A reflection on a current educational issue in Sydney relating to culture and identity

            Born and raised in the Sydney Eastern Suburbs, I attended all my schools within the area. From my experience there were in fact issues in education in regards to Culture and Identity. Racism was most definitely the biggest issue.  My school was supposedly diverse, we had a Racism Awareness program, however students weren’t particularly enticed to attend. I can recall being in lock-down at school due to conflicts within the school, a boy expelled was searching for a boy for a fight; the boy was of Asian-descent, so it was highly recommended by teachers that all students, particularly Asian students to arrange a safer way home if they were walking. This was just one form of racism that I witnessed on my account during high school. The staff team at my school was dominantly “White”, as Wilding would say “Greater attention has been paid to the role of “Whiteness” as a social category in effort to explain social inequality” (2009 p180).

              My own experiences during high school, I faced racism all throughout my senior and junior years. At the start of my high school years, I was first denied my Aboriginality due to the complexion of my skin.  It was impossible for me to be Indigenous because I supposedly belonged to the “Whiteness” social category. The Deputy Principle ripped up my excursion letter to an Indigenous BBQ event. It was lucky I had Indigenous family attending my high school that could support me during these conflicts. As I started grade 10 career opportunities came around such as work experience, however because I was Indigenous, I had a wider range of opportunities, like working with Qantas, or ANZ bank and other large industries. This is where the racist calls came in.  I remember a girl asking our teacher, when the notice for Qantas and ANZ Work experience was available for me was announced, she said “Why do they bother offering ‘abos’ these jobs when they’re just going to end up on centrelink?”. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day.  I tried so hard to explain the closing the gap campaign the Government was initiating. Her only argument was that white people would benefit from those jobs. Issues like this would happen around the country, which is why awareness needs to be raised through all nations, not just Sydney. Indigenous people still face racism today.  They have been burdened with and stereotyped as ‘dole bludgers’ in the Australian Society. We’ve all heard the derogatory slang thrown at Indigenous people. They say Indigenous people don’t try in school but rather do not want to try, which in my opinion is irrelevant. If you as an individual try as a student, they will accept your efforts.

Awareness needs to be spread, people need to understand that Indigenous are more than what people make them out to be. Within the schooling system, teachers need to acknowledge, just because stats say Indigenous students don’t achieve as high as non-Indigenous, not to accept underachievement which I believe is an issue within the education system as many teachers are accepting underachievement from Indigenous students. The Whatworks Awareness page can help teachers develop an awareness for Indigenous people by expanding their minds to express equality throughout Education, developing an awareness for a wide range of cultures rather than what is dominant and Anglo-Saxon. 

Farida Fozdar, Raelene Wilding and Mary Hawkwins. Race and Ethnic relations.  Oxford university Press 2009.