A few news items from Down Under

[seeingred]

The Baxter Detention Centre closed on Monday. "It stopped overt protest but it didn't stop the crippling psychological damage of detention," [researcher] Dr Steel said. "In terms of the wellbeing of detainees, they couldn't see out, they could only see up."

A Sydney pub was busted for refusing entry to islanders (such as Samoans and Maori) and

Comments

On the other hand

[the_cockfighter]

Did you remember seeing a study from University of Queensland that said only 4.6% of Australians would have a problem with having a person from a different race living next door.

http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=11868

That's good news isn't it?

Re: On the other hand

[seeingred]

Two cheers for us. :-) I'm embarrassed by the homophobia, and would like to know how the surveyers were sure people weren't just giving answers they thought were acceptable.

In Racism: A Very Short Introduction, Ali Rattansi says that "white Americans live in areas with more than 20% blacks". (p 141) This and other factors lead to the clustering of Black Americans in underprivileged areas and ghettos. It'd be interesting to see if there's a parallel in Australia, or if we really are as egalitarian as the survey suggests - I hope so.