This article is an instalment in a new series, “Peter Dutton is racist”, on Dutton’s history of racism and the role racism has played on both sides of politics since the 1970s.
Racism has two meanings, and it’s important to understand which one we’re using.
One is about belief: in the notion that a person’s attributes — including personality, behaviour and characteristics such as intelligence — can be predicted from their racial or ethnic origin.
The other is about action: acts of prejudice, discrimination or antagonism, because of — rooted in — racist belief.
Race is an artificial construct, so racism as a belief system is nonsense. Star signs are more accurate predictors of individual characteristics than signifiers of race, in the sense they are at least based on one objective fact (birth date). Racial classification doesn’t even have that.
How so? Well, while racists flatter themselves with infallible powers of identification, the truth is they’re making guesses based on baseless assumptions. Assumption is not often included in definitions of racism, but it’s an essential element.
Pauline Hanson can best explain how this works. Setting up for a TV interview in 2015, Hanson had this exchange with a cameraman:
Hanson: “You’re not going to tell me you’re a refugee, James, are you?”
James: “No, Aboriginal.”
Hanson: “Really? Wouldn’t have picked it. It’s good to see that you’re actually, you know, taking this up and working.”
Hanson had assumed the cameraman was refugee-probable and not Indigenous, both assumptions based on whatever her little brain thinks people of specific “races” are supposed to look like.
When Peter Dutton applies generic labels to African, Lebanese or Gazan people (or to white South Africans), he is operating on assumptions no less stupid than Hanson’s.
Dutton no doubt does not consider himself racist, as an honest belief. He can make public statements such as his most recent application of the Skittles theory of terrorist identification to the entire population of Gaza, thinking to himself, “I’m not being racist, I’m just pointing out the obvious”.
But what he did there was racist. The Skittles theory, popularised by the philosopher Donald Trump Jnr, is this: if you knew one Skittle in a full bowl was bad, you’d throw them all out. It’s in sync with this argument: not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims, so why let any in?
Like all racist theories, it’s factually wrong, pathetically simplistic and dehumanising. It explains the existence and relative popularity of a terrorist organisation like Hamas, not by reference to the conditions imposed externally on Palestinian (or Arabic, or Muslim) people, but as a consequence of something inherent in their character — dictated by their race.
Likewise, Dutton walked out on the Stolen Generations Apology because he was not sorry. He understands the plight of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples — their intergenerational disadvantages — not as being in any way related to what was done to them and their ancestors.
Dutton projects these basic, brutal thoughts by his words — how he talks about every issue of social dysfunction. It’s not hard to discern something he does actually feel: fear. The world must look incredibly dark to him. Again, however, that’s his problem. Our problem is how he externalises his fear in his role as a public leader.
Being racist is, appropriately, not illegal. Racial discrimination as an act that prevents or deters the exercise of ordinary freedoms by others is obviously unlawful. The hard question is determining when the performance of racist beliefs, by words, should be outside the law.
Our current legal test for hate speech is measured by both its effect and its motivation: it must be likely to cause serious harm to its intended victims, but it also must be unreasonable and in bad faith. The legislative guardrails, designed to keep the public square open for vibrant debate on matters of public interest, create only a narrow realm where racist hate speech is rendered illegal. That’s as it should be.
Has Peter Dutton breached Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act? That’s not for me to say, but some of his racially charged statements over the years have sailed very close. They have the potential to hurt whole groups — for example, Lebanese Australians or African Australians — badly. They are offensive, insulting and intimidating. That is particularly so because of the positions he has occupied when saying them.
There is nothing reasonable about attributing antisocial characteristics to people on an arbitrary, evidence-free basis. Nor can it be done in good faith. It’s not in the public interest, and the protestations that people like Dutton make when challenged — I’m just stating the obvious — are disingenuous rubbish. Plausibly deniable racism is still racism.
Whatever fluid flows through Dutton’s heart, that’s not our concern. He is accountable for his chosen speech. Some of that speech is racist.
Do you think Peter Dutton is racist? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
