Intercultural Communication Consequence of Racism

Question: Discuss about theIntercultural Communicationfor Consequence of Racism. Answer: Introduction As an international student of Bangladesh in Australia, I and my friends have encountered the consequence of racism. Few of the local people abused us due to our skin colour and also due to our poor ability to speak English. I think this racism is one of the key challenges that are faced by all the international students like me. In this essay I am going to discuss three different experiences of racism encountered by the Asian students. The poor intercultural communication is one of the main factors for discriminating behavior. I will also suggest ways to decrease the gap that exist due to the cultural difference between two nations. The main purpose of this essay is to raise the awareness among the people regarding the matter of racism. I have also discussed the ideas that are related to the intercultural communication. Intercultural Communication I first encountered the experience of racism, when I myself enrolled in one of the tutorial class. The fellow Australian students started to mock us because of our accent and skin colour. As English was our second language, we are not able to speak English in fluent manner. We were insulted because of our inability to speak English in proper manner. In spite of the fact that we tried to protest, the other students got furious and abused us directly for our cultural background. The fellow students also abused us by the name of our religion and thought that we belonged from India as they were not able to identify the difference between the people of the two nations. The situation we faced is one of the few examples that are faced by the colored skin people in Australia, Europe and American countries. Several of the Asian people visit Australia and European countries for the purpose of getting job and perusing higher education. According to Macedo and Gounari (2015), racism against stud ents is one of the major issues in the contemporary time, which discourages the students to peruse higher education in the Australian universities. In the year of 2009, the Indian students faced severe discrimination because of the cultural difference. There were nearly 1,500 reported case of racism that was faced by the Asian students in Australia (Jonason 2015). The murder case of Ranjodh Singh on 29 December 2009 in the city of Griffith and the case of Nitin Garg, a 21 year old student on January 3, 2010 were few of the extreme incidents of racist activity. The government of Australia failed to take immediate activity, which resulted in a huge protest from the Indian community staying in Australia. I think these extreme examples will help the people of the world to understand the level of discriminating activity that is going on among the foreign students in the country. The next experience of racism that I and my friends encountered is when, we visited the local church. As we were from the Muslim community, many of the visitors of the church abused us because of our religion. There are many people of Australia, who have a hateful attitude towards the Islamic religion. Morgan (2016), stated that the recent terrorism activities is one the major cause of Islamophobia in all the European and American nations. The cultural racism that exists in Australia is one of the main causes of Islamophobia among the people of the nation. The Muslim community in Australia has to face severe discrimination in the Australian society. The majority of the racism goes unreported as the victims are often feared to report their situation to the local authority. The religion discrimination is very old aged practice that exists in the western society as they have a feeling of superiority among themselves. Mac an Ghaill and Haywood (2015), argued that the terrorism is not the only cause of Islamophobia among the western people. The evidence of hetaerism against the Muslims can be discovered even in the year of 1918, from the time of the First World War. There are noticeable similarities of Islamophobia with that of Nazism that existed during the time of pre second world war. When I and my friends visited the rural side, we witnessed another major case of racial discrimination against the aboriginal tribes of Australia. We saw that few of the tourist using abusing language towards the residents of the Torres Strait Islanders, who resides in the state of Queensland in Australia. Even though the local people tried to ignore the tourists, they showed a percussive attitude towards displaying their abusive attitude towards the local people. They even mocked the people because of their difficulty in understanding of the English language. This experience left a deep impact on my mind and I felt there are some serious actions that needed to avoid these discriminating activities. According to Chou and Feagin (2015), from the time the white people from the western regions have started settling in Australia, the aboriginal tribes faced serious level of discrimination as they were dominated by the settlers. Due to the ignorance among the aboriginal tribes, they were being easily dominated by the white settlers. The lesser knowledge of those tribes about the political system of Australia prevented them to make progress with the fast moving world of present days. The survey conducted by the government of Australia reveled that nearly 70% of the aboriginal people faced racial and cultural discrimination at universities of Australia during the time they went to peruse higher education. This is the major reason that that there are lower level of literacy among the aboriginal tribes of Australia. The racist attitude of several Australians had discouraged them to continue in their aim of continuation of higher education. All the encounters of racial discrimination that I have encountered during my stay at Australia forced me to join the protest to support the antiracism laws and activities. The Human Rights Commission of Australia implemented the Discrimination Act 1992, to minimize the effect of racial discrimination (Goodman and Rowe 2013). According to the terms of this Act all forms of discrimination based on race, skin colour, religion, culture, social origin and political opinion is strictly prohibited. Nevertheless, the government of Australia has failed to make the full use of these Acts as there are several cases of racial abuse in the Australian society. I think that the lack of self-awareness and violent attitude among the people are few of the major cause of racism among the Australian community. As the Australian government failed to take immediate actions against the racism cases the Indian and Asian students like me had to face severe level of harassment. The media in Australia also di d not give much importance to the report or racism that happed in the country. Hence, the very few people were aware about the incidents that kept occurring within many parts of the country. The racism attack of the Asian students also compromised the diplomatic relationship of Australia with the countries of India and Bangladesh. The ways the incidents are presented to the world are also in a different manner, which resulted in mis-interpretation of the actual situation. The government also failed to provide special protection to the Asian students in all the major universities of Australia. I think that the linguistic difference between the Asian and Australian culture is one of the major cause of racial discrimination that is occurring on students like us. In spite of the fact that few of the local people had tried to cooperate with us, but we faced difficulty for poor intercultural communication skills. The difference in the communication ways had prevented us to understand the local culture and habits of the people of Australia. I, along with my friends have tried to overcome the difficulty by attending special language classes. This has helped us to understand the importance of the local cultural values and learn the elements of the intercultural communication. The communication can be achieved by both verbal and non-verbal mode. The linguistic difficulty is also faced by the people of the aboriginal tribes, who are trying to peruse higher education from the universities of Australia. The lack of the knowledge about a culture is the major barrier to develop intercul tural communication between the people (Carbaugh 2013). Hence, we have given prior importance to get enough information about the local culture of the people of Australia. These information were helpful for us to increase the level of interaction with the local people. Nevertheless, the incidents of discrimination that exists within several of the local people had discouraged us to peruse in our effort. I think in order to minimize the effects of cultural discrimination among the people, it is important for the Australian people to understand the cultural and ethical values of the Asian people. They also have raised the cultural awareness about the ethical and moral values of the Indian society, which will help the foreign students to live in harass free environment. Hence, no one like us have to encounter the any forms of racial abuse from the local people. The local government also needs to provide strict action against all forms of racial discrimination actives by ensuring the co rrect implementation of the Discrimination related Acts. The Human Right Commission of the government of Australia also plays a significant part to prevent the racial attacks against the racial activities. Conclusion The experience of racial discrimination and abuse that I have encounter in Australia has been a major cause of concern. It is difficult for students like me to pursue the higher education in a safe and risk free environment. The cultural difference that exists is one the major cause of this discrimination. It is also important for the people of both the nations to increase their cultural awareness about the elements of intercultural communication. The local people of Australia also need to learn the respect the ethical values of the community of the foreign students. With the help of the linguistics class, I have been able to learn the cultural and communication aspects of the local people. I also have been able to understand the importance of the multicultural values. I hope this essay work will help the people to understand the importance of intercultural communication, which will help to resolve the issues related to racial discrimination that exist with the society of Australia. Reference Carbaugh, D., 2013.Cultural communication and intercultural contact. Routledge. Chou, R.S. and Feagin, J.R., 2015.Myth of the model minority: Asian Americans facing racism. Routledge. Goodman, S. and Rowe, L., 2013. Maybe it is prejudice but it is NOT racism: Negotiating racism in discussion forums about Gypsies.Discourse Society, p.0957926513508856. Jonason, P.K., 2015. How dark personality traits and perceptions come together to predict racism in Australia.Personality and Individual Differences,72, pp.47-51. Mac an Ghaill, M. and Haywood, C., 2015. British-born Pakistani and Bangladeshi young men: exploring unstable concepts of Muslim, Islamophobia and racialization.Critical Sociology,41(1), pp.97-114. Macedo, D. and Gounari, P., 2015.Globalization of racism. 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