Are you really Australian RJ? This country is nothing at all like you have expressed... It is in most part a fair minded and culturally rich society. Sorry you see us that way.
Graham
Yeah right!
Maybe I should share this with everyone since you asked;
Since living here for nearly 11 years the following has happened to us:
1. My daughter was racially abused in kinder garten, prep, grade one and up until grade 5. She was told that her skin is disgusting and she should go back to India.
(we are not even from India!) The principal stepped in and sorted it out but was later dismissed from her primary school due to some other reasons of handling racial slurs.
2. My wife was bullied, harressed and unfairly made redundant at her work place. She fought back with counselling, depressions pills, and the union and won her position back! She is a real fighter and I am proud of her. Because she fought hard, she won so many supporters who are Aussies themselves and the above words/claims I have used is actually from them not really me!
3. During one of my work places, there were these huge letters spray painted on my car: "go back home you bloody Indian". again we are not from India, and they were ticked off because I replaced the former Marketing Manager...
4. At my current work place, I was racially abused, and harressed as well on a daily basis by a tall big Aussie who thought that because of his size could get away with anything. He was messing with the wrong planet! I intervened one night at the doc warehouse where I sent him flying for nearly 5 secs until he hit a pallet and fell like a sack of potatoes!
He apologized profusely and we are now quite good friends. He said these same words again as I have noted above, again they're not what I'm saying, this is how they feel.
5. One of my former bosses from Kenya, was attacked when he walked home to get the train one night. He had a big cut to his forehead. He was ok, since he's about 6ft6" and managed to free himself. However they smashed his lap top and ran off with his wallet and watch. Later on his car they had written the words, "go home you n....." I don't think it is necessary to spell the rest her, as it is quite obvious.
I must say, that in all my travels (Europe, USA, South America, Africa, South East Asia, Japan, haven't been to China yet) I have cherished the US experience the most. I made friends for life both at university, neighborhood community and in the military. The courage, compassion, friendship, and trust I harnessed from the US is like no other! It certainly took a while to gain their trust, even during college I had to physically prove myself to be part of the "hood". Even in the military, being overseas was not an easy task. However, once you gain their trust, you will be their friend for life! I have so many fond memories of the US, from African American community to the regular brothers, plenty of girl friends, families calling you over for thanks giving, spending weeks on people's yachts, and listening to senior citizens world war stories from WW2 to Vietnam. I was also given the house keys from my Dean of the College of Business, to look after his house when they were away on vacation! He trusted me so much that he knew I would never hold any parties nor destroy or steal from it, and would look after it like my own home, and boy did I look after it. I looked after the place so well that I was given the keys by nearly all college staff members whenever they went on vacation, and ended up doing this as a part time job! This is also where I learned quite a lot from high-end audio, since many of them had pretty nice audio systems such as, Martin Logan, Infinity, Dunlevy, Theil, B&W, Pass Labs, McIntosh, Bryston, Classe and Krells...
So as you can see I have had a wonderful journey. I love Australia, and yes it is definitely rich and diverse no doubt! It is sad however when there are certain extreme elements even in a primary school... It also saddens me to hear about the recent riots in the US town of Furguson, and the cops who use excessive force on African American's sometimes, still to this day. This is definitely not good. I was watching a clip the other day where two cops are using excessive force in Alabama all because the dude failed to stop at a Stop sign...? What on earth is going on?
All countries has it flaws, certainly my own one, where I am originally from, Sri Lanka, had a 30 year long civil war where we killed over 300,000 people from both sides of conflict. Nearly every president that has ruled Sri Lanka is bloody corrupt and has blood on their hands, which reminds me why Australia is such a beautiful country! There hardly is any corruption, hardly any crime (I can laugh at the crime rate over in Melbourne compared to the US), a more equal distribution of income, and some wonderful people!
There are of course certain things that are a bit backward and unfair, that never seem to be "fixable" perhaps one day when my daughter runs for presidency, or better still if an Aborigine became president, why not?
So Mr. Tao, when I make a claim, I make it from a vast field of experience that you would not have any clue about, and what's better still is some of the claims that I have made are not my words at all, these are words from YOUR own fellow Aussies mate!
There are plenty more stories I can go on about, like for example in 2013, on father's day, driving home from the mall, I was attacked by a group of 7 teenagers! Apparently I had run him over, whatever... The actual incident was some "nut job" came darting across the freeway and hit my car, next thing I park onto the side to help him out. Turns out he was quite fine, and this particular group do this on a regular basis to have a bash up and get money from the people like us. Again they were messing with the wrong planet. When I took my coat off and said "kids please bring at least 20 of you d-heads and then perhaps I might want to play", nearly all of them started running except 6 of them, who were later arrested by the police when they showed up. The cops very own words "I do apologize sir for all the inconvenience caused, racial abuse and physical abuse, we know these boys quite well!" and yes I still do LOVE Australia!
It is probably one of the best countries to live in, and Melbourne is the greatest city in the world!
Cheers Tao and to all fellow Aussies! By the way, Australia won the cricket world cup, against NZ. Beat them by a far margin and quite easily, well done!
Enjoy the music! RJ
