“People love talking about racism”: downplaying discrimination, and challenges to anti-racism among Eritrean migrants in Australia

ABSTRACT

Why may the supposed victims of racism and discrimination downplay these phenomena? This paper examines experiences of and responses to racism and discrimination among highly educated Eritrean migrants in Australia. Contrary to research findings on experiences of discrimination among migrant groups as widely reported and impactful, most of my interlocutors seldom reported such experiences, despite acknowledging that discrimination existed generally and vicariously. I discuss participants’ direct and indirect experiences with racism and discrimination, and identify five key reasons for downplaying and not reporting them, including limitations to perceiving and recognizing these phenomena; undermining racism in Australia in comparison to other racisms; gratitude to Australians and to Australia as “the lucky country”; harbouring strong meritocratic values that contrasted with viewing discrimination as impactful; and dissociation from narratives of victimhood and powerlessness. Finally, I discuss how participants’ perspectives pose challenges for anti-racism scholarship and practice more broadly.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• discrimination
• anti-racism
• immigration
• Eritrean migrants
• Australia

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Yin Paradies, Emma Kowal, Jessica Walton, Amanuel Elias and Agnes Taiti for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts. I thank participants for their time and for all that they have shared with me throughout this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Rates of experiences of discrimination were the following among African respondents (Markus 2016): South Sudan: 77 per cent; Zimbabwe: 75 per cent; Kenya: 67 per cent; Ethiopia: 60 per cent; Egypt: 53 per cent; Sudan: 32 per cent; Eritrea: 19 per cent.

2 Participant names are pseudonyms, and other details were edited to maintain their anonymity. Qualifications and occupations were discussed broadly (e.g. “a scientist”) or replaced with similar ones.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Deakin University Postgraduate Research Scholarship (DUPRS).