They Haven’t Won Yet

Racism is a hot topic once again in Australia. The taxpayer-funded Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), with Race Discrimination Commissioner Chin Tan in the vanguard, is determined to extirpate all vestiges of racism and discrimination—even from among people who say they have no direct experience of either. The AHRC launched a new $500,000 campaign in the middle of the year to highlight the racism that lurks in our hearts.

It’s hardly surprising so few of us encounter racism in our daily lives. According to the latest report from one of the most reliable barometers of Australian society, the Scanlon Foundation’s Mapping Social Cohesion survey, that segment of the population with racist or xenophobic views is shrinking rapidly. Even during the long months of the pandemic—when Mr Tan insists that instances of race hate spiked—the Scanlon survey reported high levels of harmony in the community. But there was a puzzling spike of 20 per cent in the number of those…