The first article that I read was about a Muslim actor in Australia who won a Logie award (the equivalent of an Emmy award). He made sure to shed a light on the fact that people with names like his cannot find work in the Australian TV industry playing himself as a type of poster boy for them making strides anyway. The author of the article goes a little deeper to try and answer the question of why he thought it was necessary to “go there” during this acceptance speech. She ultimately makes a case for why this has very little to do with Muslim’s not being able to get jobs in TV in Australia and mentions the many who have actually done that. This is more so about the actor, Waleed, aligning himself politically and to make a point that is beyond his industry and actually very obnoxious to this particular author (perhaps her nausea is a hint to her underlying racism?) (Devine 2016).
The second article exposed a recent cartoon that was published in the Australian of a group of Indians smashing solar panels and trying to eat them with mango chutney. This was to suggest that India is starving and is not really able to deal with the need to work on their emissions and use better energy sources because that’s just not a top concern. The cartoon was criticized for being racist and making Indians appear stupid. It was also mentioned that a cartoon like this would not have been tolerated in the United States of Britain. The illustrator of the cartoon said that he stands by his choice to create any kind of cartoon he wants because he should have a freedom of speech. If someone opposes an idea it only helps them to be clearer about they believe and that is the benefit of seeing something you don’t always necessarily agree with. Therefore he does not want to be censored (Meade et al., 2015).
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"Australian Racism".
Both of this cartoons show that Australia still has much to cultivate in terms of their understanding and comfort levels of people with darker skin.
- Devine, M. (2016, May 10). Waleed Aly Mustafa screw loose somewhere. Retrieved
May 11, 2016, from http://www.couriermail.com.au - Meade, A., & Burke, J. (2015, December 13). Australian newspaper cartoon depicting
Indians eating solar panels attacked as racist. Retrieved May 11, 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/14/australian-newspaper-cartoon-depicting-indians-eating-solar-panels-attacked-racist
