(Cross posted from On Line Opinion)
Australians are very mindful of prejudice and discrimination in our community, and rightly so. Yet, many prejudices are so fashionable and pervasive that they go unnoticed. We are blind to some bigotries.
I am a member of an ethnic and cultural group called Whyjens. You could probably guess this from my name alone.
It is with some shame that I acknowledge our massive over-representation in the prison population. This fact is routinely and publicly interpreted as an indication of our intrinsically violent nature. It is variously blamed on genes and/or culture both in the Australian and the Guardian.
When I draw people’s attention to the number of us who are incarcerated, it is greeted with the suggestion that it is “our own bloody fault” or even with mirth. I have been called a rapist on the basis of pure prejudice. I worry that my children hear such views and internalize them.
Yet, Whyjens are also massively over-represented among victims of crime. We are given harsher sentences for committing the same crime as non-Whyjens. Those of us who are incarcerated are commonly subject to rape without public outcry. It is just considered part of the punishment.
We are also over represented amongst alcoholics, drug dependents, the homeless and most forms of social dysfunction.
We have triple the suicide rate of the general population and significantly shorter life expectancy. But there is no public campaign to close the gap.
At every single age, from 1 year old to 100 years old, our mortality rate is higher. More recently, our Covid fatality rate was double that of non-Whygens.
We are subject to a unique and deadly form of cancer that only Whyjens can contract. Roughly 17,000 are diagnosed each year. Yet there is no special funding provided by government specifically towards Whyjen health outcomes. Indeed, government funded health research is openly targeted at non-Whyjens whose average life expectancy is longer than Whyjens. Total government grants awarded to non-Whygen medical research is four times that of Whygens.
Educational resources are explicitly diverted to non-Whyjens whose educational outcomes are already way better than Whyjens in almost all dimensions. Whygens are expelled from school at 10 times the rate of non-Whyjens. When I went to school we were the main victims of corporal punishment.
We are routinely the object of pejorative generalisations and jokes about our supposed incompetence, predisposition to violence and closeness to apes.
There is a popular book called “Whyjens are dogs” and “Why Whyjens are clueless”, openly available. Some years ago, I even saw a book called “Whyjens are vermin and should be killed.”
Whyjens are barred entry to many night clubs, being easily recognizable by our facial characteristics. More than 2 Whyjens have virtually no chance of entry. It is argued that too many Whyjens in the one place are likely to instigate violence. This is all legally sanctioned and approved of by the non-Whyjen majority.
Whyjens are still legally barred from attending certain public baths. I am banned from certain drinking establishments. I am charged more for insurance.
Whyjens are targeted and killed by police. In the US, police kill blacks compared to whites at rates 1.5 times higher than their population size would justify. Police kill Whyjens compared to non-Whyjens at rates 20 times higher.
Many tens of thousands of Whyjens have been forcibly separated from their children by court order and enjoy only very limited access. This stolen generation of children is denied access to their Whyjen heritage. Recent federal legislation, if passed, will consolidate this odious principle.
Qantas have an official policy of not letting unaccompanied children sit next to Whyjens, because of the fear that we might molest them.
In at least one democratic country, it is written into law that the penalty for murder will be less if the victim is Whyjen.
Indeed, it is the common view that the life of a Whyjen is worth less than the life of others and this had been embodied in policy at several levels. It permates Hollywood not to mention the reporting of crime. If a Whyjen murders a Whyjen it is barely newsworthy. In the reporting of both natural and man-made disasters, the deaths of non-Whyjens are listed first and separately and are considered more tragic by general consensus.
What is my ethnic-cultural group. Who are Y-gens? Is it some micro-ethnicity from Cymru-Wales?
Well, Y stands for a chromosome and gen stands for gender. We are males.
Did you guess the punchline? Check the facts yourself. It think it is a nice device to just list the facts and have the reader construct a deserving ethnicity in their own mind. The fact that Whyjen sounds a little like Uigers helps!