Bharat Sundaresan is a drag queen and trans rights activist from India. He uses they/them pronouns, has starred in thousands of hours of hardcore gay porn, and has two non-binary children with his gender questioning partner through a female sperm donor.
Nobody can pronounce his name.
An article he penned yesterday is doing the rounds, in which he complained that Aussies are still racist. As English is clearly not his first language it is mercifully short, so we will cut and paste it without attribution, then make some comments:
“Get off the f—ing grass mate.” I heard the security guard but didn’t respond. Surely, he wasn’t talking to me. After all, I had my accreditation card on display and was doing what I generally do in the lead-up to a Test match—watching the nets. To boot, there were also three white colleagues from the Australian media standing next to me at the Gabba that afternoon.
It was only when he was in my face and literally getting me off the “f—ing grass” that I realised that I was being singled out – that my presence was the cause of his ire. Taken aback by the volume and the tone of his voice, I flashed my accreditation card. It took a fellow journalist’s intervention for him to relent. But not before he flashed a toothy smile at me and went, “You are lucky you have one of those, mate. You are lucky,” pointing at my accreditation. The next morning, he jumped on me again and since I was by myself, I thought it best to walk away.
But when the scene repeated itself a year later at the Gabba, I’d had enough. Different security guard, same threatening tone. This time I contacted the Australian team’s media manager, Cole Hitchcock, who was kind enough to walk over and sort the matter out. So, imagine my disappointment when I was stopped by a group of security personnel at the MCG a week later, with one of them going “can we trust him?” to the other, after having checked my accreditation.
In the past I’d have shied away from talking about it. In all likelihood, I’d have responded with a self-deprecatory joke because it felt safer to do so than to have to confront them. It was also easier being the person coolly brushing off the casual racism and unintentionally justifying it. For, these aren’t fun conversations to have for us. My post on social media last week was an attempt to do just that.
You get use to it. I got stopped 3 times last year at our hotel, while in Australian Kit and asked if I was with the Australian Cricket team… ♂️#youdontlookaustralian #orsotheysay https://t.co/XSpsX0KXdL
— Usman Khawaja (@Uz_Khawaja) December 25, 2022
To point out how it feels to be constantly talked down to. To deal with that constant condescension in tone while being reminded that you don’t belong here. To be asked constantly to accept how some have the right to belittle you and then expect you to laugh with them in the name of banter.
The dismissive nature of some of the replies to my tweet further exemplified the crux of the issue. The inconsiderate denial that discrimination of this nature exists in Australian society. And also, why it’s so hard to bring it up without being immediately accused of stirring the pot. Even if you are Usman Khawaja talking about having to “get used to” being stopped outside your hotel because you don’t look Australian, while you’re still in your Australian team kit.
I will admit that I’ve been treated as fairly and as respectfully as any other Australian journalist by every player I’ve come across in the five years I’ve been here. I’ve also been extremely touched by the support and love from the media fraternity, which include some high-profile former cricketers, that has come my way this past week in Melbourne.
But if you are one of those who thinks racism has gone away, then just listen. It never did. This is not only about security guards at cricket venues. If you look a certain way in Australia, you end up copping it on a daily basis.
Like when my fellow commentators hand over to me in the SEN commentary booth, nobody can ever pronounce my name correctly. Justin Langer even asked me one time how to pronounce it. I was so upset, I didn’t stop sucking my thumb for three days.
Like how I was asked if I was carrying a bomb in my bag on my first day in Australia eight years ago. Like the time someone walked up to me in a restaurant when I was standing waiting for a takeaway order, pulled their wallet out from the coat hanging next to me, and went, “I didn’t feel OK leaving it there”. Like the lady who stood next to me in the security line at Brisbane airport last month, looked at my bag being scanned, and went, “I really hope I’m not on the same flight as you”. Or when I saw the man walking ahead of me one evening in Perth blatantly crossing the road and start walking on the other side while repeatedly looking suspiciously over his shoulder.
And if you are one of those who thinks this is ok, then just listen: It never is.
Let’s start with a civnat tier, defensive response.
How do we know all these security guards were White? These days they are more likely to be nonwhite. After Israel did 9/11 nonwhites complained so much that governments and corporations very obviously went out of their way to hire nonwhites as security guards just so nonwhites wouldn’t be offended when asked to show their bombs bags.
It has reached such an absurd level that Jeff Kennett got in trouble for noticing this a few years ago.
Jeff Kennett offers mild civnat critique of AFL Behavioural Awareness Officers
The irony bites especially hard for White people at airports. 20 years after Israel did 9/11 then blamed it on muslims, White grandmothers get bomb searched by muslim security guards because jews also push multiculturalism and mass immigration into White countries.
However, these are defensive, “it’s not fair” kind of arguments. The Economic Zone Formerly Known as Australia points us in a more constructive direction.
Every race on the planet is racist, and every race on the planet is allowed to be racist except White people. Racism is the immune system of a nation. Our bodies were created to recognise harmful and/or foreign objects and expel them. “Racism”, better understood as in group preference, works exactly the same way.
We recognise that somebody has a different skin colour, facial features, an accent, they dress differently. They may simply have different instinctual reactions or a different outlook on life. All of these traits from the most obvious red flags to the faintest of hints indicate that someone is foreign.
When there are only ever a few thousand foreigners temporarily in your country at any given time, these completely normal reactions to foreigners by Australians triggers our innate White empathy and promote hospitality.
When millions of foreigners have been deliberately imported by our governments to live here permanently and replace us, these completely normal reactions to foreigners override our innate White empathy and trigger a collective desire to remove the foreigners in order to secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.
Very few people in Australia in The Current Year will say anything to overtly assert our right to exist as a people in our homeland, but the unconscious, instinctual immune system is still active among many Australians. It still exists despite decades of programming designed to negate our so-called “unconscious bias”, otherwise known as our survival instinct.
Rather than pointing out the hypocrisy of this woke Indian journalist who has quite clearly ridden his minority status all the way to the bank, I hope all the security guards he complained about are indeed White Australians. I hope they were deliberately attempting to make the foreigner feel uncomfortable, with the intent to make him leave Australia.
I also hope they are making half a dozen White babies each and connecting with their White brothers to advocate and prepare for a White Australian future.
