Racist "whiteness" concept flourishing among elite Australians

The Left are obsessed with race and racial differences

Is there a collective noun for those who make a living out of publicly decrying the evils of whiteness? Consider for example, a cacophony of virtue-signallers, a soliloquy of self-flagellants, a dirge of self-loathers, a nursery of penitents, and a turgidity of neo-Pharisees.

For such zealots the crusade against racism — or more accurately to be seen as crusading against racism — is a secular calling. Its central philosophy is the disparaging and loathing of whiteness. Are you thinking irony or downright hypocrisy? To describe it so would be correct, but those terms do not illustrate the degree of cognitive dissonance in the crusader’s mind. To describe it as Orwellian doublethink, however, does.

What featured in last week’s episode of ABC Radio National’s The Minefield served as a stark example, its subject title “Wrong to be ‘White’: Is Racism a Moral Problem?”. Apparently rejecting the notion that racism is an aberrant element of whiteness, host Scott Stephens mused that it was innate. “A great many more philosophers and a great many political theorists … would see the persistence of racism not as a moral topic but in some ways as foundational, as fundamental as in some ways infecting and rendering us complicit in pretty much everything we do,” he said. “What do you think”, he asked co-host and Deakin University lecturer Dr Joanna Cruikshank.

You might think the correct answer, after suppressing an outburst of derisive laughter, would be to say this secular construct of original sin was both simplistic and sweeping. But Cruikshank did not demur. “As a historian I think I’m constantly struck by the way the structures of many modern nations have been racial right from the start,” she said. “I think I would even say white supremacist from the start.”

It is a term that Cruikshank resorts to frequently, particularly in respect to self-loathing. “I am a white supremacist,” she wrote in June this year. “I sing a national anthem that proclaims Australians to be ‘young and free,’ directly excluding the ancient nations of this land and their people — people who, for most of the century this anthem has been sung, have been anything but free. I work in institutions and walk on streets named after men who authored the White Australia policy.”

The list of self-indictments is a long one. “I watch television and movies where white people portray almost all of the heroes, while people of colour play the feisty friend, the wisecracking sidekick, the super-strong villain or the treacherous terrorist. If I watched sport more often, I would see players of different races, but almost all white managers and coaches.”

The purpose of telling us this, she writes, is not “to indulge in self-flagellation.” Whether she is trying to convince us or herself of that one cannot say. “No doubt people of colour around me could point to many more examples of the way my words and actions reflect and perpetuate white supremacy,” she adds. “I am working to change this.” These changes, however, do not appear to go so far as the reluctant white supremacist giving up her taxpayer-subsidised job to make way for a person of colour, but that’s by the bye.

The two co-hosts could not be more alike in spirit. “Like you, I’ve been rather troubled by the political response as well to the National Constitutional Convention at Uluru,” said Stephens, who then added the indigenous resolutions such as a treaty and a so-called truth and reconciliation commission to be “clear and unequivocal” and “morally rich”.

As with Cruikshank, Stephens appears to regard the ABC studios as the nation’s confessional. He deplored the “grubby public debates about things like the Australia Day date,” describing them as a reaction to “historical truth-telling.” The protests were a “reassertion of a muscular white nationalism,” he went on to say. “This for me is really the symptom of something that remains very deep and very wrong with who we are.”

You could be tempted to argue in response to such strong sentiments that the attempt by socialist and Greens-dominated councils to change the date of Australia Day is an aggressive form of cultural cleansing. Alternatively, you might suggest that this whole notion of whiteness and inherent racism is sanctimonious piffle, as well as an exercise in attention-seeking.

Ah, but Stephens had anticipated this. “It‘s now common for people to come out and to deny that they themselves are racist while engaging in either forms of speech or patterns of behaviour that would be I think rightly morally described as racist.” To assume that a denial of racism from one accused of such behaviour is evidence of guilt is truly a Kafkaesque mindset.

These views are disconcertingly similar to those of the Australian Human Rights Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane. “Not to put too fine a point on it,” he observed only two months ago, “but we must be prepared to say that if people don’t wish to be called racists or bigots, they shouldn’t blame others; they should begin by not doing things that involve racism or bigotry.” But what about the right to a fair hearing? For a cultural Marxist, that is merely a bourgeois anachronism.

Given Stephens and Cruikshank’s controversial and near identical views on whiteness, surely we could expect their only guest would provide a challenging and robust counterargument? After all, ABC editorial policies require The Minefield to “Present a diversity of perspectives so that, over time, no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.” So how did that work out with this guest?

“I’d like to start off actually by acknowledging that here in Sydney, in the ABC studios, I am actually sitting on lands stolen from the Gadigal people,” began Alana Lentin, associate professor in Cultural & Social Analysis at the University of Western Sydney. Does that give you some indication of how much balance you can expect?

Lentin is also the president of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association. Its charter is to “critically investigate and challenge racial privilege and the construction and maintenance of race and whiteness, both past and present.” In respect to the assertion that denial of racism is equivalent to an admission of guilt, Lentin takes an even more extreme view. “The assertion of ‘not racism’ that accompanies many structurally white discussions of and pronouncements on matters of race is itself a key form of racist violence,” she wrote for ABC only last week.

Not surprisingly, it was a very cosy little chat among the three, with acclaims along the lines of “Absolutely” and “Wow”. “We know that white people in this country are not jailed for unpaid fines,” said Lentin, commenting on the death in custody in 2014 of West Australian indigenous woman Miss Dhu. This is a blatantly absurd fiction, yet neither Stephens nor Cruikshank corrected Lentin.

Judging by her Twitter account, one sees that Lentin has a tendency to weaken labels through overuse. According to her Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is a “fascist”.

Fascist Turnbull presides over same racist policies as Trump regime is trying to install https://t.co/2guTeBlIqS

— alana lentin (@alanalentin) January 30, 2017

So too is his cabinet colleague Scott Morrison, but he is a “total fascist”.

How very fascist: Tony says 'families, jobs, economy, secure nation' and 'I love this country' http://t.co/13NRC20lm1

— alana lentin (@alanalentin) February 9, 2015

On what basis? It turns out that Abbott had espoused the importance of “families, jobs, economy, secure nation”, and had said “I love this country.”

Her accusatory outbursts do not end there. Lentin frequently refers to immigration detention centres as “concentration camps”.

Her most revealing tweet was one sent on the eve of Australia Day this year. “Does anyone seriously think that #changethedate will resolve the pesky fact that Australia was stolen? No to nationalist days!” Never kid yourself in thinking that the progressives’ campaign to change the date of Australia Day will end there.

As for episodes like that of The Minefield, what does it say of the ABC’s adherence to its statutory charter? Only this month managing director Michelle Guthrie claimed the government’s legislative proposals to amend the charter — including a requirement that coverage be “fair” and “balanced” — amounted to a “political vendetta”.

Finally, one should reflect on the words of Stephens, who linked the concepts of race and whiteness to “products of capitalism itself”.

Capitalism, he asserted, “produces subjects who are willing to profit off the back of the misery and the immiseration of others,” he said. He’s absolutely right. It is called the Grievance Gravy Train, and it is publicly funded through taxes paid by capitalists. And it is not only its drivelling passengers who enjoy such a lucrative run at the expense of others, but also those who stoke its fires and drive it.

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'Australia feels like a FOREIGN country': Most Australians believe the country is FULL and almost half support a ban on Muslim immigration

Three quarters of Australians believe the country doesn't need any more people and almost half support a ban on Muslim immigration.

A survey of more than 2000 people, by the Australian Population Research Institute, also found 54 per cent want a reduction in the annual migrant intake.

The independent organisation claims the results are driven by a rapid change in Australia's ethnic and religious make-up and concerns over quality of life.

'Australian voters' concern about immigration levels and ethnic diversity does not derive from economic adversity,' academics Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell wrote in a report based on the survey.

'Rather, it stems from the increasingly obvious impact of population growth on their quality of life and the rapid change in Australia's ethnic and religious make-up.'

Australia's population increased by 389,000 people to 24.5 million in the year to March, largely due to the arrival of new immigrants.

Most people who migrate to Australia are skilled workers (68 per cent) and about a third make the move to be with family.

But 74 four per cent of those surveyed believe Australia is 'already full', with most pointing to roads congestion, hospitals capacity, affordable housing and fewer jobs as evidence.

Some 54 per cent want Australia to cut its annual immigrant intake of about 190,000 people and 48 per cent backed a partial ban on Muslim immigration.

However, another 27 per cent were undecided about a partial ban, while a quarter opposed it.

The strongest support for the partial ban came from One Nation voters (89 per cent), with more than 50 per cent of Liberal voters agreeing and just over a third of Labor supporters.

'The willingness to take a tough, discriminating stance on Muslim immigration is not limited to a small minority, but extends to almost half of all voters,' the report said.

More than half of those surveyed feared Australia risked losing its culture and identity, with a similar number saying it had changed beyond recognition and sometimes 'felt like a foreign country'.

Australia's political and economic 'elites' had ignored rising concerns about immigration, the report said while noting rising support for anti-immigration parties across Europe.

'Such is the extent of these concerns that they could readily be mobilised in an electoral context by One Nation or any other party with a similar agenda, should such a party be able to mount a national campaign,' the report said.

'If this occurs, the Liberal Party is likely to be the main loser.'

The survey was largely based on the views of Australian-born respondents, who were 'much more likely to take a tough line on immigration numbers and ethnic diversity than are overseas-born persons (unless they are UK-born)', the report noted.

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Sirius demolition one step closer as state government declines to grant heritage status

The controversial Sirius building on the edge of the Rocks is a step closer to demolition after the NSW government again declined to grant the brutalist former social-housing block heritage status and protection from redevelopment.

NSW Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton announced on Wednesday that she had declined to grant the heritage status, moving a proposal to demolish and redevelop it into a $120-million apartment redevelopment to completion.

"My role is to decide whether the building has aesthetic value and, if so, whether that value is such as to satisfy [heritage value] at a state level," Ms Upton wrote in a decision published on Wednesday. "While the Sirius building is distinctive, in my view, it is not a landmark worthy of state heritage protection."

The announcement comes after a previous decision by Ms Upton's predecessor not to list the building was overturned in the Land and Environment Court in July, after the state government was found to have "side-stepped" its obligation to consider the building's heritage value and misapplied the law.

Shaun Carter, the chairman of the Save Our Sirius action group and former president of the NSW Institute of Architects, said it was unsurprising the state government had decided to resubmit its application.

But he said the coalition of activists that had been fighting the government's plans since 2014 would immediately seek advice from the Environmental Defenders Office about a legal appeal.

"If there's one millimetre of space to take this back to court, we will," he said. "We will stay that course, even if that means we are arm-in-arm in front of bulldozers."

The minister's office declined to comment on whether the decision could be open to further appeal.

The MP for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, said the state government's decision to ignore expert advice was "appalling" and motivated by a desire to push up the building's sale price.

The state government has said that the sale of the 79-unit site would enable the construction of another up to 240 social-housing units elsewhere.

Built more than 30 years ago to allow working class residents to remain in The Rocks during a period of major construction, the Sirius building followed the Green Bans movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The building's remaining two residents are being relocated.

"It's the only building that's come out of a social movement that wasn't local, wasn't just state-based but international," Mr Carter said.

But he argued that its status as a symbol of the left of politics had made its demolition a priority for the Liberal state government.

Treasurer Dominic Perrottet described the building as "about as sexy as [a] car park"

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Last rites for absurd restrictions on potato growing in Western Australia

The decades-long spud war in Western Australia could soon draw to a close after the Potato Growers Association advised its members to accept a $650,000 reimbursement deal from the state government.

The government sent a letter to 74 potato growers in August offering to return to them more than $650,000 - comprised of $484,316 in Potato Marketing Corporation funds recovered from a legal trust and $200,000 in costs paid by Galati Nominees.

The defunct industry regulator had launched civil action on behalf of growers against Perth's "Spud King" Tony Galati in 2015, accusing him of growing more potatoes than allowed under WWII-era legislation.

But the action was dropped by WA's new Labor government after the industry was deregulated last December, with Premier Mark McGowan telling parliament in May "the old system was flawed and stupid".

Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan said the growers had a "moral claim" to the money, despite deregulation legislation specifying it belonged to the state.

"We acknowledge our potato growers have been doing it tough since the discovery of the tomato-potato psyllid," she said.

"Finalising this issue will allow the industry to focus on rebuilding and finding new markets for our produce."

Potato Growers Association of WA chief executive Simon Moltoni said members had been advised to take the deal.

"We need to move on and look forward through the windscreen and not back through the rear vision mirror," he told AAP on Thursday.

He says potato growers are counting on a new export market opening up in Egypt to reinvigorate growth in the industry.

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here