TheGeoffRe(y)port

Just saw a remarkably intense and confronting film. If you haven’t yet seen “Crash” - then you certainly should. It’s a difficult film to describe without describing the entire plot or being remardkably vague - so vague it is. The film exposes with an almost brutal honesty the deeply ingrained influence of racial stereotypes in American (and in this case particularly LA) culture.

Nobody in Crash is unaffected by the racism that in inherent in the American culture. The film diagnoses the problem but cannot offer any answers. Those who try to ignore the stereotypes; who try to treat different races the same as themselves can only hold out so long before they revert to following the rest of the world. It’s a difficult film to watch, you can’t help but identify with the characters, while at the same time being repulsed by their actions.

And as an Australian it would be the easy thing to say that the brand of racism found in American culture doesn’t have the same magnitude as in Aussie culture, but that would quite simply be a lie. People expect behaviours from certain people groups, whether it be that we expect Aboriginals to be unemployed alcoholics or that we expect Asians to be hard workers who are a bit nerdy or whatever. You could read any column that Andrew Bolt writes in the Herald Sun to see some of the attitudes people have towards Muslims. The Cronulla riots were a highly visible demonstration of the revolting racism, but the problem is certainly not confined to the Sydney beaches.

But it’s not just the violence. It’s the “bloody asians” muttered under the breath. The way our politicians speak about taking on “our way of life”, “our values” and having to leave behind “their ways”. Stop talking about us and them! Anybody living in this country deserves to be a part of “us”. Stop with the subtle remarks.

So how does a nation break those stereotypes? Do we uphold the people who break those stereotypes? Has the success of indigenous people like Cathy Freeman and Aden Ridgeway done anything to break the stereotypes implanted deep into the national psyche? Maybe a little, but not much. It all feels hopeless. Yet there must be hope, somehow, somewhere. What does it take for us to actually start just seeing people? How do we break the cycle of snide remarks, the sideways glances when someone different walks into a room.

Like Crash, I have no answers. This country, and the world, needs a complete paradigm shift. And all of the lip service in the world won’t get us there. I just don’t know what it is that will.