Are Australians Racist?

With Australia Day a mere 48hrs away, I am a little saddened today by a couple of things arising from the cricket match between Australia and Sri Lanka on Sunday.

Firstly, two of my mates (one who is of Indian parentage, the other Sri Lankan) went to the cricket and were members of the throng of Sri Lankan fans on the hill of the SCG.  Unfortunately their day was soured by a bunch of “Aussies” behind them who called them every name under the sun.  “Go Back To Your Third World Country You Black Bastards!” and “Sit the Fuck Down You Black Cunts” were some of the choice callings out to these guys.  Now I like to go to the cricket and I like to sledge the opposing teams but stooping to crude racism is just disgusting.  Even taking out the racist element, the general vocabulary was pretty off.

Now eventually one of my mates gets shitty and stands up on his chair, tells them to look at the scoreboard and flips the bird a few times which just incites them even more.  Of course the Yellow Shirt security guys can only see a guy standing on his chair flipping the bird, so they escort my mate from the ground much to the delight of the yobs who start making jokes of “one black fella down, 3000 to go”.

And to think that these guys were only drinking light beer.

Then following up from this, I hear on radio that various people have been calling in to the right wing redneck talk back stations complaining about the Sri Lankan fans and the fact that they make “too much noise” and that they should leave their singing and drums at home.  What the fuck?!  Seriously, are people so ticked off at some Sri Lankan fans who were getting excited with their teams performance that we need to get so uppity to complain to Alan Jones on the radio with racist undertones of “we don’t like that sort of thing in Australia”.

Well I am sorry, but I enjoy watching Sri Lanka play (chucker excluded) and find the fans of all other countries good value.  Nobody complains when the Barmy Army get tanked and sing songs about convicts and the crappy value of the Aussie Dollar all day… is it perhaps because the Barmy Army come from England and have a paler shade of skin?

Wake up to yourselves Australians – the “Ugly Australian” image is alive and well and perhaps we should take a good hard look at ourselves.