboriginal awards. They have awards recognising achievements by Aboriginal people. To me, this has always seemed, well, a little bit racist. I, as a white Anglo-Saxon Australian, could not win that award.

The cherry on the cake was a news story that I heard the other day; the Australian government were going to try and hire a certain number of Aboriginal employees in order to "try and lead by example". To me, that is absolute rasicm no matter what their intentions. If they government was to say "we are going to hire more Anglo-Saxons" or more African Americans, or Asians, then they would be slammed by the media, as being discriminative and racist.

This got me thinking about racism in general. To me, the very concept of racism is essentially racist.

According to the online dictionary, racism is a noun meaning "hatred or intolerance of another race or other races"

The idea of race is labelling people into categories - white, black, Asian, Aboriginal. To put somebody into a category based on where they come from is, in essence, very similar to racism itself.

I also had another thought not too long ago. Early humans (and I mean early early humans) were nomadic in nature. They travelled in groups, and any group of people other than them was a threat to their survival. These early humans were driven by instinct, much more so than we are.

I can't help wondering if racism is a left-over instinct from the days where we relied on natural selection to survive. It may be that it started that way, but is now just carried on through the generations, parent to child.

These are just a few of my ponderings on racism. I've been considering it a lot recently, usually in the hours of the night when I'm trying to sleep. It's probably triggered by the numerous stories I've been seeing related to Aboriginal rights.

I hope that, if anybody reads this, they don't find it offensive. It is purely my view, and I don't expect anybody to take it as me stating a fact.