Dr John Yu Fellowship

My name is Giridharan Sivaraman and I’m the Commonwealth Race Discrimination Commissioner.

Thank you to the John Yu Fellowship for the opportunity to speak today.  

I’d like to begin by acknowledging that I’m speaking to you on the unceded lands of the Gaidgal, and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. I’d like to extend those respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people here today.

Acknowledging that I’m on country is important. Its something that is being attacked and I want to defend it. For me, as a non First nations person, but who has lived experience of racism and is leading anti-racism work, its important to understand the difference between the racism someone like me suffers, and that which is suffered and has been suffered for 238 years by First Nations people. The racism someone like me suffers is a denial of equality, dignity and respect. The racism First Nations people suffered and continue to suffer is also a denial of equality, dignity and respect. But in addition, it is a denial of self determination and sovereignty which included the dispossession of their land by settlers before me. And I, as a settler, have benefited from that denial of sovereignty. I have benefited from the dispossession of their land. Therefore, it is a small but important step for me to acknowledge I’m on country.  

I also want to acknowledge that First Nations people have been striving for racial justice for 238 years. Their fight for racial justice is connected to the fight for racial justice for non first nations people. This is how I see it. When someone like me asks for equality, dignity and respect, I’m asking for our institutions and structures to reflect me, to be culturally safe for me, to allow me to thrive. The reason they don’t do that is because they were built to ensure white privilege and white supremacy. Why is that? Because they were built to cover a lie. The lie that no one was here before, that there weren’t 400 different Aboriginal nations in a diverse and rich combination of cultures and languages unlike no other. When we challenge that lie we remind those that want to maintain the lie that they have no more right to be here than any migrant. It reminds us that everyone needs to buy into this lie for it work. If we don’t accept the lie then we know the white privilege that determines how systems and structures operate can be challenged.  

First nations people have been challenging this lie for 238 years. If we support them in this challenge, then in striving for their racial justice we are also striving for own. And we recognise and give true credit to how much their fight for racial justice has helped us.  

There’s another lie I want to challenge. The lie that anti-racism work is divisive, or is some kind of superficial identity politics. Racism divides. Anti-racism unites. As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote “race is the child of racism, not the father”. It was the intent to divide and to subjugate that created race. We have our identities based on who we are as individuals and our life experience. We become a problem or an issue by our society and its institutions. I think about myself. If I go to Chennai, my city of birth, when I get off the plane I’m just Giri, or Giridharan to a few uncles. I get on the plane, come home to Brisbane and get off the plane and suddenly I’m ethnic. Multicultural. Diverse. All of that is by my proximity to whiteness and anglo culture. That’s not to say I’m not defined in different ways in India. But its not the same as it is here. You can try and get closer to whiteness but it doesn’t always work. I remember once doing a radio interview, and a listener after remarked on how ‘okker’ I sounded. When I heard that I thought to myself, maybe I do sound really okker. Then I felt embarrassed, a bit ashamed. Deep down I knew I had developed my ‘strine’ to fit in. I had let go of my mother tongue, Tamil, a language of beautiful literature and poetry so as not to sound different. Yet despite this, the listener knew it was an act. She knew I didn’t quite fit in. But that’s not of her doing, that is a result of institutions and structures that divide us. Take the media as an example, which was the context of that story, how often do you see a brown face outside of SBS? A little on ABC, but on commercial TV only if they are really, really good cooks. As for radio, well if I wanted a permanent spot on commercial radio I’d need to drop the first name, change the surname to Sivo, and hope they don’t put my photo up on a website. Which is a shame because I’ve often been told I have a face made for radio.  

There is a bigger reason to challenge the fallacy that anti-racism work is identity politics or divisive. The bigger reason is that anti-racism work helps everyone. Ableism divides. Ageism divides. Class divides. Sexism divides. Homophobia and transphobia divide. To say that fighting for the rights of any of those who suffer by that division is identity politics is a criticism that can only be made if you believe everyone has equal opportunity, privilege and power when accessing systems and institutions. But everyone does not have equal opportunity, privilege or power. Describing that inequity is not identity politics, it is describing the divide between those with power and privilege and those without. If we want to make the economic argument, racism is estimated to cost the Australian economy $37 billion each year. It would literally cost a fraction of that to implement all the changes in the National Anti-Racism Framework. Fundamentally, as Aboriginal academic and activist Lilla Watson described with a group of other Aboriginal activists, our liberations are bound up in each other. And the fight for that liberation comes from a place of kindness and compassion, which should be the bedrock of all our decision making.  So in our National Anti-Racism Framework when we say that entrenched power and privilege should be challenged, we are creating a platform for everyone to do just that. It creates an historic opportunity for all of us to come together and work towards a stronger nation for us all.      

We are at a critical juncture in the journey to reduce racism in Australia. In the last few years, the global #BlackLivesMatter movement brought renewed attention to the systemic oppression that persists in the criminal justice system, including Aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia. The COVID-19 pandemic saw an increase in racism and xenophobia towards Asian Australians. Last year, the Voice Referendum mainstreamed a shocking level of racism for the duration of the campaign and has continued to have horrific impacts on First Nations communities. More recently, increased antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Arab racism, and Islamophobia has had devastating effects on communities.  There is an urgent need for change. This change can occur if our leaders are brave enough to follow the roadmap set out in the Framework.  

Our work has revealed that current approaches to anti-racism are ad-hoc, disjointed, and often ineffective. In some senses that is hardly surprising in a society where a person calling out racism often endures more negative repercussions than the perpetrator of the racism. Our work shows that racism has real impacts on peoples lives. It is well documented that racism leads to worse health outcomes, from lack of access to resources, to increased psychosocial stress. Racism leads poorer educational outcomes such as lesser achievement and progress in every level of the educational system. Racism leads to over representation in the justice system. Racism leads to negative representation in the media. In workplaces racism places roadblocks at every step of the journey from trying to find work, to being culturally safe at work, to progressing with workplace hierarchies.  

The systemic racism that persists today shows the limits of diversity, equity and inclusion policies that prioritise notions of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ over a direct and stronger engagement with race and racism. This is where all of you have a role to play as leaders, and people who are racialised. Talking about harmony day or social cohesion isn’t anti-racism work. I’m tired of people telling me to stop talking about racism because it disrupts social cohesion. We of course all want to live in a society where we get along. Pretending racism doesn’t exist won’t help us get along. The real path to progress is one that is laid down with the stones of anti-racism.  

The starting point for all of us building our racial literacy. At a basic level, racial literacy is about equipping people with the tools, confidence and capabilities to understand and challenge racism. If we only understand racism in its interpersonal forms, it’s easy to say that we aren’t part of the problem because we aren’t saying or doing racist things to other people. However, when we understand structural racism, we know that we also have a responsibility as individuals to actively dismantle the implicit racism in the systems and institutions we are part of. We should embed cultural safety for First Nations people as a foundational approach to address inequities in workplace settings, which in turn complements anti-racism work in these areas.  

Before I go further there is something important that I have to say.  Structural racism has been legitimised by Australia's colonial history and remains embedded in our society. It is pervasive across our institutions -- whether it be workplaces, places of education, or indeed the structures that are intended to serve us. However, as I have said earlier, we cannot effectively address racism and the harmful impacts it has on so many lives, without meaningfully acknowledging that it exists. I therefore believe it is important to acknowledge that the Australian Human Rights Commission -- like all Australian institutions -- is not immune from such challenges. These are matters I am taking very seriously. If racism can exist within an institution such as ours, this illustrates just how deeply entrenched structural racism is within our society at large, and the pressing need for the Commission to address it. I believe as an institution we must lead by example, and I commit to doing better internally while also working to rebuild public trust in this institution.

Everyone in this room can play a role from tomorrow. Most if not all of you already are. But now we’ve given you a powerful tool to use. Help us by supporting the National anti-racism Framework. Read through the recommendations and work out which are relevant to your areas of work and civic life. Utilise whatever opportunities and capacity you have, to work towards changing our systems for the better. Put pressure on governments and business to make these changes. Although governments must ‘lead’ this work through resourcing and political will, it is truly First Nations and other negatively racialised communities who should be supported to lead anti-racism action for their communities.  

Change will not be instant, but it is possible. And I have faith that with the support of those both in and outside this room, a better future will be built. Not just one that my children will enjoy someday, but one that you and I, and our communities, will experience in our lifetimes.  

Together, we can reach the destination at the end of this road -- a society where all of us have equality, dignity and respect, irrespective of our race, religion and culture. Challenging the status quo is not an easy task, but I know that if work together, we have the strength to make possible.