Mobs tearing up Logan. Did any of them do a day’s work today, or was it business as usual and welfare on tap? That’s how MP Andrew Laming responded to recent violence in Logan between Aboriginal and Pacific…
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The infamous Youtube video capturing a young man abusing women on a Melbourne bus for the crime of singing in French, and being supported in his violent tirade by fellow passengers, raises the uncomfortable…
The idea that discredited, repugnant ideas about racial differences might play a role in medical diagnoses and treatment today is one that doctors ought to find profoundly disturbing. The racially biased…
Sporting celebrities and stars have always featured centrally in the psyche of the Australian nation. Our athletes are portrayed as positive role models and many of their indiscretions and behaviours are…
As iconic sporting images go, there are few finer specimens than the picture of Brazilian genius Pele shaking hands with England captain Bobby Moore, after their teams battled to a 1-0 victory for Brazil…
A drug used to treat heart disease may have the additional effect of reducing subconscious racial bias, a study has found. Researchers who gave people the drug propranolol found that they scored much lower…
Last week the world became a very scary place for television host Yumi Stynes when she quipped that Victoria Cross recipient Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, looking buffed, ripped and tattooed in a public…
La Trobe University’s Dr Jan Schapper recently completed a study into signage and writing on women’s toilets in Australia. The research, just published in the international journal, “Gender, Place and…
The one recommendation of the Expert Panel on Indigenous Constitutional Recognition that everyone appears to support is the repeal of section 25 of the Constitution. Section 25 says that if a State law…
Last month, the South Australian parliament unanimously accepted a bi-partisan motion moved by Labor member, Tony Piccolo, to acknowledge the wrongful internment of Italian civilians living in Australia…
Already the Libertarian Right have begun to marshal their traditional arguments to cover Andrew Bolt’s disgrace by the Federal Court. Bolt himself has screeched freedom of speech in the wake of his ascerbic…
Multiculturalism may not be flavour of the month, but the launch by Prime Minister Gillard on Monday of the Australian Multicultural Council (AMC) marks a step forward in a policy project restarted by…
Societies, if we are to take the Freudian line, prefer to subordinate chaotic urges in favour of dull order. Civilization implies stability. By the nineteenth century, human society was digesting a range…
Q: How do you confuse an Irishman? A: Put him in front of two shovels and ask him to take his pick Q: How do you get an Irishman on the roof? A: Tell him drinks are on the house. Q: Why did the Irishman…
This week the media in AFL states have been discussing racist comments made by members of crowds at Australian Rules games. Sudanese-born North Melbourne rookie Majak Daw was racially abused while playing…
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says Australia is racist. And she’s right. Racial discrimination in Australia is not idiosyncratic; it is enshrined in laws, policies and practices…
Research Fellow, Institute for Health & Sport, member of the Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network, and Co-convenor of the Olympic Research Network, Victoria University