by Dee Schneider

Created on: September 28, 2008

Of course prejudices exist in Australia, you will find them in just about every corner of the globe.

Australia is a "multi-cultural" society, with many diverse nationalities typically represented in the average demographic.

Aboriginals are the indigenous people of Australia. When Europeans Colonised Australia, Aboriginals were treated apallingly. They were killed, abused, and raped. They were even descibed as Fauna.

There has been a long history of mistreatement of Aboriginals by white man, including the forced removal of children from their families.

As a nation, Australia is struggling to move forwad from these atrocities. There is a sense of wanting to move forward as a nation, however there are many social issues surrounding indigenous communities. There are issues with alcohol, crime, sexual assault of minors and vandalism. The ongoing problems within these communities affect the wider community.
There are many Predjudices that come into play within this setting, however the predjudices are directed more at the behaviour and social dysfunction rather than the indegenous people themselves.

The world media spotlight was shined on Cronulla beach in 2005, with the eruption of the Cronulla Riots. These were undoubtedly a shameful event that escalated to the extreme.

The riot involved many white australians, that claimed they were fed up with Lebanese Muslims behaving in a manner that was unacceptable. The Perpetrators (White Australians) alledge that there had been many incidents of Lebanese locals harrasing and verbally degrading female beach goers, and indulging in other anti social and bullying behaviour.

Using this riot as an example in itself, it is clear to see that there are racial tensions in amongst Australian society, as in any other.

Up until the 1970's, Australia had a "white Australia" policy. Immigration was targeted towards white Europeans only. It has only been in recent years that Australia has become multi cultural. The policy used to be one of assimilation - it was expected that migrants, upon reaching her shores, would abandon all cultural identity with their homelands, and adopt the Australian lifestyle.
There are perhaps still some generations within Australia who still feel that immigrants should become Australian, this attitude no doubt still fosters some predjudice toward the migrants who now make up a large base within our society.

For the most part, Australians are mainly predjudiced against themselves, allow me to explain;

If you live in Perth,

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