Kids targeted by racism feel it ‘deep in their soul’
Keira Jenkins |
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are being increasingly targeted by discrimination, data from a national racism register has found.
More than a quarter of reports of racist incidents against Indigenous people were directed at young people up to the age of 19, the 2024-25 Call it Out Annual Report found.
Based on 442 reports submitted between March 2024 and March 2025, it showed an increase of 10 per cent over the previous year.
Mounty Aboriginal Youth and Community Services youth ambassador Amelia Whyman said racism can have a lasting effect on young people.
“A kid can grow up in a happy family and then experience racism, and they get confused about their place in the world,” the 17-year-old Malyangapa and Wankumarra woman said.
“You can get scared for your cultural safety, your physical safety, you feel it deep in your soul.”
Ms Whyman recalled a student was suspended from one school she attended for racism against a First Nations student.
“Part of me thinks that (the suspension) is good, then they understand that racism isn’t the right thing,” she said.
“But sending them back to their family, they’re probably not going to get pulled up at home.”
She said students who participated in racist behaviour should be made to learn about Indigenous culture, write an essay on how racism impacts First Nations people, and to apologise for the student who was impacted.
Professor of Criminology at the University of Technology Sydney’s Jumbunna Institute, which runs the Call it Out Register, Chris Cunneen said parents had reported schools failing to respond effectively to racist behaviour, with sometimes repeated complaints going unaddressed.
“It tends to be addressed as bullying, not as racism,” Prof. Cunneen said.
“Having an anti-bullying strategy in a school doesn’t address racism, and aggressive racism against First Nations children.”
Young people were also “particularly susceptible” to racial profiling and monitoring, Jumbunna Institute research fellow Rebecca Lewis said.
This was played out in police actions, media coverage of youth crime, and laws rolled out in many states and territories over the reporting period, she said.
“Rather than feeling protected, young people often experience criminalisation and public humiliation.”
Almost a third of racist incidents occurred on social media, online and in other media, the report found.
A third of reported racism was considered aggressive, including hate speech, threats, harassment and physical harm.
Jumbunna Institute associate professor Fiona Allison said aggressive racism could be triggered by a false stereotype of First Nations people as law breakers.
She pointed to an example of an Aboriginal woman feeling intimidated by inspectors on a tram who assumed she didn’t have a ticket.
The woman reported to the register that she was approached by the inspector who asked to see her ticket, then before she had a chance to produce it, told her she’d need to get off at the next stop.
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