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When it comes to racism, Australia is clueless – and I'm exhausted

A Torres Strait Islands flag, an Australian Aboriginal flag, the Queensland flag and the Australian national flag
“The obscene expressions of racism just keep coming in Australia.” Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

As our collective dismay at the support among government senators for Pauline Hanson’s “It’s OK to be white” motion on Monday turned into collective pleasure in watching them flail for equilibrium upon realising the enormity of their blunder, a peculiar fatigue was dampening certain Blak voices.

The past 12 months have been incredibly fecund in terms of subject matter for anti-racism pundits to draw from, but experiencing and combating such a barrage of racial bigotry takes its toll.

While not meaningful in terms of legislation, at first blush the “It’s OK to be white motion” is a clear indication of the idealogical position of the Coalition government. Rightfully, the discerning public was incensed and with a critical byelection in the socially progressive seat of Wentworth in inner-city Sydney, the government reaction seemed stricken. Next minute, they were walking back their support for Hanson’s motion. Actually, “walking” is an epic understatement.

If the initial support for Hanson’s motion was a demonstration of white fragility in the Australian parliament, the fact that coalition senators were given an opportunity for a “do over” the next day must be peak white privilege. Predictably, second time around they rejected the two part motion to acknowledge “the deplorable rise of anti-white racism and attacks on Western civilisation” and “that it is OK to be white”.

Ordinarily, Blak pundits such as myself would have revelled in picking open and mercilessly rebuking such a sham, but instead we experienced a peculiar sense of exhaustion. That feeling was summed up best by Eugenia Flynn, a writer and anti-racism activist, who on Tuesday tweeted “ … it’s because its not just a news cycle for me. I am tired and drained. More power to everyone else who can deal with it. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

I felt exactly the same way. It’s an effect I occasionally observed as a daily editor for IndigenousX. I’d seek out content from Blak writers on a highly topical event or recent controversy, usually to do with race, and hear of the enervating effect of said episode on somebody’s professional and personal life. Powerful, strong people needed to voluntarily side-line their voices in the interests of self-care.

Broadly speaking, when it comes to understanding what racism is, how it works and the impacts it has on those it’s directed against, Australians are a particularly clueless bunch. It must be so, simply because the obscene expressions of racism just keep coming. Have a look and you will find that it is relentless. For a bitter lark, I and others often co-opt the worksite safety management sign, “Days Without Injury” whenever an incidence of black-face occurs. It’s depressing how frequently we fall back to zero.

Racism is running rife – though it always has in Australia. In the past week alone, a white supremacist slogan has almost gained government endorsement; revelations have surfaced that 25 neo-Nazis managed to infiltrate the Young Nationals; the election posters of Hobart City Council candidate Yongbei Tang have been defaced with offensively racist slogans; new laws proven to unfairly target the youth of marginalised ethnic communities have been implemented; there’s been yet another racially charged gaff on channel 7’s Sunrise breakfast program; not to mention the numerous forms and occurrences of racialised dog-whistling being deployed by opportunistic state and federal governments scrapping for votes in looming elections.

Witnessing this racism affects our health. It has proven emotional and physiological impacts. International research indicates that it can lead to hypertension and heart disease. There are also harmful effects on the immune and endocrine systems which can lead to things like pulmonary disease, kidney disfunction and cancer.

Psychological distress stemming from exposure to racism is often a key contributor to substance abuse. Elite racism – the kinds of racism filtering down from parliament, for example, to fuel racist attitudes amongst the general public – also leads to unequal access to societal resources required for good health and well-being, such as education, employment and housing.

Physical violence arising from racism obviously also has an impact on health, as does contact with the criminal justice and detention systems.

These deep and complex implications of racism on health are well known, even in the most senior political departments. It’s clear government ministers – the majority of whom have had the privilege of never once experiencing enduring racism – are not only naively and/or wilfully blind to it, but ready at any moment to arbitrarily subject our lives to that harm.

• Jack Latimore is a Guardian Australia columnist