The WTF? reaction of many Australians to the racist attacks on Adam Goodes – ape, King Kong – is but one further example of the systemic racism in our society that Harry O’Brien identified in a recent post, republished here.

As the frogs further acclimatise to the boiling water of racism that pervades Australian society, is there a way to address this systemic racism? How can we jump out before it is too late?

As a first step, our society could acknowledge the genocide the invaders launched against the original inhabitants of this country and its ongoing impact today.

Indeed the process of dispossession – one aspect of genocide – is taking place right now. It has many names. The Northern Territory Intervention is one example. The mining industry’s rapacious expansion on stolen land is another.

The consequences of the 225 year ruling class war against Aboriginal people is obvious – poverty, ill-health, lower life expectancy, jail, deaths in custody…

The solution appears obvious too. Sovereignty, a treaty, reparations, paying the rent, land rights.

But that won’t end racism. Refugees are vilified as part of the systemic racism of Australian capitalism. Open the borders.  Welcome all refugees.

Now I know none of this will happen because of the good graces of capitalists or their two major parties.  It will require struggle – massive struggle.

The struggles of Aboriginal people, refugees and their supporters have highlighted the systemic racism of Australian capitalism.  However fundamental change, change that throws racism into the dustbin of history, cannot be won or cannot be won for any long period of time, by individual sectors in society.

Only a mass movement which has on its banner the unity of all peoples can challenge racism as the tool of the rich and powerful.

That force is the working class. The campaigns against, for example, deaths in custody, for refugees, against racism, can help drive back the edges of racism. They can help implant the ideas of struggle into the thinking and eventually action of the working class.

But the overall conservatism of society and its inherent racism, the WTF reactions to justified anger over spoken racism, won’t be challenged until workers move back into class struggle.

Let’s build the campaigns against the many rotten aspects of capitalism today. Let’s understand they are all linked and that ultimately it is only in the struggle against the system that its systemic repressions can be challenged and ultimately overcome.

The struggles today if they are strong and militant enough can roll back racism.

However since racism is integral to the rule of capital in Australia we cannot defeat it unless ultimately we defeat capitalism. Workers have that power. In the struggle today lies the future.

The Boiling Frog Of Systemic Racism In Australia