It doesn’t explain why Australia is still a far more homogeneous country than America. I’m well aware of how most of the blacks got here; my father is an African-American historian (historian of African-Americans, that is), and I’ve grown up being well aware of slavery. It is, as Lord John Marbury said, our original sin.Sometimes, people from the USA say funny things about Australia. One I hear a lot is that Australia is a racist country and that you can tell that because it has almost no black people.
It’s true, we don’t have very many. But we also didn’t run a 300 year forced-migration program. This explains a hell of a lot about why we have fewer black people than, say America does.
We have tons of other things to be ashamed about. Trust me. But asking ‘where’s your black people’ shows that you don’t really understand how history works.
I’m also aware of the demographics of both countries. America is much, much more racially diverse than Australia. I believe in diversity. I believe that people should travel as much as possible, but if you can only be in one place, make it a diverse one. I know people who’ve grown up in almost totally white environments, and I’ve done plenty of reading (Jonathan Kozol is excellent on this) on kids who grow up in totally black environments, and neither is healthy. If the vast, vast majority of a place is one color, one ethnicity, one religion, one anything, I see that as unhealthy.
I realize Australia is at a disadvantage compared to most other countries, being so isolated, but I’ve also heard (and please correct me if I’m wrong, I hope I am) that it is not immigrant-friendly. The US isn’t anymore, and I see that as being potentially detrimental, but we do already have established communities and populations representing virtually everyone in the world.
I don’t want to fight but your post was, if not directed at me, bouncing off of an exchange earlier, and I wanted to clarify my views.
PS We did the “civilizing of the natives” thing, too. And by civilize I mostly mean Christianize, of course. I think Canada did it as well. None of us can point fingers on that one.
