By Kait O’Callahan
Two weeks ago I witnessed something I never thought I’d see. It wasn’t so much that I bore witness to a racial attack that was unexpected.
READ THE NEWS REPORT as published by the Dandenong Journal
After all, I take the train to and from Dandenong five days a week, and racist attacks on public transport have been headline makers these past months. Instead, it was who the three middle-aged men on the Dandenong station platform were directing their hateful words at that shocked me.
The subject of their rage was a Maori girl in her twenties. A New Zealander, like me, around the same age as me.
“Go back to your country, this is Australia,” these three men yelled in slurred voices. Their throats were thick with smoke and alcohol. Their clothes were dirty, their legs wobbly.
Tangled, drunken words of sheep and taxes and kiwis spewed forth. Yet even with broken sentences, their words were powerful ones, easily capable of damage.
Their target, a lone female guilty of nothing but minding her own business, tried to defend herself with her own harsh words.
With her head held high, she threw back insults and refused to show fear .
It seemed to keep the men from closing the 10-metre gap between them.
They never approached her, just swayed and shouted.
When I moved to Australia in 2010, I never expected to experience even a smidgen of the racism that refugees, immigrants and people of colour go through all the time.
As a white New Zealander, I didn’t think the sting of racism was something I’d ever feel. But there I was, watching a countrywoman being bullied by complete strangers because of where she was born.
Even though I was not their direct target, I felt their insults too.
The rest of the platform was silent. People stared and kept their distance.
I walked over to the girl and asked if she was OK.
I didn’t want to be someone who didn’t do anything, but I wasn’t about to charge blindly into confrontation with three men.
She was angry and upset, but she brushed it off as best she could. Two teenage boys came up not soon after, and engaged her in conversation.
Three people was all it took for the men to realise she was not alone. They soon backed off.
I know now that hate doesn’t discriminate.
People who are simply different can always be the targets of bullies.
The playground dynamic of school doesn’t change as much as we think it will when we become adults.
We just deal with it better, keep to ourselves more, interact with others less.
We surround ourselves with like-minded adults so we never have to feel different again.
Yet occasionally we will still feel those prickles of hate. Of ignorance. Of intolerance.
People like those three men, drunk at a railway station at 4.30pm on a Wednesday, will never cease to exist.
But by supporting each other, by speaking up or merely standing close, we can make bullies feel smaller.
We don’t need to stand up to abusive people by being confrontational, and potentially risk danger to ourselves.
Simply by letting the victim know you are on their side, we can help others to feel less alone and make Australia a better place.
Kait O’Callahan is a freelance tennis writer. Twitter: @kait_oc
