It must be quite a shock for Julia Gillard to find that President Barack Obama's re-election somehow transformed her into Australia's male, Christian president who "actually supports what he says".
Confused? So was Kristen Neel, a teenager from Georgia, who gained Twitter infamy in Australia in a matter of hours on Wednesday evening.
After news President Obama won four more years, the 18-year-old tweeted: "I'm moving to Australia, because their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says."
She has since deleted her Twitter account, but search tool Topsy showed she was retweeted over 1500 times.
Before she went offline, Ms Neel tried to explain.
"I was referring to the prevous (sic) office that actually had a moral position," she wrote.
Australian political and media observers didn't take long to pounce, sending out numerous tweets.
source.
Confused? So was Kristen Neel, a teenager from Georgia, who gained Twitter infamy in Australia in a matter of hours on Wednesday evening.
After news President Obama won four more years, the 18-year-old tweeted: "I'm moving to Australia, because their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says."
She has since deleted her Twitter account, but search tool Topsy showed she was retweeted over 1500 times.
Before she went offline, Ms Neel tried to explain.
"I was referring to the prevous (sic) office that actually had a moral position," she wrote.
Australian political and media observers didn't take long to pounce, sending out numerous tweets.
source.
But I"m baffled that anyone would think that Australia is a bastion of christian funadmentalism. We are one of the most secular countries in the world, christianity is on the decline, I have no clue how anyone would think otherwise.
This really shocked me as I thought that we pay a lot ( just by looking at the difference between my gross and net pay, let alone adding GST on top).
(I fit into both categories. I'm a first gen migrant, Latina, Australian citizen married to an indigenous man. I, my husband and my son have had a LOT more trouble from a racial perspective living in Britain - as we currently do - than we ever did in Australia)
The problem exists, but it tends to be unthinking rather than malicious. If they know you've hurt you, I've always found Australians to be pretty good about the whole thing. Certainly, I've found Britain MUCH worse.
Day to day, I've found Britain worse. When I was in the United States, I found that much worse. I dunno, but in seventeen years...I've never had a serious problem, even as a non-English speaking, not white migrant in a mixed race marriage where my husband's not white either.
TBH, I don't know how you've avoided it unless perhaps you're on the "model minority" list. Or maybe you just have a thicker skin than I do. I do know that a lot of Australians tend to stick their fingers in their ears and shout "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" when their own racism is pointed out. So it may be that you are seeing what you want to see. Coming from outside though, it's the most overt, in-your-face racism I've ever been exposed to. (And as I said before, I am from Alabama, so I've seen some examples of racist behavior before.)
If you're going to say that your time as a tourist trumps mine on the ground, as a first gen-migrant who remembers coming...
Since you are married to an Aboriginal man, that's probably why you haven't seen it. I doubt they'd be so crass as to use the words they used to describe Aboriginals to your faces as they would to mine. I personally heard Aboriginal people referred to as "coons" "bloody abbos" "filthy drunks" and other choice epithets that I won't even repeat because they are so disgusting. I'm glad your son hasn't been exposed to it, and I pray to God that he never will. My husband was the victim of racism when he was growing up in Sydney, and I can still see the effects it had on him.
ETA that we have a lot of family in the Sydney suburbs and are planning on moving back there in the future.
Edited at 2012-11-08 09:40 pm (UTC)
Aussie racism is just another flavour of the same vindictive shit. I guess it just depends how self-aware or cautious people are about expressing their true feelings to anyone they read as a minority or ~foreign~. White Aussies around other white people tend not to hide it well when they're racists.