Illustration: Vintage Cathy Wilcox, August 2020 Credit: To submit a letter to The Age , email [email protected] .
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RACISM I read the report regarding the racism that employees at the Australian Broadcasting Commission experienced over some considerable time (′′ The ABC launched a racism review. The responses were damning ′′, 2/10). The essence of the finding was that the review authors found ′′racism exists within the ABC workplace′′ and ′′ABC staff are subjected to racism from external individuals and organisations in connection with their work′′.
Having been in this country for just on 50 years, and having spent a considerable amount of that time dealing with the systemic racism that exists in this country I will say that the position of the ABC is no different to just about every employment workplace in Australia. This is a nation that sees “unconscious bias and racism” as being inherently “normal”. Various anti-discrimination commissioners have called this out over many years.
However, it is an inordinately vexed issue that is not easily resolved. I do not condone, in any fashion, the racism behaviour that the ABC employees have been subjected to. But I caution that the ABC culture is not dissimilar to that that exists in many other workplaces.
We have considerable wo.
