Summary Of The Documentary 'Is Australia Racist?'

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The documentary released by the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) in February of 2017 highlighted the discrimination experienced by ethnically and religiously diverse peoples living in Australia. Professor Kevin Dunn from the Western Sydney University surveyed a substantial 6000 individuals, however this is only 0.024% of the Australian population which in 2017 is at approximately 24,641,662 (Worldometers, 2017).

The hate directed towards Muslim Australians, especially women choosing to dress in hijabs and niqabs, is unbelievable. In the experiments conducted in public showed that Muslim women are subjected the hateful slurs and hurtful comments purely based on the way they are choosing to dress based on their religion. A finding from the survey by Professor Kevin Dunn found that a substantial number of Australian citizens having ‘negative’ feelings towards those identifying as being Muslim. 31.6% of those surveyed claimed to feel negatively towards Muslim Australians. This differs greatly from the 22.4% claiming to have negative feelings towards Middle-¬‐Eastern Australians.

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A popular scientific belief is that children can express racial preferences around the age of 3 or 4. Mahzarin Banaji, a Harvard University psychologist and racism and physical prejudice expert, suggested that even though children may not understand why they feel this way, being exposed to racism normalises these thoughts as early as 3 years old. “In today’s climate of rising Islamophobia, bigotry and nationalist movements, I shudder to think of the negative impact on the hearts and minds of young children who hear, hatefully, “You do not belong here”. (Aisha Novakovich via Sydney Morning Herald, 2016). The children that retain negative views towards ethnically and religiously diverse members of

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