The Health and Social Implications of Racism During Covid-19: Insights from Melbourne’s Multicultural Communities

ABSTRACT

The health, social, and economic uncertainties that accompany crisis events make them fertile ground for racism, as observed on a global scale during the COVID-19 pandemic, with evidence of significant social and health consequences for those targeted. In this article, we present the findings of a reflexive, interpretive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 10 service providers and community leaders who have supported multicultural communities during the pandemic in Melbourne, Australia. Interviewees discussed numerous social and health equity consequences of pandemic-related racism and offered best-practice recommendations for policy, research, and advocacy. Drawing on Systemic Racism Theory, our analysis reveals significant social and health implications of racism in Melbourne during COVID-19, lending further support to the concept of racism as both a social determinant of health and a key driver of social inequity. Participants advocated collaborative, community-led antiracism and advocacy approaches that centre the knowledge and expertise of people with lived experience of racism. These recommendations are discussed with consideration of contemporary challenges in research, policy, and practice efforts to address the ongoing health and social equity issues facing multicultural communities in times of crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• COVID-19
• health
• social equity
• Australia
• multicultural communities

Introduction

The SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) is an ongoing, global health emergency responsible for mass death and disability, alongside immense social, economic, and political turmoil. Since its onset, we have witnessed an abundance of news, political and social commentary surrounding the virus (and our collective responses to it) in a phenomenon labelled by the World Health Organisation as an ‘infodemic’ (WHO 2020). Due to its ‘infodemic’ nature, COVID-19 became fertile ground for the spread of racist rhetoric, which was observed on a global scale during the pandemic (Elias et al. 2021; Li and Chen 2021; Ang and Mansouri 2022). Racism is multifaceted, taking structural, institutional, interpersonal, and internalised forms (Berman and Paradies 2010). Racism in Australia is embedded in the country’s settler colonial history, having been enshrined in early immigration legislation, followed by years of exclusionary media and political commentary surrounding race, migration, and multiculturalism (Jupp 2007). This problem persists today, with recent survey data indicating that in 2021 alone, more than one-third of Australian residents from migrant or refugee backgrounds reported discrimination due to racialised factors such as ethnicity, skin colour, or religion (Markus 2021).

During COVID-19, numerous Australian studies have reported a rise in racism, often with profound social, physical, and emotional consequences for those targeted (Chiu and Chuang 2020; Ballantyne and Giarrusso 2023; Grant et al. 2023). Rhetoric that blames multicultural communities for the spread of COVID-19, for example, has been found to contribute to vaccine hesitancy and diminished access to urgent health supports; a problem compounded by an existing distrust of public health communication among marginalised populations (Liddell et al. 2021). Furthermore, increased social isolation is a known consequence of racism, especially in migrant and refugee communities (Elias et al. 2021).

In this article, we present a qualitative, thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 10 Melbourne-based service providers and community leaders who have supported multicultural communities during COVID-19. Participants discussed numerous social and health consequences of pandemic-related racism, most of which centred around diminished access to social supports and essential services. Participants highlighted several key areas for change - from a policy and practice perspective - including improved collaboration and consultation with multicultural communities in both crisis communication and antiracism efforts. We situate these findings within a Systemic Racism framework (Feagin 2006), drawing on the expansive and growing body of sociological literature at the intersections of intercultural communication, antiracism, public health, and social equity. We begin by contextualising racism in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic (and other global crises), before discussing what we know thus far about the health and social implications of racism, and what questions remain. We then discuss the methods and theoretical frameworks we deployed, before moving onto our key findings. We conclude with a discussion about the implications of these findings, arguing that more attention is required in research, policy, and practice surrounding the unique needs of multicultural communities during crisis events; including ways to work more collaboratively with racially marginalised communities and increase their representation in mass communication and political decision making.

Background: Racism in Australia During COVID-19

The arrival of COVID-19 in Australia accompanied an evident rise in racism within political, media, and societal discourse (Kassam and Hsu 2021; Ballantyne and Giarrusso 2023). This manifested both online and in-person, via racial slurs, hate speech, graffiti, and in some cases, physical attacks (Chiu and Chuang 2020; Grant et al. 2023). Between January and February 2020, one in four reports of racial discrimination made to the Australian Human Rights Commission were related to the pandemic, with February boasting the highest number of monthly complaints for the 2019–2020 financial year (Fang et al. 2020). Many of the incidents sparking these complaints involved racism toward Asian communities, with the reported incidents reflecting those of the Asian Australian Alliance which, upon launching an online tool for reporting anti-Asian racism in April 2020, documented 377 incidents over a three-month period (Chiu and Chuang 2020).

In addition to these incidents of everyday racism, racist media discourse related to COVID-19 has been observed on a global scale; in both traditional news and social media content (Li and Chen 2021; Rowe et al. 2021; Haw 2023a). For example, on Twitter, hashtags such as ‘#Kung-flu’ circulated and gained traction at the onset of COVID-19, alongside Australian newspaper headlines such as the Herald Sun’s ‘China Virus Pandamonium’ and The Daily Telegraph’s ‘China Kids Stay Home’ (both published in January 2020). These sentiments reflect international political and conservative commentary during this period that characterised COVID-19 as the ‘Chinese virus’ (Chiu 2020), as well as former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s instruction to Chinese international students to ‘make your way home’ (Elias et al. 2021). These statements hold strong connotations of Asian communities bearing responsibility for the spread of COVID-19, but such rhetoric is not new. Anti-Asian racism has been a feature of Australian political, media, and societal discourse surrounding multiculturalism since Federation, when newly arrived Chinese migrants were constructed as the ‘yellow peril’ and positioned as an unwelcome threat to the newly established ‘white’ colony (Walker 1999). These characterisations have been amplified in recent years following China’s economic ascent at the global level; with the pandemic seemingly reinvigorating historical constructions of Chinese communities as ‘purveyors of disease’ (Bashford 2003: 148).

Alongside Asian communities, several other minority groups – notably Muslim and Jewish communities (Iner 2019; ECAJ 2020), and people from migrant and refugee backgrounds (Haw 2023a) – have been targeted in pandemic-related racism in Australia. A recent analysis of Tweets shared in Australia during the 2020–2021 lockdowns revealed a preponderance of stereotypical discourses about Asian and Muslim communities, including false claims that Muslims celebrating Eid¹ were responsible for spreading COVID-19 in Melbourne and stereotypical jokes about Chinese people eating bats (Haw 2023a). Several Tweeters blamed multicultural communities for the spread of COVID-19 (and subsequent lockdowns), citing the pandemic and its negative effects on Australian society in calls for more exclusionary migration policies (Haw 2023a). As noted, this kind of racialised scapegoating is not a new phenomenon. During any major crisis, especially those attracting widespread media coverage and politicised debate, we routinely see racial minority groups blamed for the problem at hand (see Klocker and Dunn 2003; Philo et al. 2013; Haw 2020, 2023b).

Religion scholar Girard (1986) theorised ‘the scapegoat mechanism’ in recognition of how societies seek to regain stability in times of social, economic and/or political upheaval by placing the blame on an ‘othered’ individual or group. This is reminiscent of moral panic discourses, which are characterised by the creation of ‘folk devils’ to exploit existing anxieties about societal problems (Cohen 1972). We have seen this play out for many years in Australia, for example, via the rhetorical ‘othering’ of asylum seekers in news and political discourse; largely as a means of legitimising exclusionary humanitarian policies (Marr and Wilkinson 2004; Haw 2021). Furthermore, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks in the US, Muslims faced significant global vilification, leading Poynting and colleagues to describe this period as the ‘emergence of the “Arab other” as the pre-eminent “folk devil” of our time’ (2004; 3). Further compounding this problem was the extensive news coverage of a series of sexual assaults perpetrated by so-called ‘Lebanese gangs’ in New South Wales following 9/11, leading to a vast increase in reports of verbal and physical attacks against Muslims Australia-wide (Poynting et al. 2004).

In the case of pandemics, multicultural communities have long been depicted as health threats, economic burdens, and unable (or unwilling) to ‘follow the rules’ (Adusei-Asante and Adibi 2018). Hostility toward racially minoritised groups is intrinsically connected to a fundamental human desire for stability (Molla 2021) but this stability has faced swift disruption during COVID-19, especially for Australia’s multicultural communities. The disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on these communities are well-documented in the global public health, race-relations, and sociological literature. We now turn to this body of work, focusing on the known health and social implications of pandemic-related racism in Australia.

Racism as a Driver of Social and Health Inequity in Times of Crisis

Upon the declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic in March 2020, Australia introduced strict mitigation measures to try and reduce the spread of the virus, including nationwide lockdowns and social distancing restrictions (Australian Government Department of Health 2020). During this time, some reports heralded COVID-19 as a ‘great equalizer’ that has nullified class and status disparities (Gravlee 2020: 1). The negative impacts of COVID-19, however, have not been experienced homogenously. Rather, the pandemic has seen Australia’s most disenfranchised people become further marginalised through repressive policies, norms, and ideologies. The lack of access to government COVID-19 stimulus packages among temporary visa holders, for example, illustrates how many members of the Australian community have been prevented from meaningful participation in social, political, and economic life (Doherty 2020). Indeed, scholars reporting on the social inequities arising from COVID-19 have asserted that pandemics follow society’s ‘fault lines’ (Wade 2020: 703); ‘magnifying power inequities that shape population health even in normal times’ (Gravlee 2020: 1). Here, systemic racism is identified as a fundamental cause of these inequities (Feagin 2006).

Systemic racism has far-reaching impacts on multiple aspects of human life, including feelings of safety and mobility (Itaoui 2016), and educational and employment outcomes (Elias et al. 2021). Racism is also a known precursor for poor health outcomes (Krieger 1999; Paradies et al. 2015; Brinckley and Lovett 2021). Communities experiencing racism, for example, have been reported as less likely to access healthcare services during a pandemic (; Derald et al. 2007). This was observed during the 2003 SARS outbreak in North America, during which healthcare access markedly declined for migrants and refugees while, at the same time, both groups were continuously depicted in media, political, and societal discourse as a health threat to the broader population (Derald et al. 2007). Likewise, in Bastos and colleagues’ (2018) analysis of the 2014 ‘Australian General Social Survey’ - which collected data from 12,932 private dwellings across the country - racism and other forms of discrimination represented strong barriers to accessing health care, including mental health and disability support services.

The reasons for this connection between racism and diminished access to healthcare vary. For some, experiencing racism reduces the time and energy they can expend accessing healthcare services (Richman and Lattanner 2014) while for others, well-founded fears of experiencing racism are positively associated with distrust (and subsequent avoidance) of healthcare settings (Itaoui 2016; Grant et al. 2023). This is especially concerning given Australian research findings that, during COVID-19, racial minorities have been observed to experience increased rates of social isolation and psychological distress, including anxiety (Biddle et al. 2020; Kamp et al. 2022). For example, Kamp and colleagues (2022) surveyed 2003 Asian Australians in the early stages of the pandemic, revealing a strong correlation between experiences of online racism and poor social and mental health outcomes.

While a growing number of (primarily quantitative) studies have shed light on the relationship between pandemic-related racism and poor social and health outcomes, limited qualitative scholarly attention has been paid to the experiences of multicultural communities and the organisations and individuals who support them. Such explorations are urgent, particularly for informing antiracist research, communication, and advocacy efforts going forward. As noted, the nexus between racism and poor social and health outcomes is well established, with COVID-19 representing a recent case study for what is, ultimately, a longstanding pattern of racialised scapegoating and inequity during crisis events. There exists, therefore, a compelling impetus to examine pandemic-related racism in-depth, centring the experiences of multicultural communities and service providers while documenting their recommendations for addressing the problem; both during and beyond COVID-19. Focusing on the Victorian context, our research sought to address two poignant research questions:

1. What perspectives do Victorian multicultural community leaders and service providers offer with respect to the health and social implications of pandemic-related racism in Australia?; and

2. What subsequent recommendations do they propose for initiatives seeking to: a) tackle the ongoing problem of racism in Australia; and b) improve supports for multicultural communities during times of crisis?

In the following discussion, we outline the methods we deployed to address these questions.

Research Design

Participants, Sampling, and Data Collection

Using a qualitative interpretive approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews between September 2022 and March 2023 with 10 Melbourne-based multicultural community leaders, migrant and/or refugee support workers, and healthcare providers (see Table 1 for more details). Multicultural service providers and community leaders were targeted for this research on account of their direct experience supporting multicultural communities and thus, their subsequent potential to offer meaningful insights into the challenges facing these communities during the pandemic. In interpretative qualitative research, the primary goal is to obtain rich, detailed insights into the problem under investigation, as opposed to generalisable data (O’Reilly and Parker 2013). As such, a small and focused sample was sufficient for answering the research questions guiding this project. Furthermore, we focused on Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria, which was subjected to the longest total lockdown period in Australia (and second in the world, behind Manila) (Macreadie 2022), largely on account of the considerable number of reported incidents of COVID-related racism directly related to issues surrounding Melbourne’s extensive lockdowns (Dut 2021; Haw 2023a). For example, an analysis of Tweets posted by Australian Twitter users during the peak of COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria and NSW (March 2020 – December 2021) revealed a prevalent theme of blaming minority communities (notably Asian and Muslim residents of Melbourne) for the lockdowns (Haw 2023a). In turn, it is well established that racialised scapegoating was a significant problem in Melbourne during these lockdowns and therefore, Melbourne-based multicultural service providers and community leaders can offer valuable insights into the ensuing consequences for those targeted.

Table 1. Participants’ Basic Details.

Name	Gender	Role	Communities Supported
Adel	M	Community Leader / Advocate	Muslim communities
Erin	F	Community Leader / Advocate	Asian communities
Hazel	F	Multifaith Community Network Leader	Various religious communities
Jai	M	Multicultural Healthcare Worker	Migrants and refugees
Maria	F	Social Worker / Case Manager	Refugees and asylum seekers
Martika	F	Youth Leadership and Advocacy Officer	Migrant and refugee youth
Nena	F	Multicultural Youth Ambassador	Migrant and refugee youth
Pete	M	Social Worker / Case Manager	Refugees and asylum seekers
Saba	F	Community Development Officer	Muslim women
Shaun	M	Aged Care Support Worker	Ageing Asian communities

We used purposive sampling, whereby participants are selected because they meet certain criteria (Willig 2008). Invited participants either worked closely with multicultural communities in a formal, professional capacity or supported them as part of their role as a community leader and/or advocate. Participants were initially engaged via email communication between the lead researcher and the organisations with which they were affiliated. The lead researcher has previously worked in the multicultural sector and conducted research projects involving service providers who support people from migrant and/or asylum-seeking backgrounds. As such, most of the organisations (and some of the participants) approached for this research were identified and engaged through these existing connections. In total, 35 people across 27 organisations in Victoria were invited to take part in this research: 10 agreed to participate in an interview, 8 declined the invitation, and 17 did not respond.

At the interview invitation stage, prospective participants were provided with the basic details of the research (and interview process) and encouraged to contact the lead researcher if they wished to proceed with an interview. Those who opted to partake were then provided with further details via email, including a copy of the interview questions and a Participant Information Statement. Ten interviews were scheduled, with participants reading and completing a Participant Consent Form prior to their interview. All interviewees were given the choice to either be identified by their first names or have their names replaced by a pseudonym in all publications arising from this project. Most (n = 7) opted to use a pseudonym, while three gave consent to use their real names.

All interviews were conducted via the online videoconferencing platform Zoom, where they were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim using the online transcription programme Otter. Interview questions were focused on participants’ observations and perceptions of three main themes: 1. the broader issue of COVID-related racism, both in terms of the scope of the problem and how it has played out in Melbourne; 2) observed social and health impacts of COVID-related racism, including access to health care and other essential services/supports; and 3) challenges participants have faced with respect to supporting multicultural communities (and their subsequent recommendations for improving the capacities of both formal and informal services to respond to racism in the future). Participants were given the opportunity to review their transcripts prior to analysis, but all declined and subsequently, no changes were made.

Analysis

We deployed a reflexive approach to Interpretive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke 2019). Drawing on Braun and Clarke’s (2006) formative work on thematic analysis in social psychology, a reflexive approach acknowledges the active role of researchers in knowledge production, and thus regards emerging themes as products of the researcher’s interpretations of meaning (Braun and Clarke 2019). Here, researchers are not concerned with replicability and/or ‘intercoder reliability’. Rather, the focus is on their ‘reflective and thoughtful engagement with their data and their reflexive and thoughtful engagement with the analytic process’ (Braun and Clarke 2019: 594). A central goal of this paper (and the broader research project it is connected to) is to centre embodied expertise through a generative and collaborative approach; both of which are central tenets of reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2019). A reflexive approach has therefore enabled us to achieve the kind of rich interpretations of meaning that our research questions demand.

We commenced our analysis by storing and organising our interview data using the qualitative analysis software programme NVivo (QSR International Pty Ltd. Version 14, 2023). The transcripts were read by both authors before being analysed using NVivo. We initially deployed inductive coding, whereby codes are developed directly from the data via the identification of notable themes within participants’ direct quotes (Gioia et al. 2013). We then subjected these codes to a second cycle of analysis using descriptive coding, during which we organised the inductive codes according to the specific issues and/or arguments they engage with. For example, where participants talked about communities’ avoidance of formal healthcare services due to fears of experiencing racism, these excerpts were coded as ‘barriers to healthcare access’ and ‘fears of experiencing COVID-related racism’. Lastly, we organised our descriptive codes into higher-level thematic categories, enabling us to draw important connections between the codes while ascertaining the broader themes emerging from the data. Using the aforementioned code example (communities fearing racism and subsequently avoiding healthcare services), the higher-level thematic category identified was ‘health implications of COVID-related racism’. In line with a reflexive approach to thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2019), we took care to remain flexible by ensuring that all higher-level thematic categories were ascertained by organising codes around a central guiding concept (rather than looking for codes that fit within pre-defined themes and categories). We also maintained a collaborative approach by ensuring that both researchers regularly met to discuss (and reflect upon) our respective interpretations of participants’ experiences and perspectives.

Our analytical approach was further informed by Systemic Racism Theory, which focuses on how, particularly in Western liberal democracies, racism works to unfairly advantage white settlers to the detriment of people of colour (Feagin 2006). It is thus concerned with understanding overt acts of racism while accounting for the macro-level, racist social structures that enable (and legitimise) these incidents (Feagin 2006). By applying a Systemic Racism lens, researchers can meaningfully explore the role of structural racism in economic, social, and health disparities within white-settler societies; an approach that is pivotal to understanding how major resource inequalities between white Australians and people of colour facilitate the ongoing marginalisation of racial minorities during times of crisis (Feagin and Elias 2013).

By drawing on Systemic Racism Theory and deploying a reflexive approach, this research centres the lived experiences of all participants (and the communities they support) while critically reflecting on the authors’ own cultural backgrounds and positions of privilege in the research process. The lead researcher – a White, disabled woman who is a settler in Australia – can relate to some of the experiences of health-related inequity documented in this paper, but does not have lived experience of racism or health or social inequities that are specifically connected to race and racialisation processes. As critical race scholar Moreton-Robinson (2021) asserts, White scholars have long defined the parameters for understanding and talking about issues surrounding racism and racialisation processes. In turn, we recognise that, while it is crucial for White researchers to share in the task of unpacking and addressing race-based inequities, the absence of reflexivity in such work can cause further harm by reinforcing colonialist epistemologies (Lenette 2022). The second author on this paper is an Asian-Anglo Australian-born woman with limited lived experience of racialised inequality (and no direct experience of the forms of systematic racism this paper focuses on), and has therefore deployed an empathetic approach to the research. In addition to ensuring some degree of diversity within the research team, we have ensured that the research process remains collaborative and reflexive by continuously seeking and documenting feedback from participants (facilitated via ongoing discussion and reflective note taking throughout the data collection, analysis, and writing processes).

Systemic Racism Theory also recognises how the kinds of racism reported during COVID-19 reflect longstanding hostilities and anxieties about the ‘other’ (Walker 1999; Hage 2000). By applying a Systemic Racism lens, we have taken care to ensure Australia’s settler-colonial past and present remains central to informing our interpretation of the data, as well as the ensuing research, policy, and practice implications of our findings. This article, in turn, seeks to build upon broader scholarly and practical understandings of how both structural and overt forms of racism deepen social and health inequities. In the following discussion, we begin to unpack our findings, starting with participants’ general discussions and perceptions of COVID-related racism; informed through their experiences working with multicultural communities in Melbourne.

Results and Discussion

‘A Racist Cesspool’: Covid-related Racism in Melbourne, Victoria

All 10 participants indicated that they have provided support to people subjected to racism during COVID-19. These incidents occurred both online (via social media) and in person, while three discussed incidents occurring online only. Additionally, three interviewees stated that they have been subjected to COVID-related racism themselves. Many spoke of racism occurring in the early stages of COVID-19 (March-July 2020), much of which was directed at Asian and/or Muslim communities, and often contained racially stereotypical discourses. For example, upon being asked to reflect on her experiences supporting Asian communities in Melbourne during COVID-19 (including key challenges she faced), Erin remarked:

There was [sic] a lot of people saying, you know, ‘go back to China’, you know, ‘stop eating dogs’, all that other stuff that people say, you know, and ‘Chinese virus’, all that kind of stuff. And [there was] this imagery in the media, not just in the typical Murdoch media, but every time the issue of COVID came up, the headline picture will be Asian people or an Asian grocery store. So people will look at that, and over time, in their head, they made this decision that anything to do with COVID is related to Asians.

Erin, Asian Community Leader

Erin’s remarks offer a specific example of how Chinese people have been depicted in a stereotypical fashion during COVID-19 (for example, ‘stop eating dogs’), further supporting recent examinations of anti-Asian racism, where the derogatory epithet of Asians ‘eating bats’ has featured heavily within digital discussion around COVID-19 (Li and Chen 2021; Haw 2023a). These discourses draw on longstanding prejudices toward Asian communities in Australia, particularly those that mock them for consuming strange exotic food; an idea deployed to legitimise claims that these communities are culturally incompatible with Western norms and values (Keay 2022).

There is also a strong theme of racialised scapegoating in the examples Erin discussed, supporting widely reported discourses of Chinese communities being culpable for the spread of the virus in Australia (Chiu 2020; Elias et al. 2021). This scapegoating is both overt (via comments like ‘go back to China’) and covert (through language such as ‘Chinese virus’). Several other participants discussed these types of attitudes toward multicultural communities during the pandemic. For example, Peter lamented the use of language inferring a connection between racial minority groups and the spread of COVID-19 in Australia:

One thing I found really grating was the use of hashtags like ‘China Virus’ and ‘Wuhan Virus’ and, you know, that sort of thing. And the Tweets themselves were not even saying anything about Chinese people, they’d just be generic things about COVID, but, like, they’d use those hashtags so they’re clearly making that association. But then I also saw stuff, references to Eid and this, kind of, perception of Muslims spreading COVID through religious celebrations and um, yeah, it was just a racist cesspool, you know?

Pete, Refugee Case Manager

Pete further elaborated with a remark about how this kind of rhetoric reflected prominent news and political discourse during this period:

You know, if the main government line is that the virus is out of control and this is paired with, you know, news items about COVID outbreaks in public housing towers full of, you know, migrant and refugee families, and media and political statements and such about Chinese students, all of that, it’s no surprise when you then see people saying ‘deport Muslims’ and, you know, ‘go back to where you came from’. I think too many people underestimate the power of those public messages.

Like Pete, Adel talked about public statements and imagery concerning public housing towers in Melbourne, which house a high proportion of migrants and refugees and have been observed to be subjected to harsher lockdowns during the pandemic, alongside highly criminalising narratives in political, media, and societal discourse (Silva 2020). In his remarks, Adel notes how discourse surrounding the residents of these towers has legitimised perceptions of multicultural communities being ‘untrustworthy’ and, in turn, fuelled ‘some of the worst racist narratives and Islamophobic narratives’:

In 2020, when they shut down the towers, you know, the social housing commission towers in North Melbourne, in Kensington, the response by the government there was on the basis that the inhabitants were inherently untrustworthy. It was implied, like, ‘these people aren’t trustworthy, so we need to lock them up’. I think the pandemic brought to the fore some of the worst racist narratives and Islamophobic narratives. I mean, people were locked up at home, you know, were more and more frustrated and yeah, just looking for scapegoats.

Adel, Muslim Community Leader

In his comment about people ‘looking for scapegoats’, Adel draws on the broader issue of crisis events and their insidious connection to racism. Prior to COVID-19, considerable evidence has mounted to support the notion that global crises both exacerbate and legitimise racism and racial discrimination (Klocker and Dunn 2003; Philo et al. 2013; Haw 2023b); a point noted by several participants who discussed COVID-related racism as merely a ‘symptom’ of an existing problem of racism in Australia. For example, while talking about racism and scapegoating of minority communities during the pandemic, Erin commented:

It [racism] is a bigger problem, because it’s actually a question of structural racism in Australia, and how Australia actually is a racist country.

Erin, Asian Community Leader

Hazel and Martika shared similar sentiments:

The pandemic exacerbated what’s already there. We’re not good at accepting people from, you know, where we don’t tend to connect.

Hazel, Multifaith Community Network Leader

I definitely think it [COVID-related racism] is a symptom of a bigger problem. There’s this sort of narrative has been around for so long, and anytime there’s a big thing that happens, a big event or outbreak or whatever, always somehow the blame gets put on to refugee or migrant communities. Even with like ‘stop the boats’ and the detention centres, all that stuff, the rhetoric is the same.

Martika, Multicultural Youth Leadership and Advocacy Officer

Hazel and Martika both acknowledge Australia’s well-documented history of exclusionary attitudes toward multicultural communities. As noted, crisis events - through the widespread precarity they create - are well established to provide fertile ground for narratives that cast marginalised people (and groups) as ‘folk devils’ (Cohen 1972; Girard 1986); a phenomenon another participant, Nena, alludes to in her remarks about people using the pandemic ‘as an excuse’ for racist and xenophobic attitudes:

These racist or xenophobic statements have been coming for a long time. I mean, it was exaggerated because of the COVID-19 effects, but I feel like it has been kind of like a reason for people to use COVID-19 as an excuse as well. Like, people kind of hiding behind fear of the virus to justify [COVID-related racism].

Nena, Multicultural Youth Ambassador

This recognition of pandemic-related racism as a symptom of a longstanding problem of racism in Australia aligns with the principles of Systemic Racism Theory (Feagin 2006), particularly in terms of how it regards individual acts of racism as conduits for deeply entrenched structural conditions that privilege the needs (and beliefs) of the White majority while relegating racial minorities to the status of ‘other’. When we consider Australia’s position as a settler nation with a well-documented history of these practices of ‘othering’ (Walker 1999; Hage 2000), we can begin to understand COVID-19 as merely one case study that represents an enduring pattern of racialised scapegoating in Australia. The excerpts discussed above offer further evidence of crisis events bringing pre-existing anxieties and hostilities about the ‘other’ to the fore; a problem widely documented (both before and during COVID-19) to have dangerous consequences for those targeted (Itaoui 2016; Kamp et al. 2022; Grant et al. 2023). In line with these observations, our interviewees discussed significant health and social equity issues they have observed among Melbourne’s multicultural communities as a direct result of pandemic-related racism. We unpack this finding in the following discussion.

‘Under Siege’: Health and Social Impacts of COVID-related Racism

All participants discussed various ways in which pandemic-related racism has affected the wellbeing of the communities they support, noting both health and social consequences. Most of the health implications noted by participants were related to communities refraining from accessing health care services (including vaccination) during the pandemic, either due to experiences of racism and/or fears of encountering racism. For example, Adel stated:

A lot of Muslim people were reluctant to go in and get vaccinated, because they were concerned about backlash.

Adel, Muslim Community Leader

Similarly, Pete noted that negative sentiments and false claims about Muslims on social media resulted in the avoidance of essential services, such as medical care:

When all those reports and social media claims were doing the rounds about Eid and all that, I do remember some clients who didn’t want to go to the doctor, like, see a GP or even just ask a, you know, a Pharmacist for advice. Like, I remember at least two people telling me that had symptoms and felt pretty awful, but didn’t test or seek medical help because they were too scared to be seen anywhere.

Pete, Refugee Case Manager

The way racism (and a well-founded fear of racism) inhibits access to essential services, including healthcare, has been reported for many years (Ali and Keil 2009; Bastos et al. 2018; Derald et al. 2007). For further context, both Adel and Pete voiced these perspectives during a broader discussion about how mediated racism during COVID-19 (including news, political, and social media discourses) made some communities reluctant to enter public spaces out of fear of experiencing verbal and/or physical abuse. Within these discussions, both participants noted that these fears have also led communities to withdraw from friends and family, increasing their sense of social isolation and, for many, diminishing their mental health. For example, Pete remarked:

The social isolation factor is certainly right up there. Like, when those claims were doing the rounds about Eid celebrations causing that big outbreak, quite a few people I spoke with talked about being afraid, even when things opened up again, they were afraid to reach out and socialise or be seen in any public setting. There was, they had a real fear that they would be verbally harassed, or worse, because that was happening to people. And, like, I can’t even imagine being in a situation where you need to, like, make the choice to seriously risk your health, you know, and I mean emotional and physical, because dealing with racial abuse and harassment is, you know, a scarier prospect that being totally isolated, or, like, getting COVID. It’s really scary to think about.

Pete, Refugee Case Manager

Adel also discussed social isolation as a consequence of COVID-related racism:

These communities, they felt quite, almost under siege. I think there’s an under siege mentality, and so people tend to be completely shut out. That led to incredible rates of real isolation, and emotional, you know, emotional deficit issues and mental health issues. There were a lot of unfortunate deaths, but also mental health, that was almost, you know, epidemic proportions amongst many in the Muslim community. And, you know, people not feeling confident or comfortable enough to maybe seek the help they need, like I, myself, I sometimes didn’t even know how to seek help if I needed to.

Adel, Muslim Community Leader

These comments highlight just some of the harmful social and health consequences of both experiencing and anticipating racism. Pete’s remarks about his clients viewing racial harassment as a ‘scarier prospect’ than contracting COVID-19 is of particular concern. It paints a grim picture of people from asylum seeking backgrounds making the fraught decision to forego important health and/or emotional supports due to a well-founded fear of persecution, which is, ironically, a key component of the grounds for seeking asylum in Australia in the first place (UNHCR 1951). And Adel’s description of Muslim communities feeling ‘under siege’ - largely resulting from false claims in news and social media discourse about the spread of COVID-19 in Melbourne being caused by Eid celebrations - illustrates the power of public messaging about minority communities to affect their emotional wellbeing. Also of note is Adel’s final statement in the above excerpt, where he raises the issue of barriers to seeking support in the face of pandemic-related racism. This problem was noted by three other participants, including Erin and Jai:

The other problem was people didn’t know where to report it or if it was serious enough to report to the police. The whole reporting process is so confusing.

Erin, Asian Community Leader

There seemed to be a big issue with reporting, um, like with a few patients I spoke to who had been harassed on public transport and that, uh, they hadn’t gone to the police, you know, for lots of reasons. But they wanted to know about other ways they could report it but there wasn’t, as far as I’m aware, there wasn’t much information. It would have been helpful for me to know how I could refer people to get support other than just ‘call the police’. I’d say that’s a big thing that needs to be looked at, like, from a change perspective.

Jai, Migrant Healthcare Worker

This finding reflects those of recent investigations into barriers for reporting racism in Australia, which note fear of backlash, inaccessibility of support services, and a lack of trust in formal institutions as prominent reasons for not reporting (Kamp et al. 2022; Vergani and Navarro 2023). It is evident, therefore, that reporting avenues for racism - particularly in the context of a complex (and ongoing) health, social and financial crisis - require further attention and intervention. This point is elucidated via Jai’s remarks above, where he advocates improvements to referral pathways for service providers. Several other participants also offered their thoughts concerning ways to address pandemic-related racism in Australia, including how service providers and community leaders can be more adequately resourced to support multicultural communities during crisis events. We turn to these recommendations in the following discussion, noting some ensuing implications for policy, practice, and research.

‘Learning from COVID’: Addressing Racism and Supporting Communities in Times of Crisis

Interviewees were asked to comment on what kinds of policy and/or practice approaches they think are needed to address pandemic-related racism in Australia and mitigate the health and social impacts. Their responses fell into two key categories: 1) improving official communication (including media and political commentary) surrounding crisis events; and 2) engaging more collaboratively with multicultural communities in policy and practice efforts. Four participants noted the power of language in public and everyday communication surrounding crisis events, including Saba and Adel:

In terms of, like, learning from COVID, I think the, to me, the main thing is how much of an impact our words have. Like, how we talk about each other, and not just in the media, but in everyday contexts, you know, that has so much impact. Like, I don’t have the answer, but we need more focus on basically overhauling how we talk about [multicultural communities] when these things happen. Words really matter, and, like, during COVID at least, it hasn’t been done from, like, a culturally informed kind of approach.

Saba, Community Development Officer

Language is so important. The way that our public figures, our leaders, our politicians, talk about this has a huge impact on the community’s response. And I think a big part of this is getting more solid representation from communities themselves, whether that be in the media or in better political representation.

Adel, Muslim Community Leader

These excerpts emphasise the importance of culturally sensitive communication about issues surrounding race and multiculturalism during crises such as COVID-19; evidenced by the remarks ‘words really matter’ (Saba) and ‘language is so important’ (Adel). While Saba notes that she does not ‘have the answer’ with respect to how communication can be improved in this way, Adel suggests that increased representation from multicultural communities in media and political organisations is ‘a big part’ of addressing these issues; a viewpoint shared by Erin:

We need to look at the representation in things that are being presented in the media, boards and committees. We’re not getting rid of racism, but when you start getting more people in decision making roles who understand and have experiences of that issue and, you know, they’re using their expertise and their cultural background, I think that can have huge benefits.

Erin, Asian Community Leader

While Erin acknowledges that the problem of racism is unlikely to be eradicated altogether, she notes that increased representation of people with lived experience in media organisations and decision-making roles ‘can have huge benefits’. Applying a Systemic Racism lens (Feagin 2006), we can regard Erin’s assertions as offering recognition of the myriad of ways in which racism is both enabled and normalised through a lack of inclusion of racially marginalised experiences and expertise in favour of more privileged, White-centric perspectives (see also: Berman and Paradies 2010; Haw et al. 2020).

In addition to highlighting the need for improved representation, several participants discussed the importance of consulting with multicultural communities to address the issue of COVID-related racism in Australia. For example, Nena said:

A lot of collaboration needs to be done with community leaders and communities themselves. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, and if another disease or outbreak might happen, and then if the communication is not good, the same problems, they just happen again and again.

Nena, Multicultural Youth Ambassador

Martika agreed:

It [approaches to addressing COVID-related racism] could all be more collaborative, like, at the moment, it’s very, you know, top to bottom, so it needs to feel a bit more balanced in the power dynamic. I think that would work really well, like, for example, better resourcing communities so they can allocate funding and decide how it should be used.

Martika, Multicultural Youth Leadership and Advocacy Officer

Antiracism and public health scholars have made similar recommendations in recent years. According to Ben and Paradies (2020), for example, Australia’s state government and local councils require more adequate resourcing; not just for the design and implementation of tailored antiracism initiatives, but to properly support the people (and organisations) best placed to deliver these initiatives effectively. Furthermore, recent Australian research has identified a strong need for ongoing partnerships with multicultural communities to enable the formation of culturally informed solutions and work toward more diversity in public health communication going forward (Wild et al. 2021). Our findings offer further support for these perspectives. In our final, conclusive discussion, we evaluate what these findings suggest in terms of the task ahead, focusing on some key concerns and questions that remain (for researchers and policymakers) in terms of addressing the ongoing problem of overt and systemic racism in Australia.

Conclusion

The research documented in this paper offers further credence to the notion of systemic racism as a determinant of both physical and mental health. Through our discussions with multicultural community leaders and service providers who have supported ethnically and religiously diverse communities during COVID-19, we have illuminated how both overt and systemic racism has diminished access to important health and social supports for vulnerable communities during a time of heightened uncertainty and risk. Furthermore, we have documented some of the most pressing challenges facing those tasked with supporting racially marginalised communities during the pandemic. These include the need to more adequately resource services and advocacy groups to enhance their capacity to respond to racism and discrimination on the scale observed during COVID-19, and to address notable public health communication shortcomings observed during the pandemic (including a lack of information about avenues for reporting COVID-related racism and/or seeking tailored, culturally informed support).

In light of these findings, we agree with scholars who, in response to COVID-19, have advocated the development and continued enhancement of antiracism initiatives (Ben and Paradies 2020), as well as the formation of partnerships with multicultural communities to ensure such initiatives are informed by meaningful collaboration with those most affected by racism (Grant et al. 2023). A note of caution here, however, is that while these collaborative measures can be invaluable, they risk placing the onus on racialised communities. In line with intersectional and decolonial approaches to addressing structural racism in a health and social equity context (Ziersch et al. 2011; Bastos et al. 2018; Gravlee 2020), we take the position that responses to racism must be focused on broader societal and institutional change, as opposed to relying on individuals to protect themselves from racism (or demonstrate ‘resilience’ in the face of it). This requires a collective and holistic effort on the part of societies to both acknowledge and work to dismantle how white privilege in Australia is ‘codified in the structures and institutions of society’ (Ziersch et al. 2011: 1052).

We agree that it is essential to centre the knowledge and needs of marginalised communities in research, policy, and practice efforts that seek to address social problems directly affecting their lives. However, we advocate approaches that prioritise the wellbeing of these communities, for example, by ensuring they are adequately compensated for their time and expertise, and that their autonomy (and power to guide the direction of the work) is upheld at all levels of the process. Integral to this, as Grant and colleagues (2023: 6) assert, is ‘the long-term organisational investment and financial support to ensure that dedicated anti-racist resourcing is both accessible and sustainable’. Likewise, in the context of addressing barriers to reporting racism, Vergani and Navarro (2023: 13) posit that organisations tasked with receiving reports of racism must be ‘holistically equipped to approach the victim’s wellbeing, including supporting a person to tell their story, assessing needs and risks, listening, providing referral or support, advising on potential legal outcomes, and supporting the victim through the journey’. Our findings show that resourcing for organisations who work with multicultural communities is an evident barrier to the provision of effective supports to people experiencing racism in Victoria; a finding observed Australia-wide for many years (see, for example, Dunn et al. 2001). In turn, we argue that funding for policy and practice interventions that draw on in-depth, national investigations into multicultural experiences during crisis events need to be prioritised.

We want to conclude by reiterating the point that racism – and its propensity to prevent people from attaining essential health and social supports during times of crisis – is not a new problem. The issues reported in this paper have been observed for years and will likely persist well beyond COVID-19. COVID-19 indeed represents a contemporary example of how crisis events illuminate (and deepen) the ‘fault lines’ of society (Wade 2020: 703) and even in a so-called ‘post-COVID’ era, the social and health repercussions of COVID-related racism will likely be vast and ongoing. We know from previous crisis events that long-term isolation and diminished social and health outcomes are intrinsically connected to experiences of racism (Ali and Keil 2009; Itaoui 2016; Krieger 1999; Paradies et al. 2015). To borrow the words of one of our interviewees, Saba, ‘learning from COVID’ - in terms of how scholars, practitioners, and policymakers can better understand racism and its impacts during a global health crisis - is an urgent task; both for preparing to respond to future crises and for improving our collective capacity to minimise the far-reaching effects of racism as a prominent and systemic health and social equity issue of our time.

Ethics Approval

The research documented in this paper has been carried out in accordance with the requirements set by the Deakin University Faculty of Arts and Education Human Research Ethics Committee (approval no. HAE-22-029), and informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Disclosure Statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a 2022 Deakin University Faculty of Arts and Education ‘Research Project Development’ grant.

Notes

1 Eid al-Fitr is a three-day Islamic festival that marks the end of Ramadan, a religious holiday observed by Muslims worldwide, which requires them to fast from sunrise to sundown for one month as part of a ‘spiritual celebration of Allah’s provision of strength and endurance’ (Chitwood 2019: n.p).