Racism in public: Why the majority will be silent no longer.

In particular, he pointed out that some of the most harmful long-term effects of racism on individuals is not the hate-filled intent of the minority who engage in racial abuse. Though such experiences are rightly terrifying, the real harm is caused by the silence of the majority, who do nothing to stand up for victims but instead look away. The effect of this for the abuser is a sense of entitlement that they are representing the majority view. For the victim, it is a feeling that the majority somehow condone these acts, or at the very least are unmoved by them.

In the events depicted by Soutphommasane – including a recent verbal attack on a French tourist on a Frankston-line bus – the majority of passengers captured on mobile phone footage did not challenge the perpetrator, but merely watched on.

The more recent case of a woman who racially abused a man of African background on a Melbourne train, however – telling him that her grandfather had gone to war to keep the country free of people like him – was met with a very different response. Instead of remaining silent, a large number of angry passengers confronted the woman, rejecting the version of Australia that she claimed to represent and supporting the victim.

The exchange, which was captured on mobile phone and later distributed through mainstream media outlets shows the woman’s surprise when her views are loudly denounced by the majority, including by a man who tells her: “if this is your country then I don’t want to live here”. The victim of the abuse later claimed that it was “beautiful” that the train stood up for him and supported his right to travel freely through the city without being subjected to racial abuse.

So, what does this tell us about racism in Melbourne, and how does this reflect on the “silent majority”?