Racism - how hidden is it?

My parents were kind enough to take me out for a brief trip to Maccas seeing as I've been pulling my hair out studying and being a hermit. After that, we stopped off at the Rochedale IGA. For all of you who don't know Rochedale...its not the worst suburb in the world but you'll definitely not see any Stepford wives with their perfectly well dressed children.

So as we were perusing the aisles and I'm happily running toward the ice cream section, this stench that smelled worse than Asian dried fish mixed with garbage wafted toward me....and it became stronger and stronger. It was actually my dad who noticed it first and my dad is not exactly the most subtle of people. He used his fingers to pinch his nose as tried to wave the stench away. I steered my Dad away because I didn't want to cause a scene. Yes...bad odours can drive some people nuts but personally I think that some people can't help it and its quite rude to imply that someone stinks in public.

I turned around and then found the culprit of this glorious mix of garbage/asian dried fish odour and it was this grubby guy but didn't think much of it. Anyway, as we exited the shopping centre, the guy reappeared again and Dad once again did his nose pinching thing but the grubby guy noticed it. He then hurled a series of racial abuse "This is Australia...speak some damn English". Usually I would've hurled a series of abuse back but I was utterly speechless probably because I was SO angry. No...its not the first time that I've encountered racial abuse. I was perhaps more angry at the people around him. These people thought it was actually funny.

I ask again...how did racial abuse become the new comedian? I can fathom how that grubby guy was racist. He was probably brought up in a very unstable environment with little education and tolerance AND not to mention even a lack of shower gel and deodorant! But to the other shoppers around him who appear to be mildly educated - shame on you!

This incident is just one of many which makes me reflect on how racism is merely glossed over. Australia prides itself on being a fairly multicultural society and this is true to a degree when you look at the assortment of faces around us. The sentiment of Australians, however, is questionable. As a little kid, I grew up with even younger children hurling racial taunts at Asians which just makes you think....what kind of material is fed to these children at home? Most Australians don't voice racist opinions in fear of being denounced by society and crucified by social expectations. However, perhaps racism is very much still inherent in many people. This is quite evident when you go out in town on a Saturday night and you see drunks throwing racial abuse. Sure ... they're drunks and drunks say anything but then its only in times of a lack of consciousness do people reveal their real sentiments.

Even on a more subtle note, a random guy at Starbucks asked where we were from. I would tell people that I'm Australian - simply because I was born and bred here. Isn't that what the question is asking? But then the random guy would say "no...where ARE you from" as if we completely misunderstood the question. I repeated the question and he goes "no, where are your origins". I then got quite frustrated because once again I could see that hidden racism coming from him. Is it not possible to have an Asian face and be Australian? Once again...I could smell the stench of bigotry coming from that random guy. He might not be grubby or stink like garbage but his subtle racist remark is probably on the same level as the guy who verbally yelled out his ineloquent comments.