Understanding the current landscape of racial discrimination: the facts

Australian Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said in 2024, “Racism… is more than hurtful words being said to someone. It is systemic, often involving dealings with some level of authority, whose power determines access to opportunities, basic needs, services, or justice”. A report for the Australian Human Rights Commission found that racism was both entrenched in Australia, and drastically impacted many people’s lives.

Here’s a summary of just some of the most common negative outcomes for People of Colour, that are shown to directly result from racial discrimination:

• Black women and babies are 3.5x more likely to die in childbirth from preventable causes stemming from poor levels of care or medical malpractice
• Indigenous people live around eight years less than white Australians and are twice as likely to commit suicide due to mental distress
• Indigenous Australians and People of Colour are more likely to receive harsher punishment than their white counterparts from a very early age, from school expulsions to gaol sentences for non-violent crimes, excluding them from academic achievement, job prospects, positive rehabilitation or access to services
• Children whose parents experience racism are 2.6x more likely to experience poor mental health, asthma, and worse physical and psychosocial development
• Refugees who experience racism in Australia are more likely to develop physical and mental illness, have trauma exacerbated, and be isolated from their new community

These outcomes and many others, demonstrate that racial discrimination impacts real people’s lives in many areas – harming safety, education, health, access to education, justice, financial stability and more. It can eradicate hope, potential, and even life.

Racial discrimination in the Australian workforce

In Australian professional spaces, People of Colour regularly experience racial discrimination that is less overt than what some might expect, although they have the same negative outcomes as more blatant forms of racism like name-calling or abuse.

It is  important for all of us, as allies, to learn about more subtle forms of discrimination and challenge them wherever we see them in society. The 2024 Women of Colour in Australian Workplaces and MindTribes reports, name some of these as:

• Being excluded from important meetings, events, networking or social opportunities
• Being blocked from promotion
• Not being credited for their work, contribution, leadership skills or ideas
• Being ignored, silenced, or responded to with hostile behaviour or body language
• Being left out of decision-making
• Being tokenised to represent ‘diversity’ or ‘inclusion’
• Being stereotyped
• Being expected to do extra unpaid work than others
• Being penalised or ostracised for speaking up
• Criticism based on accent or appearance, rather than performance
• Being expected to educate others on racial or cultural justice or human rights

It is  important for all of us, as allies, to learn about more subtle forms of discrimination and challenge them wherever we see them in society. Currently, more than two thirds of non-Anglo people in Australia have experienced racial discrimination at work or school.

Fear: shared, but different

Evidence clearly shows that that the fears that People of Colour have about being racially discriminated against, are real, measurable, and justified. The consequences of racial discrimination can and do cost people – including children – their lives and livelihoods. The factors contributing to these consequences (their race) are beyond their control.

But ‘fear’ is also a feeling that is shared and expressed by many allies, when trying to find the right steps forward.

In discussion with mixed groups about racial discrimination, fear is a common roadblock for those who want to be allies and help eliminate racism.

Many non-racialised people speak of their fear of ‘offending’, being criticised or called out if they ‘say the wrong thing’ or for ‘not being PC’. These fears can be worrisome or even paralysing. They can cause division, defensiveness, lack of trust in relationships, and negatively impact self-esteem.

But where do these particular fears come from, originally?

And how can we support each other to move through them and take action against racial discrimination together?

The first thing to know is that many of these fears do not start with us. In many cases, they are societal beliefs, inherited over generations and perpetuated by media. We can take the power away from these fears, and move into action, by digging into them more deeply. And on the other side of these fears lies justice for others, and love and respect for ourselves.

Let’s reflect on how these fears often originate from the inherited belief that our human worth could be stripped away if we are less than perfect. These inherited beliefs impact people in other ways too – think perfectionism, or diet culture. Some have described these fears as feeling like a child who is waiting to be punished.

Those inherited beliefs aren’t true or helpful: all human beings have inherent worth and value, and deserve care and respect. In the call to end racial discrimination, the goal is not for individuals to be perfect – but for all of us to be better.

Something to also consider is that line of thinking can, however unintentionally, position People of Colour as a threat – people who are waiting to pass judgement, who want to erase other people’s experiences of suffering, who might hurt us, take our income, or who desire to punish us if we don’t behave correctly.

But again, this is not true. This narrative has been used to perpetuate cultural division and racism for centuries (it’s common in media – see if you can spot it).

Sadly, it also diminishes the harm that racial discrimination causes – minimising the dangerous reality to being merely ‘offensive’.

The roots of the fear of being punished or judged, lie in a scarcity mindset – another old, inherited belief that there is not enough for everyone and that one group getting rights, safety, justice or status, means someone else losing theirs. This is also, not true. Everyone is entitled to safety and justice and there is enough for all. 

At Spectrum, we often speak about Ubuntu: I am, because we are. As Audre Lorde once said, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own”. Many of our teams are driven on these principles, and we share each others’s joys and successes, stresses and concerns.

The truth: We ALL benefit from justice, equity and safety. Ending racial discrimination makes for safer and happier lives, friends and communities, better workplaces, innovative countries, higher-performing teams, healthier environments and more justice for all who experience harm in different ways.

Being called out or criticised: fear vs reality

Today, there are no measurable statistics or empirical data that show impactful negative consequences for people who act in racist or harmful ways.

Instead, in today’s digital world, being harmful or discriminatory online can actually win followers. Even extremists who spout hate and vitriol and are ‘cancelled’, often find new and popular platforms or positions of power elsewhere.

So, while the ‘fear’ of saying or doing the wrong thing and being criticised, called out or ‘cancelled’ might feel scary, it is extremely unlikely to ever result in any negative consequences – unlike the fear of being racially discriminated against.

Thus, for those who are not at risk of racial discrimination in Australia – we are far safer than our negatively racialised counterparts, even when we do or say the ‘wrong’ things.

In addition, the factors that could cause these consequences, are fully within our control – we choose our action or inaction, our words and our behaviour. We can change things for the better at any time.

However, the reality is that even though these fears are not based in evidence or truth, they still have the power to stop progress when it comes to tackling racial discrimination.

What if? From fear to action

Fundamentally, no matter who we are, we all want the same things. We want safety, home, opportunities, hope and good health. We all want to spend more time sharing laughter with our friends and meals with our loved ones. We all want to come and go freely, and to feel like we belong.

Our wants are the same. But our fears are not.

So for those of us who do not need to fear racial discrimination in Australia, and who want to do our part as allies, we can ask ourselves important questions to shift from fear into action.

• What if we understood our own fears of criticism or cancellation, as far less dangerous than the life-threatening fears of racial discrimination that People of Colour experience daily?
• What if we focused on our wish to keep other human beings safe from racial harm, more than our worries about being called out?
• What if we chose to actively challenge racial discrimination anywhere that it happens – not out of fear or obligation, but from our own personal deep respect for human rights?

When allies choose action over inaction, and wisdom over fear, we can all become powerful change-makers. We can all play a personal role in tackling racial discrimination and create a more just, inclusive world for everyone.

Want to be an ally in ending racial discrimination? Spectrum’s Senior Leaders have shared some of their favourite resources, to help you get started!

Further reading:
Naidu, J., Paolucci, E. O., & Turin, T. C. (2023). Racism as a Social Determinant of Health for Newcomers towards Disrupting the Acculturation Process. Societies, 13(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13010002 https://www.mdpi.com/2020686
Archer, C., Sison, M., Gaddi, B., & O’Mahony, L. (2022). Bodies of/at Work: How Women of Colour Experienced Their Workplaces and Have Been Expected to ‘Perform’ During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 43(6), 824–845. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2022.2128091
Montalmant KE, Ettinger AK. The Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality and Impact of Structural Racism and Implicit Racial Bias on Pregnant Black Women: A Review of the Literature. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2024 Dec;11(6):3658-3677. doi: 10.1007/s40615-023-01816
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/12/australia-people-african-descent-living-under-siege-racism-say-un-experts
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/hindi/en/article/is-australia-racist-here-are-the-10-stunning-stats/s2j9wdtoc
https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/national-consultations-show-widespread-systemic-racism-damaging-lives
https://theconversation.com/trauma-racism-and-unrealistic-expectations-mean-african-refugees-are-less-likely-to-get-into-australian-unis-121885
https://www.niaa.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/indigenous/hpf-2017/overview/Racism-and-discrimination.html
https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/education/who-experiences-racism
https://www.psychotherapy.net/article/racism-white-privilege-psychotherapy#section-guilt,-shame-and-blame
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/29/even-in-our-history-month-black-people-are-the-repeated-victims-of-cancel-culture
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15365042221131087
https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/
https://philarchive.org/archive/CAMCCT-2