Honestly you hear some odd conversations sometimes. I went along to a talk last night hosted by the Australian Professionals overseas network called Advance. Generally a safe bet for something interesting but not really odd.
Last night the conversation was odd. 
There was a panel of 3 speakers – some better than others – clearly this is not the odd bit.
What was peculiar was the open discussion after.
Some odd bod Australians discussed racism. Not that there is anything odd about racism – generally I would say it is considered pretty serious actually. What was astounding was that it was professional, white, Australians claiming that the English had been racist towards them.
Honestly, if it wasn’t just so wierd it would have been laughable.
What worries me is that the good natured banter between two countries, appears to have in a small number of peoples minds constituted racism. While I acknowledge that ten people can interrupt a single action in ten different ways – I can not understand how what sounded like occassions of banter can be interpreted and labeled with such an extreme word.
It was an odd conversation – and my basic reaction to the conversation is that the people who view good natured banter as racism should really look around themselves and realise how lucky they actually are.
