Say No to Racism on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Standing against discrimination and racism is one of ASRC’s core values. From the racist undertones in the rhetoric about refugees and people seeking asylum, the recent racist agenda evident in the Government’s harsh migration bills, to systemic racism suffered by our First Nations people and violent racist attacks on refugee rights activists, ASRC has consistently been calling out racism and dispelling dangerous stereotypes and myths.

ASRC has been helping power grassroots movements and has partnered with similar minded organisations, launched legal challenges to address discriminatory policies, spoken at rallies, invested in research about messaging and framing, and supporting refugee leadership. For example, our ASRC Speakers Program provides a platform for people with lived experience of seeking asylum to tell their stories in their own words, enabling refugee voices to be heard and empowering people seeking asylum and refugees to advocate for change.

ASRC supports the truth telling process and walks with the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria on the journey to Treaty for Victoria. It supports the work of the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the first formal truth-telling process into historical and ongoing injustices experienced by First Peoples in Victoria, that has been collecting evidence of past and ongoing racism and discrimination in Victoria’s health services, education system and criminal justice system.

Today’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination  is observed annually on the day the police in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid Pass Laws Act on 21 March 1960. The 1952 Pass Laws Act required Black South Africans over the age of 16 to always carry a ‘passbook’ – a kind of internal passport known as ‘dompas’ designed to enforce segregation and restrict movement, working in conjunction with other apartheid legislation in South Africa.

Sixty-five years later, this year also marks the 60th anniversary of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Racial of Discrimination, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 December 1965. While the convention was a groundbreaking step in the global effort to eradicate racism, today the challenges remain and too many individuals, communities and societies around the globe still suffer from the injustice and stigma of structural and systemic racism. Racist ideas and practices are gathering steam worldwide and are increasingly evident in the political debate in Australia.

Impacts and harms of long-standing systemic racial discrimination are real and damaging to individuals and communities that experience them. Regardless of the discomfort the discussion about them brings, it is important we learn more about the way racism works, seek a deeper understanding of the need to eliminate racism and the harms it causes, and come together to end racism, rather than use the language of harmony to mask these harms, reinforce inequality and maintain the status quo.

To learn more about racism and take action to create change, head to Racism. It Stops With Me website.