Foreign-born, grew up in Melbourne, lived 750M from city centre, left it 11 years ago, lived in Bangkok and a few cities in Europe too : London, Dublin, Amsterdam.

Yes there’s racism in Australia. However, none of this analysis is very nuanced.

For instance, many foreigners who visited Melbourne had no idea how diverse the place is.

Consider this : - Melbourne’s CBD is 38% Chinese or Chinese heritage alone - When you include other Asian countries it is closer to 50% maybe even 50%+ - 55% of people in the City of Melbourne were born overseas, compared with 36% in Greater Melbourne in 2016 census - In Greater Melbourne at the 2021 census, 59.9% of residents were born in Australia - As a % of the population born overseas (40.1%) it is higher than London & NYC - Melbourne has the 10th largest immigrant population in the world - Melbourne has the 4th largest foreign born population in the world (after London, NYC, Sydney) - It has the highest per capita number of Holocaust survivors outside Israel - It has people from 200 countries, 233 languages, 116 religious faiths - Melbourne City is represented by a Green MP (think Brighton or Bristol in UK) - Notwithstanding it is incredibly safe, prosperous and ranks in Top 20 cities of the world by any measure and by liveability more like Top 10 - It doesn’t have ghettos

As for white Australians, they are the least racist and the most racist and probably also the most in between depending on socio-economics :

• Huge educated inner city professional class (anti-racist, very liberal pride supporting, feminist, indigenous rights supporting) - check voting records, gay marriage plebiscite, voice referendum
• Affluent old money suburbs (indifferent, unbothered, insular) - probably this is the Sydney experience
• Outer suburban & people from the country (unashamedly politically incorrect to racist, hate indigenous people)

Also : - There’s an element of young men seeing foreign guys in their 20s as competition for women and being dickheads to them on a night out (guys who do well like French, Italians, Irish, English probably suffer this, apologies!) - There’s an element of Australian women really not liking Australian men dating more attractive Colombians, Thais, Japanese, Eastern Europeans, Swedish backpackers). I would say half of the the Australian guys I’m friends with have foreign gfs (many now have wives & kids) - In both cases this will be seen as racism but you look at the dating and it’s clearly not an issue overall with the amount of mixing - Americans get a unique experience imo. Nothing to do with you being Native American, most people don’t care and won’t realise. - Black Americans & Brits get treated well by default (in the city centres) because they are rare. - Black Africans like Sudanese are treated with suspicion - Australians tend to be mean to other Americans unless they vibe with them (chilled out Coloradans, New Yorkers, Bostonians always got the nicer treatment vs red state Americans) - Turks, Moroccans, Pakistanis get treated better in Melbourne than in Europe & UK imo - Eastern Europeans get treated much better than in UK. A lot of us had (Central) / Eastern European Australian teachers and backpacking around Poland, Hungary or Romania has always been seen as “cool”

As for the other massive population of Australians everyone ignores - Mediterranean, Balkan & Lebanese Australians are usually much more racist & abrasive imo than Anglo-Celtic Australians - they have a subculture which is parodied very well in “Super Wog” & “Fat Pizza”. These series would be seen as racist themselves but it’s an in group joking about themselves so chill - Asian Australians hate “fobs” (fresh off the boat). They really can’t stand Asians that don’t speak perfect English. Probably 30% of my mates were Asian Australian and this is how I’d describe their attitude - By contrast, Australians who learned Japanese, Indonesian, Chinese at school likely to be very friendly to those groups - Japanese in general are loved, Japan idealised - Much of the violence towards Indians that caused a diplomatic furore came from African Australians in West Melbourne who saw them as rich & weak - Widespread Muslim immigration in general is probably seen with suspicion (fear of European experience) except Southeast Asians who are accepted

Anyway that was my experience. People have opinions and share them. In London they have opinions and keep them to themselves