‘What Happens Next?’: Tackling Racism, Part II

Dr Susan Carland: Welcome to part two of our recent panel discussion held by the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre as part of National Unity Week, titled “Racism: It Stops With....?”.

Our guest experts are Nyadol Nyuon, lawyer and human rights advocate; Professor Jacinta Elston, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Indigenous) from Monash University; Div Pillay, CEO of MindTribes; and Emeritus Professor Andrew Markus, also from Monash University.

In this episode, we explore some of the solutions around how we can all work together in fighting prejudice in our society, and we even snuck in a couple of questions from our audience members. Let's go back to the panel for part two of the discussion.

[Applause]

Dr Susan Carland: I've got another question for all of you again, and I'm going to start with you, Andrew. Do you think there is anything that individuals at home can do to help tackle structural racism?

Andrew Markus: I think all we can do is what we can do – something that seems right for us. That's all we can do, and we should all be doing it.

I mean, what we've heard from Nyadol is a horrendous experience of colour prejudice and racism, and that you keep coming up against it. And I just admire the courage and the leadership that you bring, because I well understand, or think that I well understand, how difficult it is. It's much easier, basically, to shut the door and withdraw from these horrendous experiences.

So I think for us, anything that's within our power, we should be doing that. If you come across a racist incident – and of course, that's difficult because you don't want to get into a violent situation – but I think that people need to understand what it is that they can do, what it is that they can safely do, and do it.

Dr Susan Carland: Jacinta, is there anything the individual can do to challenge systemic racism?

Jacinta Elston: One of the things that everybody watching tonight could do is tonight make contact with your federal and state MPs. If you are emailing your federal MP's office, you would say, “I support the Uluru Statement from the Heart. I support an anti-racism agenda in Australia.”

If you were contacting your state MP and you were here in Victoria, you would say, “I support a bipartisan approach to the treaty, to the UROP Commission, and an anti-racism approach in Victoria.”

I think that we don't use our voting voices enough. When we come up to an election, we don't hear these race issues on the table by our politicians, and often because it's just too difficult for them to get into it. They're not hearing the public who vote say to them, “This is work we want you to do. It is hard work, but we want you to tackle it.”

So I think that's one of the things that we can do. We could let our public servants, our members of parliament, state and federal, know that we support an agenda, which will take us to a different place, and that takes us to a place where we can focus on the human and the non-human of our country. Because, of course, this is also about the way that we can impact on the other big issues like climate change, like relationship, for Indigenous people, to country. It has a much bigger impact for us, I think, and the potential for the way that we will become a more cohesive and loving society in the future.

I'm not saying we're not cohesive and we're not loving now. There's a large part of us that is, but there's also a lot of ability for us to overlook the stuff that we don't see outside our back door or outside our front door when we go out.

Dr Susan Carland: Div.

Div Pillay: I'm going to sort of address these from our workplace and leadership context.

So we're doing some work currently – we swept global research on tackling racism. So we've looked at Canada, the UK, the US, South Africa, et cetera, and what we find is that there is structural racism in the systems at work. If you're a leader in an organisation or an employee, I'd urge you to look at how this is baked into racial equality right from recruitment, onboarding selection, advancement, and promotion.

There's a high correlation of reduction of racism when there's representation. So when we get First Nations people in leadership positions, people of colour in leadership positions, it starts to change the dynamic in teams, and decision making is a lot more equal because there's lived experience and voices are heard, and it's visible. So I'd urge you to look at your systems in your workplace across the employee experience to look for structural racism that's baked-in.

I'd also urge you to look at your support for people who might experience racism. Go and audit your employee assistance programs, or all of the wellness programs that are there.

We've interviewed a number of women of colour across the public and private sectors who say that when they first pick up the phone to say, “I've experienced a microaggression or some sort of incident with a leader”, the person on the other end is likely a white psychologist who doesn't have the language of racism at all at their disposal so it's a capability issue.

But the first thing that we've heard is almost tantamount to gaslighting. They're asking these women, “Are you sure that this happened the way it happened? Who else was there? Do you have a record of any bystanders who witnessed and who might give testimony to this incident?”

And what we’re finding is that women of colour who experience racism are going into retreat mode. They're going, “Why bother? Why bother even raising it?”

For me, that's structural racism right there, because there's no help even when it's touted as, “call your EAP assistance and you can get some support there”. That's not working. Then when you look at how leaders actually have a conversation on race, that's not working.

So I do find that there are inhibitors in the workplace that are pretty structural and I'd call on every leader who's listening to actually look at their sphere of influence. You have a duty of care, a positive duty of care, to your employees, because racism is harm.

There's a mental health impact. Our country records – it's a study by Deakin University – records 3.6 percent on our GDP for the cost of dealing with racism and that's because of all the trauma, mental health impact, loss of confidence, loss of voice, and sometimes even loss of employment due to racism occurring in the workplace.

So I'd say that you have a positive duty of care to people that you lead and support, and it means that you need to interrogate the systems at work to make sure there's no inbuilt structural racism.

Dr Susan Carland: Nyadol, tell us what you think about whether an individual can actually do anything to really effectively tackle institutional or systemic racism.

Nyadol Nyuon: Yeah, I think institutional racism changes because people force it to change. A good example is the marriage equality campaign that took Australians to literally change our political institutions to reflect the desires of the people. So I think that comments on the importance of personal relationships and building those personal relationships.

I also want to say that... I'm just thinking about the way to phrase it because I don't want to come out as if I'm excusing people who engage in racist behaviour. I think if I could put a message out there, it’s that when people talk about racism or the impact of racism on them, it is not an accusation or a damnation of the person or the people that necessarily engage in that conversation. So for example, if I speak about my experiences of racism, or my family experiences of racism, it is not a complete condemnation of Australia as a society, because that would be – at least in my experience – wrong.

There are other aspects of my life that have clearly been benefited and enhanced by the fact of being in Australia. So what are we doing, I think, when we speak about that, or where do I come from? I come from a place that thinks that this is a country in which my children have been born and I want them to be able to live in an equal, fair society.

So my engagement in this conversation is, how do I make space for that equality? It is about “how do we better our country so that we are constantly making progress towards the kind of ideas and goals and aspirations that we claim we are?” The idea of being an egalitarian society, the idea of giving people a fair go. These are things that are good in themselves and the question is, how do we expand them so that they are ever evolving to encompass more and more people?

So I think that's the point. The other is, what do we do as people who experience racism? I think there's always a room for grace to give other people the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and to better themselves, I think. I think that I've seen incidents online where when someone says something racist, or even says something mistakenly racist, the reaction to it leaves no room for any sort of redemption.

And I think that's impossible. We are all human beings and we are going to muck up at some point, and we should give people the opportunity for that. Of course, it doesn't mean that it's a blanket, forever tick. It's a matter of seeing whether, in fact, after that incident, their behaviour changes and if their behaviours do change, I think our response to them should.

The final part is to understand how the very structural issues in our society impact us all, even though we might blame different things. I think high casualisation, globalisation has shifted a large group of people from the stability that used to exist, and I think that instability, people name that fear of instability as “the other”.

So I think as much as dealing with the racism, we should still be campaigning around other social and economic issues that make the issue of racism far more difficult, which actually then says to me that all of us have a role to play. [Laughter] If you are a lawyer, if you are a doctor, if you are an environmentalist... all of us have a role to play.

Dr Susan Carland: Alright, let's end on some hope. I want to ask every member of the panellists now to share with us one initiative that either you are part of or that you know of that gives you hope about the future of tackling racism. Jacinta, I'll start with you.

Jacinta Elston: Look, I would speak to Monash University's recent strategic plan that we've just launched – the Vice-Chancellor and our council – a 10-year strategic plan, which upfront makes not just the recognition of Aboriginal people here in the Kulin Nations as traditional owners, but actually calls for and says that they support the Uluru Statement from the Heart and a Voice to Parliament, as well as the treaty here in Victoria and the UROP Commission.

I think to see a very large company do that is a very big commitment to be made, and I think in the context of reconciliation action plans and what other organisations can do, making that type of public commitment and then starting to do the work in-house to make that real, I think that's a fantastic thing.

From my point of view, to see Monash go into the next decade with that type of commitment up-front in the Monash Impact Strategic Plan for the next decade, I'm just really hopeful about that and really inspired, and I think that's going to help us shift and change the agenda. As I said, I've got lots of great colleagues at Monash who are already on board with us, but I think this is just going to help take us that step further as an organisation.

Dr Susan Carland: Div, what's giving you hope?

Div Pillay: What's giving me hope, especially in the workplace, are a lot of staff-led networks and employee resource groups that are women of colour networks or CALD, so culturally and linguistically diverse networks.

So they're groups of passionate volunteers, all employees, who are sponsored by a senior advocate. So either a C-suite leader or an executive leader who's likely white, male or female, who is really leading the charge on tackling racism in the workplace.

Now that gives me hope because it's not people of colour leading the charge. It's actually the senior sponsor, and they're opening up the dialogue to influence their peers. Now, that makes me feel hopeful because there's change happening, and we saw a massive spike when George Floyd died in May last year and the Black Lives Matters movement caused this surge of racial dialogue. It signalled a movement in the workplace for sure because that conversation came into the workplace and so, too, these grassroots movements start up.

I think it makes people of colour visible, it makes them vocal, it leads the change roadmap from a white ally perspective, and that's good. It's influencing those other leaders who may not be on board yet, and it's creating safety in the conversation so it doesn't feel like an “us” and “them”, it feels like a together moving forward, which is really, really hopeful.

Dr Susan Carland: And it's also not the people of colour who are having to do the heavy lifting for once.

Div Pillay: Yeah, That gives me a little bit of reprieve, I think.

Dr Susan Carland: Yeah. Nyadol, do what's giving you hope? What initiative is in tackling racism, either that you are part of or that you know are happening, that give you hope for the future?

Nyadol Nyuon: I'm going to give a really cliché answer, which sounds very political, but people.

Because with the advocacy that I've done online, I've had people from all various backgrounds approach me in public. So initially I thought that my message was going to black and brown kids, or predominantly black kids, but yeah, I have been very, very surprised by just the diversity of people that have come. 

I once had a Lebanese security guard stop me and talk to me about the work. I've had old white men write to me to say that they support the work of racism. I had young white boys from privileged schools or private schools attend rally for refugees. So I think that there is still a lot of good, and that we should continue to appeal to those people to join us.

Dr Susan Carland: Andrew Markus, what is giving you hope for the future in tackling racism?

Andrew Markus: Yeah, a clichéd response would be young people, and young people are really very special.

Say in my community, the Jewish community, there's an organisation called Stand Up, and they work with a whole range of programs, including African communities, Indigenous communities.

So that is very inspiring, but there's actually more than that, because we can look at some of the elders in our community, and a very significant Indigenous leader, Uncle William Cooper, has inspired so many people in the Jewish community because Uncle William led a protest during Kristallnacht, the Nazi policies of persecution. So a number of people in their 70s and their 80s are now campaigning to make the Uluru Statement from the Heart well-known, and organising a participation and demonstration. So I see positives across the community.

Dr Susan Carland: All right, let's go to questions from the audience now, and this first one that I'm going to ask is addressed to everyone. So perhaps if it's just ... whoever wants to answer can, if you don't want to answer, you don't have to. I'll be nice to you at this time of night.

So the question is, “Professor Markus stated that evidence suggests racism is stable or reducing. Can the panel reflect on why these reductions aren't more significant given the clear economic and social benefits that immigration and diversity bring to our society?” Would anyone here on the panel like to kick off on that?

Div Pillay: I wonder whether the positive sort of reaction is more from the fact that we're living through a pandemic and that social cohesion has come because communities have an overarching problem to solve, we just need to move together.

Dr Susan Carland: We have a common enemy in the virus.

Div Pillay: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a common enemy, and we did see some divisiveness with the Melbourne lockdown towers, and Asian hate, and all that as well.

But I do think that – I think there’s… I've listened to the news this morning and there was a lot of positive rhetoric around the economic benefits of migration, because I think Australia will feel the pain of the slow migration or halting of migration with our borders closed for two years, and we are going to suffer that from an economic perspective.

And because we're going to suffer that, I think... I've always seen Australia, especially business leaders, react when there's a bit of pain to their pocket. And that might be a very pessimistic view of the world, but I do think they'll act to include more programs to include migrants because our aged care, our residential care, our hospitality industries, the slowness of international students who will only come back maybe, if possible, next year sometime.

So all of that, our jobs are at a loss. There's fruit on the trees and farms and rural lands that are not being picked. There's suddenly an appreciation for that diversity in our country when our borders were shut and this is the impact of it.

So I do think that we might see – I'm hopeful that we might see – a positive narrative come out of it, that there's an appreciation and inclusion of people from different countries coming in. So I don't know, but I do think the social cohesion bit is about the pandemic, predominantly.

Nyadol Nyuon: I think that part of the problem is in the way we talk about migrants. We don't talk about them as part of our society. We therefore quantify the benefits of migrants by what they're able to give us, not what necessarily we're able to give them.

I think as a result, even though Australia is going to need more migrants to sustain certain industries, our political conversations around them haven't improved. If you just have an economic discussion about human beings, it doesn't translate necessarily to the human interactions.

So if I see a migrant worker as someone who is coming here to do the jobs that I don't want, it still doesn't address the attitudes that either impact racial inequality or others. Which worries me, because I think that the more we are going to need migrants to come to Australia, the more it actually can exacerbate racial tensions if the political conversation is only confined to the economic debate.

Not to mention as well that even within that economic debate it's not safe, because if migrants are either seen as taking our jobs, or, in other words, if they're not taking our jobs, they're reducing the protections that we have in employment because employers are willing to give them less protection, less money, because they're probably more desperate and that brings everyone's conditions down as a result.

So even if you define it as an economic conversation, it doesn't still address some of the economic anxieties that might arise in the future.

Dr Susan Carland: Thank you, and thank you for your contribution tonight, Nyadol. Jacinta, did you have an add on this question of –

Div Pillay: Can I interject on that, just to respond, just to make clear to the audience that this is why I said it's pessimistic? Because I do think that it's a very transactional response to the inclusion of migrants, that there is an economic argument at the moment. I agree with that, or that there won't be that level of valuing and respect and reduction of racism. There likely will be more, so that's my concern as well. I just didn't want the audience to think that that's where my head was at.

But I do think there'll be an appreciation for the fact that, “Oh my gosh, in two years, this is what's happened to our industries and our business”. So I think there's absolutely a call to action for business to look at exploitation, especially work exploitation, underpayment, and marginalisation of people who then can never actually achieve equality in society because they're underpaid, overworked, living in poor conditions, can't educate their children in the way they would like, and often their living conditions are worse-off from their home countries.

So I just want to say that that for me is just absolutely a no-no. I hope that we have an opportunity now to rewrite some of the wrongs that we've done with previous migration intakes and treat people with fairness and equity as they come in.

Dr Susan Carland: Alright, Jacinta.

Jacinta Elston: Oh, look, I think all of the comments so far have been very helpful for thinking about this in the context.

Some of the things that have worried me is what's happened to our immigration centre over the last 18 months while we've been in this COVID space. Have we improved that at all? We certainly learned nothing about the way that we treated Aboriginal people in terms of reserves and missions and the way that you segregate people.

I think that if we're going to do this well, we've got, again, put the human at the centre of it. What does it mean for an individual who's coming into this country in terms of a new life, a new opportunity? Of course, many of us have heard Stan Grant's speech on the lucky country and people are coming to Australia for something different for them and for their families. Are we giving them that? Or are we just, as you say, having this transactional relationship because they're going to come for us to do something for us?

We've all seen the story of the migrant who has come in with great qualifications from their own country, only to not be able to get qualified here, and I know our accreditation professional bodies have all got programs in place to try to get them across, but actually do we make it harder than it needs to be for somebody to get registered to practise in Australia for the profession that they are?

Dr Susan Carland: Yeah.

Jacinta Elston: So I think we've got to really rethink, again, the systems that bring our migrants in. And then how do we transition people to actually belong to our country? Not always be on the outer? I think this is a country made of migrants. Since 1788 everybody's migrated here, and how do we change this notion that we're not predominantly this white, Anglo-Saxon country? We are a multicultural society. So how do we start to actually walk into that space in a way that values everybody?

And again, for me, I've often thought, “Where do we put Indigenous people at the centre of that in the context of welcoming people to country?” How do you welcome people to country and have Australia Day ceremonies that welcome people on Australia Day when you've got Aboriginal population, including our esteemed elder, the late Uncle William Cooper, who's calling it a day of mourning? Yet that's a day that we're going to welcome people to our country, and Aboriginal people aren't there at the centre of welcoming them to country if it's on a day of mourning.

So there's some of the things that I think fundamentally we have to change the way we view that. It's about who we become as a society.

Dr Susan Carland: Andrew, how do you understand it? Given there are such good justifications for us – if nothing else, such selfish justifications – for us to want a multicultural society, economically, all these other reasons, we know that it's good. Why can we not open our hand to this?

Andrew Markus: Yep. Well, I mean, don't we? I don't necessarily assume that. I mean, for me, it's an idea of trying to get our head around numbers. There is a proportion of Australian society that is intolerant of diversity, doesn't want to have change as they understand it. Actually do want change, but change in their direction. Yep. So there's that proportion.

Then there's a proportion of the population who embraces and welcomes diversity and multiculturalism and wants to address issues. If we can get our heads around the relative numbers, which is what I've tried to do in more than 15 years of surveying, and I'd say that if we're going to put some numbers around it, five to 10 percent in one camp, which is the intolerant camp, three or four times that proportion who welcome diversity. So it's the amount of noise and media that different groups are able to generate and to define Australian society. And they're not going to define me. And they shouldn't define us.

For me, it's important to understand who they are, what they represent and the influence they're able to wield. Also to understand that there's a lot of people in the middle who don't quite know which way to go. Part of the conversation is to recognise their fears, hopes, aspirations, and to bring them with us rather than create an environment where they feel alienated because they're being challenged and they're being made to fear, and I think those points have been made.

Dr Susan Carland: Alright. How about we have time for one last question? This one says, “Some argue that there is a high level of ethnic and religious segregation in Australian schools. Do you think that this is true and that it contributes to racism in Australia? And if so, how do you think this problem could be resolved?” Anyone want to take that?

Jacinta Elston: It's been a long time since I've been in school.

[Laughter]

So I can't really sort of speak to it from that point of view, I guess. But I mean, again, I think this is about what sort of a tolerant society we are and how engaging. Is there space for everything? Does one thing mean that you can't also have the other? You know, if we're talking about tolerance in this context, doesn't everybody deserve the right?

And I think the comment before about having grace and demonstrating grace is really important. I think sometimes we think it has to be one or the other, and I know that in many of these conversations people do need to be able to stand on whatever side of the fence that they're at, or send their kids to whatever school that they send them to, and be able to have that conversation that allows that freedom to be raising your kids in the way that you want to, but not have that take away from anybody else and also to not sort of attack others for it.

We see this conversation constantly in the context of being a society that celebrates an end of a year in a place where you've got people who are celebrating Hanukkah, Christian Christmas – even if they don't believe in God but they believe in the presents. We are already doing that. We're already embracing it. So you'll hear people talk about end-of-year celebrations in schools and getting rid of this parade and that parade and doing things, and we seem to be so challenged about it. We haven't found a way to just allow ourselves to have some grace.

So it's okay if it all coexists, because that is part of us actually having to deal with the complexities of this and being able to have a new temple that's built in the middle of your small regional town that confronts you. That's okay, and it doesn't mean that people are sitting in there plotting something against the rest of the town.

So I think that there is this notion, and I really do appreciate that she said it before, of having grace with each other, and that means that we've got to also be able to do that in our institutions and our places. But to not do it in a way that sets us up for somebody to purposely be attacked, to purposely be isolated or alienated. That's where people need to be protected, but we do need to be able to allow us, as a society, to move forward in a way that embraces everything.

I think if we don't embrace everything, then we're always going to be stuck in that place of people feeling alienated from one area to another in our society.

Dr Susan Carland: I think that is a beautiful place to finish, a lovely sentiment to end on. We are also out of time.

So I'd like to say if you're at home, put the ice cream down and can I ask that while you're on mute to please give a very big thank you to our amazing panellists, Emeritus Professor Andrew Markus, Div Pillay, Professor Jacinta Elston and Nyadol Nyuon. You are spectacular. Thank you so much.

A big thanks also to the Lebanese Muslim Association in partnership with National Unity Week for helping us to put this event on. Thank you for joining us. I'm sure you've learned something. I hope you feel you can take away something practical. If nothing else, I think we can all feel hopeful – I think. Hopeful at the end of this. So thank you very much, and goodnight.

Dr Susan Carland: That concludes this episode and this topic of What Happens Next?. A big thanks to all our panellists and everyone involved in bringing this event together.

That's it for season five of What Happens Next?. A big thanks to all our guests on this series and, of course, a big thanks to you, the listener. Don't forget to give us a five-star review, and stay tuned for our next season of What Happens Next?.