Racial discrimination in Australia: A third of young people report race-based mistreatment
Updated
Almost a third of young people experienced unfair treatment or discrimination based on their race in the last year, Mission Australia's youth survey has revealed.
"This is a little bit of a wake-up call for us, isn't it?" Mission Australia's chief executive Catherine Yeomans said.
A total 22,000 young people aged between 15 and 19 from across the country completed the survey, with 4,000 teenagers saying they spoke a language other than English at home — the most common being Chinese, Vietnamese and Arabic.
When broken down, the survey showed Mandarin-speaking young people experienced the highest rates of racial discrimination, at 90 per cent.
About 80 per cent of Cantonese and Filipino young people reported unfair treatment based on their race.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people were almost twice as likely to report having experienced racial discrimination than their non-Indigenous peers.
"There are some conversations going on in our community, or some actions being taken against young people, that are simply not right," Ms Yeomans said.
The ABC spoke to several young Australians about their experiences.
Abir Islam
"I have faced discrimination because of my sexuality, because I am gay, and regarding my race, because I come from a South Asian background. After a while it kind of just desensitises you and you don't really notice it anymore. It just becomes the norm, which is sad. But it does build a lot more character, so you end up a better person, I guess."
Mavis Tian
"I've definitely felt discrimination. Sydney has a lot of Asian tourists and people often think just because you look Asian that you don't speak English and that makes it OK to treat you worse. A lot of the time you go into shops and people say, 'Oh, watch out for the Asian person by the door, keep an eye on her', things like that."
Nancy Li
"I've never heard anyone say anything racist to me specifically, but I've always felt there is an undercurrent of things out there, if you know what I mean. Also, there are not many Asian or black women represented in ads or the media…but I would say racism in Australia is not as bad as in other places."
Noah Leavett-Brown
"I haven't experienced discrimination at all. Sometimes my friends and I call people from other races names as a joke, not seriously, like we just joke around. Sometimes my friends will say, 'you Asians came to take over our country' as a joke, but it's not real…we laugh it off, none of us take it seriously."
Paru Bhandari
"I haven't experienced racial discrimination, but I think there is gender discrimination in Australia because of the gender pay gap. I hope there will be equality in the future — for boys and girls, high class and low class, in education, in jobs, for religion and for race."
Steven Chen
"I've experienced racial slurs, mainly back in high school. It didn't feel too good. At the time I recognised it was mainly because they were quite immature, but I think as I have grown, people around me have also matured. Racism is definitely a thing in Australia, I don't think there's any point in denying it, but I think as the population becomes more educated racism will become less and less."
Topics: discrimination, community-and-society, human, australia, nsw
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