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Further implications
Racism is an uncomfortable issue. To be accused of being racist is wounding for a majority of people. As Dr Tim Soutphommasane, Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner, stated in October, 2017, 'Few would ever openly endorse the idea of racial discrimination.'
It is a charge most reject. Few of us see ourselves as unreasonably prejudiced against others because of their country of origin or their skin colour. Those who hold negative perceptions of particular races usually justify them by citing characteristics that members of that race are genuinely believed to possess.Yet it is difficult not to see racism in popular and media responses to instances of criminal behaviour among Victorians of Sudanese origin.
The following is a selection of comments posted in response to Andrew Bolt's blog published in The Herald Sun on December 21, 2017, titled, 'Who let them in? Another riot and an ambush':
'Our politicians have absolutely no idea of the way these Africans think - have no idea how these Muslims think. They need to live in these countries to actually experience the way of life there and how their values are so different to ours.' 'Maybe Pauline Hanson had the right idea after all. We would not be living in fear, afraid to go to sleep at night for fear African gangs would break in and attack us. That our government has allowed this problem to escalate as it has is unforgivable. Our politicians need to grow a backbone cut back on paroles and support our overworked police.' 'How long until good citizens get fed up with the inaction of the police and Leftist rulers? When this happens expect to see vigilante gangs roaming the streets searching for these gangs in order to put them right back in their place.'One of the concerning aspects of responses such as those reprinted above is the manner in which they classify one group of people as suspect based on country of origin or supposed belief system. They recognise no common ground with the groups they condemn. However, the 2011 census showed that over 36% of Sudanese living in Victoria were Catholic and almost as many were Anglicans as followed Islam. Well over 50% of Sudanese immigrants to Victoria are Christian.
This is slightly higher than the figure given for Australian-born Victorians who profess to be Christians. Sudanese youths involved in crime may be less committed to a religious group than the Sudanese community as a whole; however, given that engagement with community is seen as a protective factor against criminal involvement, that is likely to be true for most Victorian youth involved in crime.
Despite the existence of shared values, the responses to the Andrew Bolt blog quoted above focus on the criminal behaviour of a group seen as outsiders. These African youths are designated as completely different to us and perhaps unknowable to us. This group is seen as the sole source of threat and the only possible responses to this threat are punitive police action or for citizens to take the law into their own hands.
As a partial explanation of such reactions, the impact of 'visibility', perhaps better thought of as 'visible difference', needs to be considered. The fact that a group is physically different to the majority within a community heightens the likelihood that its members will be perceived as outsiders. A study published by RMIT University, Melbourne, of the life satisfaction of three refugee populations - ex-Yugoslavs, black Africans and people from the Middle East - who had recently (1990s-2000s) arrived in Western Australia, found that ex-Yugoslavs were more satisfied with their situation than the other two groups, which was at least partly attributed to their whiteness and therefore reduced visibility in the host population.
There is no dispute that Sudanese youth are over-represented in Victoria's crime statistics relative to the proportion of the population they represent. Equally, however, there is no dispute that these youths constitute a small proportion of those who commit vandalism, assault, home invasions, aggravated burglary or car theft. It is disturbing that they have come to be seen as virtually embodying the risk of such criminal incursions. In a ReachTEL phone poll conducted by The Age in early January 2018, 67% of those surveyed in Cranbourne believed African gangs were 'the main issue' with youth crime.
A number of studies have tracked media representations of criminality among Sudanese migrants from their arrival in Victoria. The Police Accountability Project has considered the role of the media in shaping public perceptions: 'The journalist Walter Lippmann wrote that societal feelings, beliefs, opinions and actions are responses to "pictures in our heads," not to the world itself. What we see in the media provides most of these pictures, which, as the majority of crimes being reported on are those involving young people 'of African appearance', has created a distortion in the public's perception of crime.'
When considering this issue it is important to acknowledge the pervasiveness of racial prejudice within all cultures, including Australia's, and the intensifying effect that concerted media attention can have on the public's perception of an issue.