Welcome to 2018, 28 of our sitting representatives in the Senate today voted in favour of a motion saying that it’s “okay to be white“, a slogan plucked straight from the lips of 4chan racists and white supremacist figureheads like former KKK grand wizard David Duke. The motion, thankfully, did not pass, but not by much — narrowly beaten out at 31-28.
While Pauline Hanson, for the most part, is a hapless dumbass whose complete incompetence has only been prevented from permanently ruining her career by the grace of how racists will overlook anything to vote for their people, the motion she put forward appears to be a pretty canny one. Voting in favour of the motion sends a signal to the racists who see it as a wink to them, but those who vote against it are seemingly saying that it’s not okay to be white, which helps bolster the ridiculous myth that white people are somehow facing discrimination in Australia.
Either taken by actual surprise or expressing some sort of mock surprise, the government is making the motions of being outraged at the suggestion that they’ve done anything improper. Try and imagine the weakest excuse you can think of. Guess what: their actual excuse is even weaker than that.
https://twitter.com/cporterwa/status/1051755158202273792
https://twitter.com/MathiasCormann/status/1051759957169729538
https://twitter.com/senatorlucy/status/1051765354479771648
Yep, you read that right, by exclusively saying that it’s OK to be white (the one racial group that suffers no discrimination in Australia), they meant that it’s OK to be any colour… pretty convincing stuff.
This will likely get bigger coverage over the rest of the week as it is an absolutely insane thing to have happened in the first place, but this desperately slipshod first response seems to give a sense that they were taken by surprise and didn’t think the motion was going to get any traction. Should be an odd week.
(Side note: if you want some terrifying insight into how the alt-right in Australia is mainstreaming its ideas in our political system, this recent ABC investigative report about alt-right infiltration in the National Party is worth a read/ listen.)
