Racism and Media Stereotyping in Australia

[GenericBox]

Was watching this at work today and it stood out as a case of how ignorant and racist we as a country are, especially towards Muslims.

It's not even what the cameraman says here that is the most troubling - it's that both Channel 7 and Channel 10 news ran this story as akin to 'angry Muslim attacks channel 9 cameraman' - and didnt even refer to the incident nor play it.

Australia needs to grow up - we think Fox is bad...

[dilbadoon]

Originally Posted by GenericBox

Was watching this at work today and it stood out as a case of how ignorant and racist we as a country are, especially towards Muslims.

It's not even what the cameraman says here that is the most troubling - it's that both Channel 7 and Channel 10 news ran this story as akin to 'angry Muslim attacks channel 9 cameraman' - and didnt even refer to the incident nor play it.

Australia needs to grow up - we think Fox is bad...

I was also unimpressed by this (although I think we still have a bit to go to catch up with Fox). As I recall the ones who were running it as an anti-muslim theme were caught out pretty good when the audio of the cameraman was released?
After a few recent issues (eg. census, school prayer poll etc), I have started to wonder how much the Xtian agenda contributes to the Muslim scare campaign. A fair bit is my guess.

[Jaar-Gilon]

Disgusting and ignorant but islam is not a race.

[Slothhead]

Originally Posted by GenericBox

Was watching this at work today and it stood out as a case of how ignorant and racist we as a country are, especially towards Muslims.

It's not even what the cameraman says here that is the most troubling - it's that both Channel 7 and Channel 10 news ran this story as akin to 'angry Muslim attacks channel 9 cameraman' - and didnt even refer to the incident nor play it.

Australia needs to grow up - we think Fox is bad...

While i agree that the camera man should not have said what he did, i think it a little far to extend the actions of the individual camera person to "how ignorant and racist we as a country are".

[slim]

News slots have some pretty expensive advertising space. The sort of bollocks covered off in the featured article helps sell it to the sort of crowd that 7, 9 and 10 "news" appeals to. I expected nothing else from these arseholes (7, 9 and 10)...

Their "journalist" colleagues on ACA, TT and also like to run important updates on important issues such as the "dole bludger" epidemic, muslims who refuse to integrate, dodgy used car salesmen, the special new radical awesome weight loss regime and many other things.

They're on the same trajectory as the Murdoch media empire. These companies are the cancer of modern society. I struggle to think of what benefit they provide to us...

If only the redneck crowd watched media watch on a regular basis... it could be enough to make them question what they're being told. I was lucky enough to have had a couple of teachers that made the class watch it through high school, usually in English class.

Maybe this is something they should be broadcasting in ethics classes.

[slim]

Originally Posted by Slothhead

While i agree that the camera man should not have said what he did, i think it a little far to extend the actions of the individual camera person to "how ignorant and racist we as a country are".

They do this because they knew it would yield footage that would help them in concocting a scare-piece on angry irrational Middle Eastern folk that would be swallowed whole, and enjoyed, by the ignorant masses (and there are masses of these people) that appreciate these news outlets.

[Atheos]

Originally Posted by Slothhead

While i agree that the camera man should not have said what he did, i think it a little far to extend the actions of the individual camera person to "how ignorant and racist we as a country are".

While I agree with your statement about conflating the individual with the society, our political and societal record clearly shows that as a nation Australia has historically been a deeply bigoted, racist and sexist society, and although it is improving we as a society have a long long way to go before we can class ourselves as otherwise.

[GenericBox]

And what defines a race? I would call it racism because it is a statement against a group of persons related by common descent, or a population so related. It is an " arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, especially formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups" (Dictionary.com)

or the Science definition,

Any of several extensive human populations associated with broadly defined regions of the world and distinguished from one another on the basis of inheritable physical characteristics, traditionally conceived as including such traits as pigmentation, hair texture, and facial features. Because the number of genes responsible for such physical variations is tiny in comparison to the size of the human genome and because genetic variation among members of a traditionally recognized racial group is generally as great as between two such groups, most scientists now consider race to be primarily a social rather than a scientific concept.


Then if we get technical, you can then say that to describe someone as Muslim is someone pertaining to not just the religion, but the civilisation of Islam - and those countries where Islam is the dominant religion (dictionary.com)....


But why bother, its racist. Full stop. Should not be happening to anyone, Muslim or not.

It has always been a pet peeve that these journalists think that they (especially so in TT and ACA) have some sort of right to be in the face of other people without receiving any hardship in return. It's harassment, and I applaud that the victims here chose to find Police (near the end of the segment) - which is the correct response imo.

[Slothhead]

Originally Posted by Atheos

While I agree with your statement about conflating the individual with the society, our political and societal record clearly shows that as a nation Australia has historically been a deeply bigoted, racist and sexist society, and although it is improving we as a society have a long long way to go before we can class ourselves as otherwise.

Well we might just conclude that all societies have "historically been a deeply bigoted, racist and sexist " and that "although it is improving we as a species have a long long way to go before we can class ourselves as otherwise"

Thus, i am not denying that people, individuals acting alone, or individuals acting as groups are racists etc, my gripe is more so with casting aspersions across a an entire culture.
GenBox claiming that we as a country are ignorant racists, makes an inherently ignorant and 'racist' (culturist) comment. On the one hand he decries the camera man for calling a muslim a terrorist, claiming it as a racist comment, then on the other condemns Australia in its entirety as a racist ignorant coutry.

[Jaar-Gilon]

They might have racially stereotyped middle easterners but not muslims. Islam is not a race just as christianity is not a race just as zoroastrianism is not.......

Then if we get technical, you can then say that to describe someone as Muslim is someone pertaining to not just the religion, but the civilisation of Islam - and those countries where Islam is the dominant religion (dictionary.com)....

Rubbish, there are plenty of non-middle eastern countries whose majority population is islamic.