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Racial incident in Australia

lionking said:
Whilst I do not endorse the flier, if I were in Frankston I would not like to see it become like Dandenong. The highrise Housing Commission flats are horrid, regardless of who live in them.
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Absolutely. Over the last decade Chicago has torn down almost all of their high-rise public housing built in the 1960s. They simply became fortresses for street gangs.
 
When I was a kid the fearmongering was about Asians, then I remember it being about Lebanese in the 90's and 2000's. Now it's Africans.
 
Then again shows like Today Tonight just seem to tell people to fear or hate all immigrants in general.
 
Slayhamlet said:
I don't get the reference. Can you explain, please?
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He's talking about Sol Trujillo, the recently retired CEO of Telstra, the semi-privatized Australian telecommunications provider, and also a US citizen, who found Australian business practice stifling (particularly with regard to privatization; then again he had no idea that Telstra had a public charter at one time). He had a few unflattering things to say about Australia after he retired; especially when the current Australian PM said "Adios", upon news of his retirement.
 
WildCat said:
Absolutely. Over the last decade Chicago has torn down almost all of their high-rise public housing built in the 1960s. They simply became fortresses for street gangs.
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Indeed so. One hardly needs to be a "racist" to think they're a bad solution. By the way, they're just as bad a solution in the UK -- where most of the underclass is white, not black -- as they are in the USA. (So much for the "inferiors'" darker skin color being the issue.)

It is not surprising. These sort of buildings, as the philosopher Andrew Oldenquist said, enter into a conversation with the tenants. It tells them: "You are not like other people. You are welfare. We assume you will be violent thugs, so we designed the buildings to withstand a lot of vandalism and arson. We assume you are all alike, so we designed the buildings without a shred of individuality or neighborhood feeling. We assume you will all kill each other, given the chance, so we designed the buildings where each apartment is isolated from the other. You are worthless, and this is the special kind of building where we put people like you."

Is it any surprise that this is the result? I do not wish to give architecture some sort of magical power, nor does Oldenquist (he is deliberately emphasizing to make a point), but there's certainly a lot of truth in his criticism.
 
To be fair I should not have given the claim in the flier that high rise flats were on the agenda any credence at all. I'm fairly certain that there have not been any such Commission flats for decades in Australia.
 
rjh01 said:
There is still some racially motivated violence. Every few years some hits the headlines. This from 2005 Violence spreads to third Sydney suburb
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The initial incidents were carried out by white youths, the subsequent incidents mentioned in that article were carried out by middle eastern youths.

The whites who rioted were motivated, in part, by a string of muggings carried out on whites by middle eastern youths. They retaliated by attacking innocent middle easterners.

A similar string of muggings carried out on Indian youths by middle eastern youths this year led to a similar race riot where innocent middle easterners were attacked in the next suburb to mine.

Racial violence does occur in Australia but it is not that prevalent and it is not always motivated by a hatred of another race. For instance, it is not always clear that the people mugged are targetted out of hatred of their race or simply because they are easy targets.
 
gtc said:
Racial violence does occur in Australia but it is not that prevalent and it is not always motivated by a hatred of another race. For instance, it is not always clear that the people mugged are targetted out of hatred of their race or simply because they are easy targets.
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That's always difficult to establish.

In the Rotterdam the typical mugging is carried out by a Moroccan or Antillian immigrant. The victim is typically white or Chinese.

Is that motivated by racism? Who knows?
If I had to guess, I'd say it's simple economics. With the added motivation that the Chinese are industrious, like to do business in cash and are much smaller framed then blacks.

Having said that, my Turkish colleague got mugged last year. So don't say we don't have upward mobility.
 
I remember there was a string of gang rapes in Australia some time ago.
The attacks were racially motivated (Lebanese perps and white victims) and sparked race riots.
 
Eddie Dane said:
That's always difficult to establish.

In the Rotterdam the typical mugging is carried out by a Moroccan or Antillian immigrant. The victim is typically white or Chinese.

Is that motivated by racism? Who knows?
If I had to guess, I'd say it's simple economics. With the added motivation that the Chinese are industrious, like to do business in cash and are much smaller framed then blacks.

Having said that, my Turkish colleague got mugged last year. So don't say we don't have upward mobility.
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Politicians are quick to claim that attacks against minorities in Australia are opportunistic, but Victoria's current Chief Commissioner of Police (who have never been elected and try to be apolitical) got it pretty right I think - some attacks are racist and some are opportunistic:

The Victorian Police Commissioner, Mr. Simon Overland has said that some recent attacks on Indian students are racist and some others opportunistic. He was answering a question by South Asia Times Editor Neeraj Nanda, whether the attacks were racist or not.
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http://www.southasiatimes.com.au/news/vic-police-comm-some-attacks-racist-some-opportunistic/

Racism is everywhere, but I believe that Australia has accepted immigrants quite well. And last year saw a record number of immigrants.
 
Just to make it clear, I agree with lionking that some attacks are racist and some aren't.
 
This is quite disgusting.. I have a friend who lives near Dandenong, I'll have to ask him what's up with this.
 
Skeptic said:
Indeed so. One hardly needs to be a "racist" to think they're a bad solution. By the way, they're just as bad a solution in the UK -- where most of the underclass is white, not black -- as they are in the USA. (So much for the "inferiors'" darker skin color being the issue.)

It is not surprising. These sort of buildings, as the philosopher Andrew Oldenquist said, enter into a conversation with the tenants. It tells them: "You are not like other people. You are welfare. We assume you will be violent thugs, so we designed the buildings to withstand a lot of vandalism and arson. We assume you are all alike, so we designed the buildings without a shred of individuality or neighborhood feeling. We assume you will all kill each other, given the chance, so we designed the buildings where each apartment is isolated from the other. You are worthless, and this is the special kind of building where we put people like you."

Is it any surprise that this is the result? I do not wish to give architecture some sort of magical power, nor does Oldenquist (he is deliberately emphasizing to make a point), but there's certainly a lot of truth in his criticism.
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The only problem with that hypothesis is the fact that in many areas private companies have bought ex-council high rise blocks, renovated them and then sold them to affluent people who apportion the (usually) much larger living space that these ex-council flats offer. (Here is an example: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/buildings.php?id=943 - I lived in the next set of high-rise flats to those blocks, the design was very similar to the blocks I lived in and the area had a terrible reputation - deservedly so, yet they are now quite sort after flats. The block I lived in can be seen in the background of this photo: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/pictu...ne&self=nse&selfidi=943Emmeline_pic5.jpg&no=5)

It was not the architecture that caused the problems, albeit when certain problems arose the architecture undoubted helped make those problems worse.
 
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