Racism, disadvantage and multiculturalism: towards effective anti-racist praxis

Abstract

The practice of multiculturalism in modern liberal democracies has been hampered by lack of a clear definition of ‘racism’ and ‘anti-racism’ as well as confusion about the role of multiculturalism in addressing disadvantage and combating racism. This lack of clarity has contributed to a marginalization of anti-racism within multiculturalism. As a prerequisite to re-centring anti-racist praxis within multiculturalism, this paper disentangles the concepts of ‘equity’ versus ‘equality’, ‘racism’, ‘anti-racism’, ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘disadvantage’. We then distinguish between policies and practices designed to mitigate disadvantage, and those designed to address racism. Taking Australia as a case study, historical and contemporary notions of multiculturalism are examined before considering their relationship to racism, anti-racism and disadvantage. It is only through a clear understanding and inclusion of anti-racist praxis that the potential of multiculturalism to address the challenges of racial diversity in modern liberal democracies can be realized.

Keywords:

• Racism
• anti-racism
• multiculturalism
• theory
• policy
• Australia

Acknowledgements

The two authors contributed equally to this paper and are listed alphabetically. YP is supported by the CIPHER program, an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council population health capacity-building program (#236235) and an in-kind project of the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health. During work on this manuscript GB was a Research Fellow at the McCaughey Centre, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne.

Notes

1. The terms ‘ethnorace’ and ‘ethnoracial’ are used to capture notions of both ethnicity and race which are highly interdependent in discourse and practice (Paradies 2006).

2. This clearly does not include circumstances created by racist immigration policies and practice.

3. In this context ‘elite discourse' refers to comments and debates made in the public domain by influential public figures.

4. This separation between Indigenous affairs and multiculturalism has resulted, in part, from the view that the history and experiences of Indigenous Australians are distinct from those of migrants. It has, however, been suggested that this dichotomy undermines the development of Australian anti-racism (Vasta and Castles 1996, p. 6).

5. One example is the Western Australian Substantive Equality Unit. This unit conducts racism audits and formulates anti-racism interventions within public sector departments. This project, however, is under-resourced, focusing on only one unit within one department of the Western Australian government each year.

6. The only exception being the Western Australian Substantive Equality Unit as described above.

7. Although this issue has been addressed in Victoria through the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 which includes the right to equal and effective protection against discrimination.