Yesterday I discovered that maybe I don’t have a race. Good! I didn’t want one anyway. It’s a pesky ol’ thing.
I learned this during day one of Lattouf v ABC currently before the Federal Court. In short, broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf says she was unlawfully terminated by the ABC in December 2023 for sharing a Human Rights Watch post about Israel using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. The ABC says she ignored a directive not to post anything on social media pertaining to “matters of controversy” during her five-day tenure as a fill-in radio presenter on ABC Sydney. Lattouf says there was no such directive. Amid the to-ing and fro-ing it was revealed there had been a coordinated campaign by a group calling themselves “Lawyers for Israel” to oust Lattouf from her job prior to her social media post.
Anyhoo, there I was watching the day’s proceedings unfold live on YouTube when what should I hear but Lattouf’s barrister, Oshie Fagir, make the following statement: “In relation to the claim of racial discrimination. The ABC says that this claim must fail because Ms Lattouf has not proven there is a Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race.”
Excellent point! It’s entirely reasonable, after all, to expect one person in Phillip Street to conclusively determine the racial makeup of several hundred million people around the world. What even is a Lebanese anyway? You’ve gotta admire the ABC’s moxie in punting that one over to Antoinette to solve given Lebanon ostensibly endured a fifteen-year civil war over a not-dissimilar question. I’d have happily supplied a blood sample or a few stray hairs if I thought it might’ve helped settle the matter, but alas the ABC may be correct in its assertion that Antoinette has not definitively proven there is a Lebanese or Arab race.
Indeed, I’m not sure anyone has. This should come as great comfort to both the ABC’s Lebanese audience and its Lebanese or Arab employees because should they, at any point, feel maligned, disenfranchised, offended, insulted or hurt by the ABC on the basis of their… um… Lebanese-ness, they should kindly remind themselves that it cannot be racism because there is no proof they are a race.
The ABC’s lawyers were quick to point out that Lattouf v ABC is not a discrimination case. This is likely cold comfort to my Asian, African and Aboriginal ABC colleagues who are now on notice: complain about something to do with your race and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility the ABC will ask you to prove you have a race in the first place. How’s that for social cohesion?
Now, as you might imagine all this leaves my good Lebanese self with many more questions, including: if there’s no proof that the Lebanese are a race, then what are we? Several ferrets in a trenchcoat? A peripatetic compilation of molecules? Phoenicians? (Can’t wait for the Maronites to hit the comments section over that one — not that they read Crikey, no offence to the Maronites or Crikey). I’d love the ABC to regale me with its thoughts.
Does it think I’m raceless or — gasp — white? Because I gotta tell ya, the latter has lowkey been my dream since I insisted my mother send me to primary school with a devon and tomato sauce sandwich instead of my usual flatbread labneh roll.
Perhaps, we fall under a “culture” or a “national extraction.” I’m sure someone has figured out where to place us, but who cares. The ABC has said what it’s said.
My understanding is that the ABC has spent considerable energy attempting to attract new and “diverse” audiences. It recently moved part of its operation to Parramatta in Sydney’s west and in 2019 it conducted a community forum in Leb heartland, aka Bankstown. Apparently, Ita Buttrose herself braved the Hume Highway to “discuss local issues, eat at local restaurants and speak with community groups.” I wonder if she discussed Arab racial taxonomy with some adorable tetas over baklava?
And yes, that’s the same Ita Buttrose who, as we discovered on day one of the Federal Court trial, wished COVID upon Antoinette and claimed to “owe her nothing” despite being her employer. I wonder what all those Lebs out Bankstown way think about this.
The ABC, as Fagir rightly suggested, has publicly claimed to be “confronting and treating seriously the concerns of its diverse workforce”. In fact, last year it commissioned a sweeping review into racism at the broadcaster. The results were damning. The review showed, among other things, “a lack of shared understanding of racism among the ABC Leadership”. I’m not sure much has changed.
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